Everyone Trades News : Emergency--It’s the Talk of South Africa

Martha Lawson was browsing among the scallions and the carrots at her neighborhood supermarket last week when a man asked her what she wanted.

“Celery,” she replied, somewhat absent-mindedly, and then looked up and saw that the man was in uniform and carrying a rifle and a long whip.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened next,” Lawson, a suburban matron in her 50s, said later, relating with indignation and incredulity her personal encounter with South Africa’s three-week-old state of emergency. “That such things go on, and in a supermarket of all places, is, well, really a sign of what we have come to.”

What happened to Lawson cannot be retold in detail, because government regulations strictly prohibit reporting or commenting on any actions by the police or army under the state of emergency.

Unaware of Situation

Lawson, expecting guests for dinner and wanting fresh vegetables and salad, had unknowingly gone to one of the Johannesburg supermarkets struck by black workers demanding release of their union officials who had been detained without charge under the state of emergency.

There she met “members of the security forces,” as a government spokesman put it later, who were “continuing their efforts to restore law and order, end violence, prevent illegal activities and return the country to normalcy.”

The rest of the story is supposed to be secret. But it is not.

“I told all our guests at dinner that evening and then my bridge club the next day and the other mothers at the parents’ association at school and the ladies’ group at our church,” Lawson said, “and, well, they were all quite aghast, really quite aghast.”

As the government of President Pieter W. Botha prevents the press from reporting and commenting on much of what is now happening in the country, ordinary South Africans, blacks and whites alike, spend lunches, dinners, coffee breaks, commutes to and from work, and most of the rest of their free time telling what has happened to them, exchanging rumors, wondering about what they are not being told and discussing what needs to be done.

Soup to Politics

“Lunch may start with chitchat about the weekend, but, even before they have finished the soup they are into politics,” observed a waiter at Balducci’s, a suburban restaurant favored by young executives. “If they start talking business, they are deep into politics by the main course--and even earlier because business is so bad these days. They talk about economic sanctions and what will happen to their companies, and again they are into politics.

“And, of course, everyone has his own stories about the emergency--what they have seen, what has happened to them, to their friends, to their employees--and some of the stuff is really wild. . . . “

But the stories, largely involving security force actions, cannot be verified officially and thus, under the emergency regulations, may not be reported in either the South African or foreign press.

“Going from table to table, I find the distressing thing for most is that they can’t see a way out,” the waiter went on. “Some even say their greatest hope is for a majority government soon, even if it is mostly black, because that is the only way they can see whites still having a place in South Africa. Some people’s pessimism has really become profound.”

Anger Among Blacks

Anger rather than pessimism seems to be the prevalent emotion in the black community.

“Nobody talks about anything else except the crisis the country is in,” said Sophie Mncube, a nurse who lives in Soweto, the black satellite city outside Johannesburg. “The (black) townships are quieter, but they are not at peace--far from it, far from it. And every day things happen, right before your very eyes, that make you realize how serious this crisis is.”

Again, under the emergency regulations, none of Mncube’s experiences nor those of her family and friends may be reported.

The Sowetan, the country’s largest black newspaper, is beset by people seeking to tell their experiences. “They have tears in their eyes as they talk, and their stories are enough to crush your heart,” one of the paper’s editors said. “And then we have to say that we can’t publish a word, not a word, and they leave with a feeling of even deeper anger and despair.”

A ‘Human Radio’

This does not mean, however, that people do not know what is going on, says a man called Sipho, who describes himself as a “human radio.” Sipho spends his commuting time on the train, his lunch hours and a lot of his evenings spreading the news he has gathered from the community, from underground contacts in the outlawed African National Congress and from ANC broadcasts.

“The majority of people--our people--know what is going on in this country,” said Sipho, a Johannesburg clerk who, like most African National Congress activists, uses a nom de guerre for security. “When you can see the police and the army outside your door and you hear what has happened to your neighbor’s kids, you don’t need a newspaper to tell you. . . .

‘Busy Days for Us’

“Still, the ANC is working very hard to give our people an overall picture of the situation, so these are very busy days for us. The ANC must provide correct leadership for our people during these times.”

The rest of Sipho’s comments are likely to be construed by the government as “subversive statements” and, under the emergency regulations, may not be reported.

Whites, without such “human radios” as Sipho, have been buying shortwave sets in record numbers, according to merchants. With these, they can tune in the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Voice of America, which, despite restrictions on their correspondents here, carry far more news about developments under the state of emergency than the state-run South African Broadcasting Corp. does.

“It’s like the war years,” Ronnie Smith, a retired British soldier with a small electrical repair shop here, said the other day. “Each evening, the whole family gathers around the radio to listen to the BBC from London.

“In my family, there are very different views on the political situation and how the government should handle it. We argue a lot. But we all agree that, unless the people know what is really going on, we will never be able to put this country right.”

Being ‘Put Right’

The government contends that, under the state of emergency, which gives the police and army virtual martial-law powers, the country is being “put right,” that law and order are being restored and that “normality” has returned. Blacks dispute this.

“How can a state of emergency and all that it implies and all that happens under it be regarded as ‘normal?’ ” asked Bishop Simeon Nkoane, who oversees Anglican parishes east of Johannesburg. “There may be more of this so-called order now, but it is an order imposed on the people. . . . I hope the government and the white community do not regard the state of emergency as normal.”

Even for whites, the normality of which the government boasts has many jarring elements. They have seen, experienced and heard of events that they would not have believed a month ago.

“At my sons’ schools, parents now take turns patrolling with guns and radios,” Maria Ferreira said in Pretoria, the capital, “and there is an armed guard riding shotgun on the bus that takes my niece to school. The office where I work is searched, top to bottom, several times a day for bombs. It’s like living in a state of siege.”

Tony Fermi, sales manager for a small toolmaker, said he was “shaken to the core” while driving on the freeway to see two groups setting up what appeared to be machine-gun positions on either side of the highway. (Details of what Fermi saw and the identities of the men involved may not be disclosed under the emergency regulations.)

Machine Guns on Road

“We read these reports in the paper about a planned black march on Pretoria,” Fermi said later, “but I did not take them very seriously until I saw the machine guns. Imagine--machine-gun emplacements on the Johannesburg-Pretoria road!”

Whites as well as blacks are becoming used to convoys of military vehicles along the main highways, frequent roadblocks and identity checks, patrols around downtown areas and suburban shopping centers, beefed-up security at the entrances of many stores and the guns that many now wear as routinely as they would a tie.

Newspapers carry regular announcements of training camps for local militia units and of call-ups for weekend security duties. Local civil defense officials across the country are reported to be reviewing their disaster plans and helping establish emergency radio networks. Serious shortages of whole blood and plasma are reported at many blood banks--not because there have been increased demands, directors say, but because neither donors nor workers are able to get to the blood banks.

Theater Cancellations

Theaters are canceling plays that the government might regard as “subversive.” A number of theater groups, film makers, singers, dancers, artists and photographers withdrew for this reason this week from the country’s major arts festival. And the acceptance speech of the winner of a prestigious literary award had to be heavily censored before it could be reported by South African newspapers.

“I know now that our newspapers are not permitted to tell us what is happening in the country,” Martha Lawson said, “and the most obvious reason is that the government wants us--the whites, at least--to believe that they have things well in hand.

“But, my heavens, when you can’t even go to the supermarket without meeting up with a (man) with a big gun and a whip . . . well, then you know--you can be absolutely sure--that things are in no way normal.”

Reports that South Africa’s debt mediator had resigned caused concern in the business community. Page 20.