A Knock At My Door

The clearest indicator of a failing regime is its escalating violence towards its citizens. The 1980’s saw the most intense, violent clampdown by the South African government on any opposition to their racist apartheid policies. The number of internal security laws mushroomed giving the police and army carte blanche to trample all over the lives of ordinary citizens and violate human rights with impunity, as if apartheid was not sufficient violation of the human rights of the majority of South Africans. Anyone showing any resistance was classified a terrorist and was treated as such. The government declared a state of emergency in 1986 with predictable morbid results - large numbers of black South Africans were violently assaulted, tortured and detained without trial, if they were lucky; the unlucky ones simply disappeared down unused mineshafts or were killed and buried in government-run death farms like Vlakplaas. Victims’ families told stories of hearing a knock on the door of their house followed by a rush of terror. Just as we see today in many parts of the world, the ones labeling others “terrorist” are most often the greatest terrorists of all.

 

On 17 November 1988, I heard such a knock at my door …

 

I was an 18 year old engineering student who was identified as a “terrorist” by the Security Branch of the South African Police, apartheid’s elite squad responsible for interrogating and torturing anti-apartheid activists. At midnight, armed with assault weapons and dressed for combat, a squad of ten policemen rushed into my university dormitory room; I let out a sickening, desperate cry; within seconds I stood with my face shoved into the wall of my kitchen with the hard metal of a gun pressed against the back of my head. They screamed instructions and questions into my ears but I couldn’t comprehend what was being said … I discovered that the falling spirit weakens all bodily functions. I was beaten and verbally abused. The slightest movement or murmur invited fists into my lower back. Something inside me collapsed, I knew I was going to die. It is a great act of evil to break a young man’s spirit and rob him of innocence.

Less than an hour earlier I’d been sitting at my desk writing in my journal about the day’s events – “attended a Mechanics study session,” “worked through Physics,” “got help with my computer project.” I end the entry with “I’m very worried about exams.” 

But, of course, I didn’t die. They trashed the apartment, went through my letters, journal, photos, all my personal belongings. They appeared confused. They spoke among themselves, got on their radios, flipped through a mug-shot book looking up at me periodically. They had the wrong person. 

Looking back, I was angry about the whole incident. Angry that the police could dish out such terror, terror that fractured something within me. Angry at the indignity. I hate the way I screamed and the way I shook. I hate the fact that my eyes filled with tears. I wish I had been bolder, more brave. That I had said something strong and challenging rather than stutter and whimper like I did. But I was afraid. I was filled with fear … just like the men who stood there threatening my life, just like the men and women who had sent them.

 

We must all choose how we will respond to gangsters, to rapists, to domestic abusers, to dictators, to oppressors, to the cowards intent on taking from us what we hold most dear. I choose to stand, defiantly. In 1999, I wrote the poem, Still Standing as my statement of defiance, and as a statement of defiance for all of us who have had evil rain upon us but who have decided not to be defeated.

 

Watch the 1 minute video of Still Standing   

 

This incident had a happy ending for me, I was alive, an outcome different to many of my brothers and sisters during apartheid. I am no longer angry about this incident. I have forgiven those men, in fact, I would gladly meet with them to offer them a hand of friendship. But I continue to be angry about injustice, about human rights abuses and violations of dignity no matter what form it takes and no matter where it happens. I am still standing and I encourage all those currently suffering to find the strength to stay standing. Let’s stand together!