Meika on attending a City Council meeting

Last week, the other Black Sash interns and I attended a City Council meeting.  It was held at the Council Chamber in the Civic Centre, which is an enormous government building downtown.  We sat on balconies reserved for the public that looked down into the chamber.  The chamber had a few people, including the Speaker and the City Manager, in the front of the room.  The rest were sitting in aisles facing forward.  It looked like what you’d see any day on C-SPAN.  However, I was surprised to see how clearly the political divisions were drawn along racial lines.  The ANC council members were sitting on the left, and they were all black except for one white man.  The DA council members were on the right, and entirely white or coloured.  I learned that the Democratic Alliance won an absolute majority in Cape Town last year.  The first person to speak was the mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille.  She is also a member of the DA, and an elegant, older woman.  I was impressed with her composure, especially during the questioning period after her speech. 

At one point, a member of the ANC called Cape Town a racist city, and the most racially divided city in South Africa.  He said that Nelson Mandela would be ashamed to see how the DA was running the city.  Needless to say, this caused an uproar throughout the Council.  A DA Councilor responded by telling them they should be ashamed to use Mandela’s name to further their own agenda.  Mayor de Lille told the ANC that they spoke too much of race instead of dealing with the issues of the city, and that was why they did not have the majority.  An ANC Councilor retorted to this that Nelson Mandela would always be one of their own, and it was only because of him that de Lille could even be mayor.  The arguments continued like this back and forth between the parties.  During this part of the meeting, everyone was alert and on the edge of the seat.  Some people in the balcony even threw their two cents in, either cheering or booing the different Councilors.  There was also a man from the Freedom Front Plus, an Afrikaner Nationalist party, who only spoke in Afrikaans.  I thought this was interesting, as it seemed everyone else, including the ANC Councilors whose first language is Xhosa, made an effort to speak in English.  There was no translation, and I wonder if the ANC Councilors had any idea of what he was saying.  It seemed pretty inconsiderate. The passion of both sides was tangible in the room.  I saw quite distinctly how much racial tensions and the legacy of apartheid and were still a part of South African government.