an excerpt from
             a short story
             by Daniel P. Kunene




PIT OF HELL



  It was impossible to be a part of that multitude and
still feel individual impulses and instincts. Like a tiny
droplet in a gigantic, wave, Velile Madiba, thirty-two
years old and of excellent physique, was carried by the
sheer momentum of the crowd in that memorable
march on the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and
sixty. He did not know then, but later, newspaper
reports said there were sixty thousand people who
took part in that march; some unofficial estimates said
it was closer to one hundred thousand. Velile was not
conscious of moving his legs as the crowd overflowed
De Waal Drive on its meandering way back to the
ghetto called Nyanga Bantu Township. Still a march,
orderly, solid, purposeful, determined, even though
marching away from the target now. Why? He could
not help wondering.
  Great to feel noticed, he thought, to feel part of a
great force. Today they consider us a threatening black
tide. Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, some day
soon, they must respect us as individual human
beings. Why, at the shoe store where he worked, he,
Madiba, knew a lot more about shoes than many of
those white salesgirls they employ. But he was just one
of those nameless, "lazy," "ignorant"
natives. Take
yesterday morning. In comes a customer, she is shown
a shoe. Is it leather or some synthetic compound? she
asks. The "expert" young saleslady grins and goes
traipsing to her supervisor. Disgraceful. You could tell
that thing from a mile away-plastic!
  Men on strike. Men protesting. Velile surveyed the
crowd in front of him within his eye's reach. Nothing
so impressive as when their jackets are slung over their
shoulders, especially when they are just grimy enough
to give them dignity-somewhat frayed at the elbow.
Frightened white faces, he thought-unusual. Black
faces frightened, pleading; defiant black faces,
threatened, abused, despised-one's used to that.
Blacks even make fun of it-sometimes. But frightened
white faces! Frightened by Blacks in a solid, united
presence. Doesn't happen often. Imagine shops locked
and bolted as the crowd marched to the city. Armoured
trucks forming a ring round the Houses of Parliament,
yet not so much as a pistol among these thousands. In-
credible. We can do it, he told himself. Freedom
through unity.
  That's what frightened them at Sharpeville: Men,
women, sixteen year olds-just think of it, having to
carry permission papers from the age of sixteen!-there



they stood, handed over their passes to the police,
made their little speeches. Passes make you homeless,
tell you where you may or may not work, whom you
may or may not visit, why you should be here, why
you shouldn't be there-speeches to tell the police what
they already knew; speeches to say, "We ain't gonna
take it no more. " Then they turned to go home. That's
all. Then sudden as lightening, the machine-gun fire!
Seventy dead, maybe more; hundreds injured.
Frightened by a show of unity, those policemen.
  But now why, why were they marching back? Velile
could not banish the nagging question. They shouldn't
be marching back without anything, he argued. Ah,
Walmer Estate. Middle class Coloureds live here.
Coloureds don't carry passes-middle class, poor,
educated, illiterate, fair, dark: no passes. They're not
white, though. No white rights for them. No coloured
rights for Blacks. Divide and rule. That's it. A stupen-
dous trick. No Coloureds in this march 'cause
Coloureds don't carry passes. But No white rights is
No white rights. No other way to look at it. Have they
taken the bait, the Coloureds? Velile recalled visiting a
Coloured girl friend in Walmer Estate once. Middle
class. Whiter-than-thou attitude. Sickening. Affected
unawareness of drop-of-white-blood. More sickening.
Sour grapes? Maybe if he had the money and the
privileges he would do the same? Ach, sickening. Mid-
dle class? Middle cushion. Should be called shock-
absorber class? He was amused, he smiled. Blacks' cars
always seem to have trouble with their shock-
absorbers. Many weekend sidewalk mechanics in the
ghetto. Stolen parts. If it fits it's OK. You can tell a
black man's car in the dark. Just too many foreign
noises. The whole ghetto is littered with them, a kind
of sprawling automobile hospital! Still prestigious,
though: a sick car in front of an unhealthy concrete
square box of a dump. When your papers are wrong
you're dumped. Resettlement Camps: barren, body
and spirit waste away. You're just a thing, ready to
turn into compost.
  Walmer Estate. They'd passed there earlier going to
the city, to parliament, with demands: No more passes!
And now Walmer Estate again, this time to their left.
They're still pass-carriers. Must take months to
organize a protest march of this magnitude. The
leaders should have been adamant. Should have refused
to be sidetracked. Have they been? The people could
have sat there in passive resistance. Camped there for



June 1978/Wisconsin Academy Review/21



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