Presenter: |
For
most people in Tsakane, a week day begins long before dawn. In their
four-roomed house, a family of four needs a strict morning regiment. The Motlaung family live a good, but humble life. While three
grownup children have already left home, and are trying to make it on their
own, Steve and his older brother, Anthony, are still in school. |
|
Their
mother, Sandra, is a dedicated wife and caring mother, a housewife who looks
after the neighbours' children for extra income. The father, Johannes, leaves
for work just after sunrise, and arrives home long after dark. But this is
where tonight's special assignment ends. The beginning takes us back to a
time most South Africans would prefer to forget. |
Video: |
(singing).
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
This
was the world of the Laing family in 1955. Sannie
and Abraham were staunch Afrikaner who supported and believed in the
government of the day. It served them well. Then their daughter, Sandra, was
born. Unlike her older brother, Sandra was much darker than her parents, but
it didn't seem to matter. She was their child they said. They loved her as
much as they did her lighter-skinned baby brother. |
|
The
Laings lived in a remote place called Brereton
Park. They were shop owners. Sannie tended to the
shop at home, which served the nearby Black community of Driefontein, while
Abraham ran a shop at Panbult a few kilometres
away. Sandra grew up like any other White little Afrikaans girl. She seemed
outgoing and happy, unaware of the storm that would rage around her later in
life. |
|
Today,
at the age of 44, Sandra is reserved and shy. She doesn't speak easily about
herself or her feelings, yet she still remembers her carefree years, now,
light years away. Her mother was gentle and protective, says Sandra. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Her
father was a patriarch, and very strict. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Sandra's
baby brother was nine years younger than her. And though lighter in
complexion, he resembled his sister. Sandra was unaware that she was
different, until the day she had to go to boarding school in Piet Retief. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Sandra
made it to standard two. She was a timid eleven-year-old when she was
expelled, yet her memory is vivid when it comes to the man, who in her mind,
was responsible for turning her world upside down. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Mr.
Van Tonder was the head of the hostel, and served on
the school committee at that time. Parents had petitioned the school to have
Sandra expelled. The committee decided to refer her case to the Department of
Home Affairs, where she was officially classified Black. Callously the
administrator of the Transvaal authorised her expulsion. And in Piet Retief,
laws were obeyed. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
While
Sandra's lighter-skinned, younger brother was allowed to remain and finish
school, she became home-bound, with her father as educator. For two years he
battled with the authorities to have his isolated and dejected daughter
reclassified White. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Finally,
when she could go back to a White school, she was accepted by a Roman
Catholic school in Newcastle, but it was too late. Sandra had fallen behind
in her school work, and struggled with English. The nuns were good to her,
but being much older than the others in her class, she missed her friends
back home. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
At
15, Sandra ran away from home with a Black man from Driefontein called Petrus
Zwane. When last seen, she and Petrus had two children, and were living in a
so-called homeland. Her White family had severed all ties, and she had come
to accept the Black community, who in turn had accepted her. |
|
25
years later, South Africa has no homeland, and people are no longer
classified on race, yet Sandra remains haunted by her past. Hers is a history
filled with loss. The struggle for survival was no time for reflection. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Now
Sandra embarked on a journey to revisit her past, that would perhaps lay it
to rest. Her only request was that her youngest son, Steve, accompany her.
Ironically, Steve's 11, the same age Sandra was when her world of innocence
started crumbling. The destination Brereton Park. |
|
It
was a misty morning when we arrived at what was once the home of the Laing
family. Other people live there now, and what's left of the dwelling looks
different. Yet the scene was picturesque, and the new occupants paid little
attention to their visitors. They seemed accustomed to people stopping by,
taking pictures, and asking questions. |
|
Simon
[Molotsha] has lived in the house since Sandra's
parents moved away. He told her he still remembered her as a little girl
about Steve's size, and said the two of them were welcome to look around.
Sandra's parents also had cattle. And she remembered how the young calves
used to lick and suck her hands. Steve failed miserably to share her
experience. |
Steve
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
But
he did make his mother smile, and for a while, Sandra was 11 years old again,
with pleasant memories. Her thoughts also went back to Petrus, the vegetable
seller from Driefontein whom she got to know at 13, before she was sent to
the convent in Newcastle. |
|
[Afrikaans]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Sandra's
journey took her across the border to Swaziland, travelling as a South
African citizen. Yet, Sandra was already in her 20s by the time she finally
managed to get any form of legal identification. Wanting to be with Petrus,
with whom she already had two children, she applied for a so-called coloured
ID, but her father didn't want his then classified White daughter, who was
once classified Black, to be reclassified coloured. |
|
His
refusal to sign a document condemned his own daughter to living life as a
non-person. It's 30 years since Sandra and Petrus fled to Swaziland. Now
she's a tourist. Then, she was a 15-year-old White girl, and Petrus a Black
man. Three months later they were arrested. Sandra thinks her father must
have called the police. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Sandra
was taken to Carolina, where she spent two long months behind bars, with
neither one of her parents coming to see her. Here a confused and frightened
young girl was forced into making a choice that would determine her destiny. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Sandra
was finally released and allowed with the Zwane family. Years later, she and
Petrus' mother, Jenny, are still close. It's a special bond that was
established when Jenny had accepted her as a daughter. |
Steve
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Jenny: |
