Speech delivered by Communications Deputy Minister Pinky Kekana at the launch of Bloss Africa Magazine at the Market Sheds in Pretoria
Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Ladies and gentlemen
Distinguished guest
Let me start off by saying this day is a monumental day in South African history. It is a day which has come at great cost for many South Africans we cannot afford not to cherish every moment of these hard-earned freedoms.
On this day, I am reminded and moved by the memory of brave women like the lady in the blue dress. The lady in the blue dress was, Phila Portia Ndwandwe a woman who demonstrated valor and sacrificed her life for comrades in the cause for a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa.
Phila Ndwandwe was a student at the University of Durban-Westville in 1985 when she was recruited into ‘Operation Butterfly,’ a unit of the military wing of the African National Congress, henceforth she became a memory to her family not to be seen again. Years later during an amnesty application, it emerged that Phila was shot by the security police after being kept naked for weeks in an attempt to make her inform on her comrades. She preserved her dignity by making panties out of a blue plastic bag. This garment was found wrapped around her pelvis when she was exhumed by the TRC. One of the men involved in her killing said: “she simply would not talk… God, she was brave.”
When an artist Judith Mason heard Phila’s story on SABC at the time, she collected discarded blue plastic bags and sewed them into a dress. On the skirt of the dress she wrote the following poem:
“Sister, a plastic bag may not be the whole armor of God, but you were wrestling with flesh and blood, and against powers, against the rulers of darkness, against spiritual wickedness in sordid places. Your weapons were your silence and a piece of rubbish. Finding that bag and wearing it until you were disinterred is such a frugal, common-sensical, house-wifely thing to do, an ordinary act… At some level, you shamed your capturers, and they did not compound their abuse of you by stripping you a second time. Yet they killed you. We only know your story because a sniggering man remembered how brave you were. Memorials to your courage are everywhere; they blow about in the streets and drift on the tide and cling to thorn bushes. This dress is made from some of them. Hamba Kahle. Umkhonto.”
The painful story of this revolutionary woman was brought to the fray by the media. From a broadcasting point of view, the story was told through the lens of an unscripted SABC. In print media, the story found expression through the uncensored and epic pen of Antjie Krog in the Mail and Guardian.
This is a perfect illustration of what a constitutional democracy can achieve from a media perspective. We can bring back to life the heroics of unknown heroines and give an accurate narrative about the most vulnerable in society, the media can even galvanize other women who sit at a slight vantage point of privilege to memorialize other women who fought for a non-racist and non-sexist society.
In a post-apartheid society like ours, we cannot afford to have women like Antje Krog and Judith Mason look the other way when confronted with modern day stories of Phila Ndwandwe. In other words, women of all races should use these freedoms to collectively advance the struggle of women even in a democratic society.
When some amongst us (women in particular) refer to other human beings as monkeys or use other profanities to dehumanize humans it should unsettle all of us, not just one racial group. When academics amongst us start to question the intelligence of women of a specific race, we women of all races, must ask ourselves, in what way does this advance our democracy and the spirit of non-racialism.
We all need to be endowed with the spirit of Thuma Mina, a spirit of nationhood, a spirit of total solidarity, we need to be there for women like Cheryl Zondi, who are victims of sexual abuse even in the church. We all need to be there because we know that patriarchy knows no race, women black and white, suffer from its destructive and possessive character.
It is my sincere hope that Bloss Magazine will help us have robust debates about our democracy, it will be a platform for all South African women. Like the Drum Magazine of old which held up an image of black consciousness and portrayed the Sophia Town generation in a dignified light, through the likes of Dolly Rathebe, Can Themba, and Nat Nakasa. Bloss can be a catalyst for South African women from all walks of life.
It can be a platform for women who are brought into the boardroom only as a symbol of transformation. The queer women amongst us who are shun by our families because of Calvinist and patriarchal value systems, the women who have chosen sex work as a profession but continue to be criminalized, the women who continue to rise despite all the odds against them. We seated here are these women. These issues cited above know no race.
Even though today we celebrate our freedoms, which are codified in what is considered as the world’s greatest constitution we still need a voice that speaks for all of us, the media can do that, the media should do that, it is the only way for our democracy to blossom. This should be a platform for women old and young to share their perspectives of society. With platforms like these we should no longer see, women being written out of history like Phila Ndwandwe and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Instead her-story should rise her-story should be the narrative.
I thank you.
