WHEN I became a member of the ANC twenty months ago, it was as if I had joined ISIS.
“How can you do that?” they asked.
A very simple answer: because I can. It's a democracy we live in and that allows us choice.
I suppose seeing Evita Bezuidenhout as a member of the African National Congress is like seeing German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a Greek bank manager.
But when my grandchildren challenged me and said: “Gogo? What are you going to do to protect democracy, so that one day when we need to vote freely and fairly, democracy will still be there in full working condition?”
There was only one choice: I had to become involved in active politics again. Dive head-first into the intrigues of power, or as my son De Kock says: “The shock and awe of designer-democracy.”
As we all know Parliament is no longer the arena of debate and sensible compromise.
It's now either a DA parking garage, or a playpen for the Teletubbies of the EFF.
So I have to be in Johannesburg at the headquarters of the ANC.
Yes, Luthuli House is without a doubt the one and only real power station that the ANC has built in the last 22 years.
I remember sitting outside that building in my car in a turmoil of indecision. How can I choose that party after those years of struggle against it?
Being a Libra the other side welled up in my emotion. We Voortrekker women crossed the Drakensberg barefoot. Ja-nee, Boer maak ‘n plan. So I got out of the car, kissed it goodbye and walked into the foyer of this Amandlian monument of nouveau-noir aspirations.
The foyer was empty. It must be tea time. I went to reception.
No one there. Maybe it's lunchtime? I sat on a chair that wobbled. I think I saw a small mouse run across the floor. Then the lift door opened and Jessie Duarte came out. I was relieved because I know Jessie and like her, especially with her new hairstyle. She looked shocked. “Tannie Evita? What are you doing here? This is not Woolworths?” I said: “No, Jessie I am coming to join the ANC.”
“Why?” she gasped, “What have you heard?”
“Nothing,” I laughed. “I want to be a member. What must I do?”
“Do you have cash?” she asked. I nodded. “Ok, you're in.”
It was a life-changing experience. Of course I walked in there with all the familiar prejudices that so many of us share. That everyone in the ANC is corrupt, that everyone is a crook, creaming off the top of the barrel, hitching up the questionable families prowling the perimeters of power.
Yes, we will easily find six names every day to fill the front page of the Citizen newspaper, but during my experiences at Luthuli House I have met so many comrades who are not corrupt, who are not toadies, who are not Noddy-dogs in the back window of the President's blue-lighted BMW. They are working hard to keep this democracy more or less on track.
Otherwise we wouldn't be here. Which means that not everyone is following Number One. Not all comrades shout Amandla! when the chain of power is pulled.
As a member of the ANC I may not speak on behalf of the party.
I may not insinuate or fabricate; I may not announce or even celebrate. So I write here purely in a personal capacity as a mere citizen of a beloved country and proud Gogo of my three grandchildren, who are not black, who are not white.
They are Barack Obama beige. No one knew what to do with me because with my Eurocentric face and fashion, I stick out a mile.
Like a vanilla ice cream among the rum-and-raison specials, or the chocolate-mocha surprise. Many cadres speak to me in Afrikaans and my isiXhosa is getting better by the month. My best phrase as taught me by Nelson Mandela while I cooked for him from 1994 to 1998 is walala wasala! It means: you snooze, you lose.
Does history repeat itself and turn tragedy into farce? The horrors of apartheid are hiding in the mists of fading memories. Those terrible things we did to each other in the name of politics are the tragedies of our past, but today there are those familiar farces of confusion, arrogance, carelessness and lost opportunities. That's not a tragedy; that's just bad government.
I only say this because I was there in those old days when we closed newspapers, banned words, imprisoned leaders, shot at children, lied to God and raided the piggy bank of the Treasury.
I love where we are today in this 22nd year of a democracy that no one ever thought would happen. Yes, maybe we whites got away with apartheid, but thank heavens for small mercies. The alternative would have been another Syria, Libya and/or Burundi.
The legacy of reconciliation and embrace, which we all could envelop ourselves in when the dark curtain of separate development parted and allowed us all to dance in the sunrise of hope, must not be allowed to be eclipsed by third-rate politicians with their fourth-rate excuses.
The National Party was also in constant war with itself.
The knives were out and stabbings were the aerobics of the day. Exactly what is happening now outside my Luthuli House kitchen.
But in the old days no one knew because we controlled everything.
We lobotomised generations to say Ja Baas and Ja Oom. Today everyone has a camera at their fingertips, so no one can hide anything negative from the positive.
Without articulating a list of names, we heard the Chief ANC Whip in Parliament remind us all that freedom of expression is still alive in the party. If he is muzzled, we need to expose those who curtailed his freedom of speech.
Our beleaguered Minister of Finance is doing his job, as well as he can with the hounds of the Nklandlaville howling in the full moon of Zumafication. Those dogs must be fed another diet. Their tails will wag again.
So it's not impossible to fall in love with South Africa again. Politics is here today and gone tonight. Keep your eye on the muddy ball of policies, but focus on what matters. Your family, your life, your loves. We live in the most beautiful country in the world. We must keep this land strong and confident, not just for the sake of our children and our grandchildren, but also our Zimbabwean maid's children. If the people lead, the government must follow.
● Don’t miss An Evening with Evita Bezuidenhout at the Artscape Theatre on Tuesday 1 and Wednesday 2 November at 20:00, Sunday 6 November at 15:00 and 18:30. Book at Computicket.
Also follow weekly episodes of Evita’s Free Speech on YouTube every Sunday. www.evita.co.za