[foreign
langauge]. |
Presenter: |
In
turn, she accepted responsibility for helping Jenny to raise Petrus' children
from a previous marriage. At 16, Sandra fell pregnant. Jenny helped her to
give birth to a boy she named Henry. Elsie was born a year later. It was
Petrus and Jenny who helped Sandra maintain contact with her mother. |
Jenny: |
[foreign
langauge]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[foreign
langauge]. |
Jenny: |
[foreign
langauge]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[foreign
language]. |
Jenny: |
[foreign
langauge]. |
Presenter: |
Sandra's
secretly paid short visits to her mother, and was able to show her both Henry
and Elsie. She saw her mother during the day when her father was at his shop
in Panbult. But after the Laings
moved to Pongola her parents worked side-by-side, which made secret visits
impossible. Sandra never saw her mother again. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Speaker
6: |
[foreign
langauge]. |
Presenter: |
Life
was good for a while. She and Petrus had a shop in Shakastad,
and did well. But after their third baby died, Petrus started drinking. He
became violent and abusive. Eventually Sandra had no choice but to leave, for
her children's sake. Petrus died a few years later, and for the past 20
years, Sandra has blamed herself for leaving him and his mother. |
|
Sandra,
now needing to release those feelings of guilt and loss, for the first time
told Jenny why and how she left. Without any legal documents, and with only
the clothes on their back, she and her children moved to the East Rand. Here
she became seriously ill, and with a heavy heart, she unselfishly turned to
the welfare for help. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Henry
and Elsie eventually did get to live with their mother again. Today they are
happy, well adjusted adults, who are close to their
mother and her husband, Johannes Motlaung. They
respect their mother, and are grateful for the sacrifices she made. Sandra
seems contented, and determined to give her children the sense of acceptance
and belonging she was denied. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
But
Sandra still had to embark on the most difficult part of her journey. This
road led to Piet Retief and her estranged family. The root [inaudible] for
her rejection as child, and the guilt she still bares.
Nearly 20 year ago in Pongola, Abraham Laing did acknowledge that Sandra was
their daughter, but he refused to discuss her. |
|
Sannie said she no longer saw her because her husband wouldn't
allow her. Her face revealed years of anguish only a mother suffers when a
child is lost. Sandra last heard from her mother more than 10 years ago when
her father died. Some money, and a two-page letter without a returning
address. Sannie is still alive, but elderly and
fragile, and has suffered three strokes. Abraham lies buried in Pretoria. |
|
Both
her brothers made it clear that they'd prefer not to see her. She has made
her own bed, they said, and they'd rather leave the past alone. They also
felt it best for their ailing mother not to hear from, or see her daughter.
The shock might kill her. So Sandra, the little girl who once epitomised the
absurdity and injustice of apartheid, remains barred from her family with a
self-appointed burden of guilt. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Presenter: |
Since
then, new light has been thrown on the subject of Sandra Laing. Mr. Willie
Meyer, who was the family's elder in the Dutch Reformed Church at the time
Sandra was enrolled at Piet Retief Primary said he foresaw trouble, and
managed to convince the government to accept Sandra in a so-called
international school in Pretoria. A school especially designed for the
children of foreign diplomats. |
|
School
fees and boarding costs would have been set aside. But when Mr. Meyer gave
Sandra's father the good news, Abraham Laing defiantly rejected the offer.
For reasons of his own, he insisted that his daughter remain in Piet Retief.
Sandra has come a long way since those days. Now in Tsakane, her life
revolves around her family. |
|
Back
in Piet Retief, the primary school has undergone a metamorphosis. Though the
Afrikaans classes are no different, the English classes are happily mixed.
"The children prefer to be educated in English," explained the
principle, Mr. Piet Roodt. |
Piet
Roodt: |
We
had to make some changes. The staff had to make some changes. We decided that
we were going to meet those head-on. Coming from a conservative background,
et cetera, and now all of a sudden we have a [inaudible] medium school with
three or four cultures in the school, without really being prepared for this.
And the challenge is obviously now to try and make it worthwhile for
everybody, and to make it succeed. |
Presenter: |
Judging
by the children, and specifically those now living in the hostel, the school
has come a long way in meeting its challenge. |
Speaker
8: |
The
first time my brother came here it was just Afrikaans children, because they
didn't allow English children to come to this school. And my mom was just
fighting and fighting until he came to the school, then I also came to this
school. |
Speaker
9: |
I
thought the people will be ugly to me. |
Presenter: |
And
were they? |
Speaker
9: |
Nice
to me. |
Speaker
10: |
I
feel very happy that there's Afrikaans children, and I can also learn
Afrikaans now. |
Speaker
11: |
Mixing
colours is not so bad. It's just that ... Doesn't matter if you mix colours,
it won't harm your family or anything, as long as you join in the party. |
Presenter: |
Bravely,
Sandra decided that she too should join in the party, though she knew it
wouldn't be easy going back to her first memories of rejection. The irony is
that while she had run away to Swaziland 30 years ago, many of these children
now came across the border to the same school. |
Speaker
12: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Speaker
13: |
Sandra,
I just want to tell you that, don't feel ashamed of yourself, that you're
welcome in this school. To bring your children or something. And this school
has changed. And it's changed very much, and it's a very nice school. We
learned very quickly things, and ... |
Speaker
14: |
Whenever
we have a fight with any Afrikaans children, White children, then the
teachers always help us, and they tell us that colour doesn't matter, we're
all the same. And that we must just be friends, and that it wasn't how it
used to be many years ago. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |
Speaker
13: |
You're
very strong to handle these things you've done. And it's just, I want to tell
you that we all love you, Sandra. [Afrikaans] changed, and long time things have been changed. And next time we will
carry the world. Try and make it more happier. |
Sandra
Motlaung: |
[Afrikaans]. |