Letters from Tomorrow — a tree to measure our hopes and deferred dreams

20 May 2024

If you could go back to 27 April 1994, knowing what you know now about the collective journey we started on that day, what would you say to South Africa? What feelings would you express about our first democratic elections and what lies ahead? A few people share letters to South Africa in contemplation of these questions. We hope that these will inspire us all to reflect deeply on where we have been, where we are and where we hope to go.

Extending the garden

Dear South Africa,

I cannot escape the feeling that today will mark the rest of my days. I could not sleep last night. Anxiety, fear and excitement all merged.

I asked my parents days ago to buy a tree to plant on the grassy pavement just a few metres from my bedroom window. My dad laughed me off, suggesting that my new gardening hobby is going a bit too far. Whereas others are storing canned goods, I am planting a garden.

It is hardly a garden. Our small council house in the Indian township of Actonville is surrounded by concrete paving, with only a tiny patch of soil at the back for vegetables and a single peach tree. But I know with an intensity that we are on the cusp of something momentous. I want to plant a tree to be measured against time. To watch it grow and measure it against the hopes and dreams that are to come.

As the first in my family to go to university, I realise all that has been kept from us, people of colour. On the Wits campus I am finally exposed to the realities of apartheid and opportunities withheld. My parents were protective, whispering when older cousins or family were detained for protesting, saying it was nothing I should be concerned about and that I should rather remain focused on my schoolwork.

When I was a young child, my uncle owned a small printing press, and we were called in to help “collate” papers and print sheets of booklets and pamphlets and sort them into numbered piles. Sometimes this was done in the darkness of night by candlelight.

Even as a young child, it didn’t make sense to me why we were doing this work in the dark when there was electricity and workers were available during the day. My uncle said this was a “job for Lusaka”, which seemed to make sense to everyone but me.

Being on campus now, “Lusaka” finally makes sense. In the past few months we have seen a stream of freedom fighters from exile in Angola and elsewhere welcomed to the Wits campus. They’ve been urging students to vote, as this is the fruit of the struggle they have been a part of.

Despite the euphoria with which Nelson Mandela was greeted on campus, or the rousing cheers for the likes of Tokyo Sexwale, there were still some whispers about them being “terrorists”.

Today, 27 April 1994, started as a cool morning. My uncle and some neighbours left early to scout the community hall designated for voting, out of concern for our safety. He called earlier to say that all looked fine and that the community leaders have suggested the young people go first. My sister and two cousins left mid-morning, but another cousin refused to go. Not all of us see this as a new dawn.

The mood was subdued at first, but now the crowd is growing quickly, turning festive and boisterous. Entrepreneurs are seeing opportunity, selling vetkoek and drinks.

Voting will be fun for me and not as serious as I anticipated. And that’s perhaps because I am 19, voting for the first time at the exact time of life considered the appropriate voting age. I am right on time. My freedom is here exactly when it should be. Freedom to dream, to become, to be equal. Right on time, on the backs of those who came before me.

Later, I will return to the voting booth with my sister to accompany our elderly parents. Their experience will be very different, with no hours spent waiting. As pensioners they will be courteously escorted to the front of the queue, even though it has taken their entire lives to get there.

My dad will take a pause in the booth while my mom loudly asks: “Which one is the ANC?” My dad will be quiet as he takes in the gravitas of the moment. My mom will not be as quiet; she will just be happy.

A few years later, the council will plant a tree on the pavement outside my bedroom window. I will see it as a measure in the same way I wanted to see the tree I wanted to plant. That tree, 30 years from now, will be lush and huge and its branches will soar over my neighbours’ yard. There will be a constant battle over whether to cut it or not with my neighbours, who say it’s a security hazard. I will prune and trim it. I will also add bougainvillea and lay down a patch of grass in this tiny garden.

Neighbours will change over the years, as some leave for the cleaner, well-kept “white” suburbs that are closer to model C schools. We will remain here in my childhood home. The tree will continue to grow, but the grass will be unkempt and our streets will be filled with potholes, which will be shabbily fixed only to be redone months later. The streetlights will not work for months at a time because the council here in Benoni will go bankrupt. That pavement will be filled with litter, made worse by the scavenging of the homeless and the hungry.

One day, as I am parking my car in our driveway, a lady driving by will roll down her window and call out to me: “Is this your tree? It’s the nicest tree in Actonville. I drive past it every day. And the pretty pink flowers make me feel very happy too. I told my son we must extend our garden onto the pavement too. The council does nothing!”

In that moment, it will dawn on me that we deferred our dreams to the myth of freedom. We relegated our power to others. We will have to take back our dreams and do the work ourselves. I will have to extend my garden beyond the pavement.

Sincerely,

Tanzeem Razak

1994: Second-year architecture student at Wits University.

2024: Architect and founder of Lemon Pebble Architects and Urban Designers

A task of tremendous risk

Dear South Africa,

After centuries of racial discrimination and injustice, we stand at a crucial moment in the history of our country. Our leaders have wisely concluded a grand pact to heal the divisions of the past and establish a society that is built on democracy, justice and fundamental human rights.

The first and formidable hurdle in this long and hazardous journey is electing our representatives to govern us over the threshold. This major undertaking dare not fail.

We are commencing a task of tremendous complexity and risk. In essence, a competent but discredited government of a highly developed modern industrial state will be handing over control to a legitimate yet ill-equipped and inexperienced liberation movement.

This will require wisdom, statesmanship, a great deal of skill and a large measure of give-and-take from all sectors of society for many years.

Read more in Daily Maverick: 2024 elections

The first risk that lies ahead is overhastiness when faced with demands by comrades eager to play a role in the new South Africa. A skills transfer is necessary, or we will seriously impair governance and frustrate our transition.

The provision of public services is dependent on skilled and experienced staff, without which we’ll see the collapse of public transport, water and electricity supply, health services and law and order. Even just filling potholes, removing garbage and maintaining sewerage systems are essential for decent living.

A kindred risk is hubris – the arrogant refusal to accept expert advice, for example in public health, which could lead to the unnecessary death of many thousands of our people, or cause the collapse of Eskom, the railways and harbours and the police service.

Yet another risk is that of corruption, the most damaging and ineradicable public disease.

The lack of competence and integrity in public administration will prove gravely harmful, but the appointment – and retention – of dishonest civil servants and their political masters will be disastrous.

Corruption will definitely metastasise, eventually infecting all public institutions, even, for instance, impairing the authority of the criminal justice system and besmirching the academic integrity of our universities.

South Africa, these risks are foreseeable in light of our history. The ANC, the major liberation movement, will undoubtedly gain a large electoral majority at all levels of government, and it is likely to maintain the support of the majority for decades to come, faults or no faults.

Though historically warranted, this will deny the country the essential benefit of democracy, namely, the rejection by the electorate of unworthy rulers. Whether the ANC will have the vision and courage to combat corruption in its ranks is the biggest concern.

But, for the moment, put away these depressing thoughts. Prepare to exercise your right as a free citizen to choose your government in our country’s elections of national liberation.

Sincerely,

Johann Kriegler

1994: Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission.

2024: Retired Justice of the Constitutional Court. DM

If you would like to contribute to the Letters from Tomorrow campaign and stand a chance of having your letter published in DM168 as part of it, please email your letter to [email protected]. The coordinator for this project is Lwando Xaso.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Letters from Tomorrow — joyful South Africa on ‘the brink, the brim, the cusp’

Read more in Daily Maverick: Letters from Tomorrow — on 30 years of democracy

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

Politics

Extending the garden

A task of tremendous risk