AN EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHS CELEBRATING THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BLACK SASH. And launch of Black Sash member and past national president Mary Burton’s book, The Black Sash: Women for Justice and Peace and showcase of Standing on Street Corners: a History of the Natal Midlands Region of the Black Sash, a labour of love by Mary Kleinenberg and Christopher Merritt, and Sheena Duncan by Annemarie Hendrikz. At Artscape foyer until August 23. LUCINDA JOLLY reviews.
THERE’S a Chinese proverb that says, “women hold up half the sky”. In his inaugural speech on the Grand Parade 25 years ago, the late Nelson Mandela saluted the Black Sash, who he noted with pride had “acted as the conscience of white South Africans”. He went on to say that “even during the darkest days in the history of our struggle, you held the flag of liberty high. The large-scale mass mobilization of the past few years is one of the key factors which led to the opening of the final chapter of our struggle.”
I first heard of the Black Sash, a non-violent organisation which fought for the dispossessed of this country, as a child living in one of the more affluent suburbs. An unobtrusive member lived in the road above us and I remember her house being referred to as the one where Mrs so-and-so lives, and her being identified as a Black Sash member – in the same breath as her brother was for riding a whale. As if both where oddities, which no doubt they were in those times.
And the last time I remember seeing a ‘Black Sasher’ was in the mid 80’s. She was standing alone, motionless and silent as protocol demanded on the corner of a road that goes up from the Main Road to Groote Schuur Hospital.
Some motorists hooted in solidarity, others jeered and some pretended she was invisible. Behind her stretched the hospital graveyard where the homeless had made their makeshift shelters. On a wall in large letters a political graffitist had written ‘BOTHA’ in capital letters. Each letter of his name became the first letter so the sentence read, Burn out the Head Assassin. A tombstone marble angel sanctioned the sentiment with the benediction of an outstretched arm. In fact the last time the Black Sash protested in their traditional manner was with the Right2Know, which campaigned, amongst things for the right to access information, and petitioned against the Secrecy Bill.
The Black Sash began in the mid 50’s with six middle-class white women – Jean Sinclair, Ruth Foley, Elizabeth McLaren, Tertia Pybus, Jean Bosazza, and Helen Newton-Thompson. Gathering 100 000 women they marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to deliver petitions in protest against laws aimed at removing so-called ‘coloured’ people from the voters’ roll. At this point they called themselves the Women’s Defence of the Constitution League.
There is a moving black and white photograph by an unknown photographer from the Black Sash collection, UCT Libraries Special Collections which shows the long line of the woman marching in sensible shoes, two piece suits, calf length coats and even the odd hat against the Pretoria skyline under furling banners to the sound of a single drum.
When the Women’s Defence of the Constitution League lost the repeal, the women placed a long black sash symbolising the death of constitutional rights over a symbolic replica of the constitution. Later the organisation became known as the Black Sash. They may have failed that time, as they would again and again but they never gave up. Placards with catchy phrases, for example, “the crime apartheid, the penalty isolation”, “apartheid is dead, its inequalities remain”, and “legal now, but immoral forever” accompanied the black sash worn by the protesting women.
The year 1995 saw the need to relook at the organisation’s role and structure. At the launch of the exhibition Burton mentioned this difficult painful moment when the meeting room was divided into half, indicating the voting split. The outcome was a shift from a member-driven organisation made up almost entirely of white women volunteers to its current structure of a professionally staffed non-governmental organisation, led by a national director, and accountable to a board of directors
Currently the Black Sash works in three areas. In the social protection arena, with an emphasis on women and children: rights-based information, education and training; community monitoring; and advocacy in partnership. For despite promises made by the current government to alleviate poverty and unemployment they have not to be met.
The highlight of this exhibition opening was Judge Albie Sachs address. Sacks shared his perspicacious insight tinged with ironic humour of South African society prior to 1995. He reminded the audience that many of the original Black Sash women were white, well-heeled “ladies”, who, due to their privilege and financial position could afford black and coloured servants. And yet and here is the twist, these ladies who gained from an oppressive system also fought for the rights of their employees and the rights of many South Africans.
Sacks told of a memory involving a humorous misunderstanding. It involved a group of black women who arrived in the Cape to discuss pass laws. When they got out of the truck the Black Sash ladies rushed towards them, welcoming them with wide open arms, exclaiming in their warmest most inclusive manner,”come along girls”, to the horror of the black women who indignantly replied quite correctly, “but we are not girls!”
Spanning 60 years, the photographs, one for each year of the organisations existence, that make up this exhibition are primarily black and white. Photographs are drawn from the collections of Paul Weinberg, Black Sash member Gille de Vlieg, Guy Tillim, Les Hammond, Thom Pierce and the work of unknown photographers.
The images, unlike the popular large format images of galleries, are small intimate windows through which the viewer must look. These images bear witness to our country’s past, adding to the texts impact in the direct way that only an image can do.
Their classic social documentary style is simple, often sparse, direct and dramatic. This subject matter is contained by simple black frames. There are a number of haunting images from de Vlieg’s lens, for example, “Mrs Mazibuko holds the bloody t-shirt of her son Flint, who was shot and killed by police,” his shirt held up showing the form of her sons body like a secular bloodied version of the Turin shroud; the brutalised body of the young Paulos Mohobane, who was beaten by vigilantes in Welkom township in Free State and her iconic image of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, his arms outstretched in the same pose as the of the Rio de Janeiro statue of Christ The Redeemer, as he speaks out against necklace killings at a funeral in KwaThema township.
The subject matter is not always dark. There are victorious and celebratory images by Paul Weinberg of Mandela casting his first vote, or De Vlieg’s Dance to celebrate clinic opening Driefontein. Happy Women’s day.
And remember, as the Latvian proverb says, “even the devil doesn’t know where women sharpen their knives”.
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