13 - Shaping the vision of a new South Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2021
Summary
In the hospital there are still staff who want to keep Black patients on one side and White on the other. One is quite accommodating about people's attitudes but sometimes you have to confront them. You say ‘Are you aware that such a thing is no longer necessary, or even legal?’ They usually respond positively but sometimes you have to ask ‘Do you really want me to report this or would you like to change it?’ and they change their ways because they know they are wrong. With some people racism is in their veins, they have grown up with it and it is hard for them to change but they are not aggressive when you confront them.
I remember seeing a patient who had been left without tea when the other [white] patients had been served and I wondered how long I would put up with such things before I did something. When I finally said something it was fixed.
It is quite frustrating having been outside and being in such a small place where people's rights are still being violated. It makes you feel so hurt to see an innocent, humble, poor somebody still being oppressed; you have seen the light and people are still trying to push you into the darkness again.
Nomama Dyasi, Molteno 2001The hospital described, where Nomama Dyasi was working as a registered nurse, is in Molteno, Eastern Cape. Such a small place; tucked into a valley like a clutch of eggs in the palm of a hand. More than an hour's drive north of Queenstown, the road into Molteno was lined with electricity poles, marching down the hill, declaring the arrival of progress. Beyond that, time seemed to have stood still. The ‘town centre’ in 2001 was one street with a few untarred residential roads running off.
‘The Dyasi church?’ The policeman scratched his head and stared. ‘You mean the D.R.C church?’
‘No, Reverend Dyasi's church. D.Y.A.S.I.’
‘Oh, an African; must be the church in the location.’
In fact, it was the church at the end of the street; the ‘location’, within shouting distance of the police station, lay just across the single railway line. But if Molteno hadn't changed in ten years, Nomama and Alfred Dyasi had.
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- Information
- The Secret ThreadPersonal Journeys Beyond Apartheid, pp. 184 - 206Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2018