Stadium Spectacular
Crew and extras on the set of The Human Factor, an upcoming Clint Eastwood-directed rugby film starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.
An endfield Tuesday.
An endfield Sunday as crowds arrive at Ellis Park for the African National Congress’ final rally before Wednesday’s general elections.
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The following article was written by my friend Sarah about our experience attending the rally. Keep scrolling for more photos.
Text © Sarah Godsell / BusinessDay
Photos © Austin Andrews / The Times
Zuma Dispels a Sceptic’s Notions
I am a young South African, 23, and while I am very excited about voting tomorrow, I’m confused and a little disillusioned about who to vote for.
In this state of mind I, almost by accident, attended the African National Congree (ANC) rally at Coca-Cola Park in Johannesburg on Sunday.
I’m not an ANC supporter (well, specifically not a Jacob Zuma supporter) and I was expecting to have a day of grinding my teeth through speeches. Instead, I had an overwhelmingly positive experience, which, while not converting my vote, left me feeling much calmer and more positive about the country and its leadership after these elections.
The experience started with my Canadian friend, a photographer who invited me to the rally, and I walking to the stadium together with throngs of singing people. The atmosphere was celebratory, and anticipatory. I got caught up in it very quickly, although we stuck out in two ways. We were the only ones not wearing ANC T-shirts, which made us more conspicuous than being the only two white people in the crowd.
On our way into the stadium, having now acquired ANC T-shirts, I was reminded about the diversity of ANC supporters – the pace of the civilised crush was slowed by older people walking with sticks and young children, their ANC shirts reaching to their knees and toes.
The reception I received from the people around me was overwhelmingly positive. The area of the stadium in which I was sitting was so full that people had crammed onto the stairs; a jigsaw puzzle of people with a common purpose. The middle-aged women I was sitting next to were friendly and concerned, and offered me half their seats. And there were many idiosyncrasies that surprised me, and which made me smile.
While, as far as I could see, we were the only white people in the stadium (apart from members of the media on the field), the only languages on the posters were English and Afrikaans. But the crowd’s response to the Afrikaans prayer was positive (even the prayers were diverse, with a prayer by an imam, a rabbi and Christian ministers). At the end of the Afrikaans prayer the woman sitting next to me said: “In die naam van God,” (In God’s name) and leaned over to me and said: “Ek probeer.” (I’m trying).
I went to the rally strongly opposed to Zuma, with my arguments against him neatly lined up in my head. It was only when he started speaking that I realised that I had never actually heard him speak (I’m not counting the choice 30-second extracts shown on the news), and I was pleasantly surprised.
He spoke of a country where every colour and every gender feels comfortable and is not discriminated against, and reassured people that even if the ANC gets a two-thirds majority, it would not change the constitution.
His speech was not life-changing for me, but it did challenge my preconceived negative notions of the person who is probably going to be our president. I am grateful for that. And while some of my friends pointed out that words are just words, what else can you have in a speech?
I was also impressed by the spectacular organisation. There were at least 100 000 people gathered in the two stadiums and the areas outside, but everything was completely relaxed and peaceful. I had watched as the organisers stopped letting people into Coca-Cola Park and started sending them to the Johannesburg Stadium next door. I expected people to get angry. I expected lines of policemen. But there was just one line of security personnel, firmly standing holding hands and directing people to other areas, and people obeyed them. It made me so happy to live here.
Leaving the stadium was also very relaxed, my friend and I both in our ANC T-shirts. We were a bit of an oddity in the crowd, and people kept testing us, saying amandla. At first I was shy about responding; I never know whether it’s my right or not. But seeing people’s responses when I did respond, I carried on. And why not? Power to the people, to these people, the everyday people. And my hope, my prayer, is that the people in power remember every single day whom they are here to represent. I had definitely forgotten what the ANC stood for.
All in all, it was an intensely positive experience. And an intensely democratic one. I felt comfortable and proud to be South African. Everybody says that we have lots of work to do, and it’s true. And we don’t know what kind of president Zuma will be.
I still don’t know who to vote for. But I do know we’re going to be okay. And my friend and I can have some fun shocking all our friends by going out in our ANC T-shirts!
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Mugs and brims.
Sea of arrivals.
Supporters crowd the entrances for a view of the festivities.
The view from the upper tier.
Cascading crowds/opposing diagonals.
Decked out in ANC yellow and green, a helicopter flies over the two stadiums to raucous cheer.
Obey the corner.
Thumb-eyed.
Flag-faced.
Misty-eyed supporters recite the national anthem Nkosi Sikelele.
Point.
X
Brim message.
Crowds react to the surprise appearance of former president Nelson Mandela.
Face times four.
Team Colours
I don’t obscure these pages with issues-oriented coverage often, so when I do it’s nice to think the issues might count for something. Yesterday’s snap federal election, called five weeks earlier by Conservative PM Stephen Harper in a bid to convert his party’s minority hold on the House of Commons into a majority, was unfortunately not one of those issues.
$300 million dollars in spending and five weeks of media saturation later, and the make-up of the Commons looks much the same as it did after the previous federal election in 2006. Harper failed to win a convincing majority and I failed to photograph anything more than a dull smattering of signs and speeches.
Oh well. We’ll both have another shot in a couple years.
Conservative propaganda at party headquarters in Vancouver Centre.
Turf wars along Main Street.
Painters $14/hour.
CBC on site at a Liberal rally on the eve of the election.
Vantage point.
Viral voting.
Adrienne Carr, deputy leader of the federal Green party and MP candidate for Vancouver Centre, addresses a crowd of party faithful as the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge announces election results behind her. Despite garnering nearly 7% of the popular vote the Greens failed to win a seat in the 308-member Commons.
Word of mouth.
Polls open.
Liberal propaganda at party headquarters in Vancouver Centre.
Stephane Dion, leader of the federal Liberals, entertains a media circus.
Minimum voting age.
Dion speaks to supporters at a last minute Liberal rally held in a failed bid to win the battleground Richmond riding for incumbent Raymond Chan. The riding was one of seventeen new seats ceded to the Conservatives.
Dion raises a victory fist as incumbent Vancouver Centre MP Hedy Fry looks on.
Dion in the public eye.
Weapons of Mass Influence
The lips and podium microphone of federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion on the eve of Canada’s federal election.
Freedom Booth
Protestors on a sit-in for Tibetan freedom outside the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China on Granville Street, Vancouver.
Committing the Basket Case Nation
It may have taken a two-day standoff and uncomfirmed dozens of fatalities to get there, but with the actions of thousands of Burmese monks the lid on the long-simmering nation may have finally opened a crack.
The streets of Rangoon are under lockdown after last week’s protests turned to bloodshed with many of its long-suffering people either in prison or hiding behind drawn blinds. But unlike the 1988 student uprising, when on the day the government slaughtered 3000 demonstrators the New York Times devoted its front page to a rafting accident in Alaska, reliable information is escaping the nation’s sewed-up borders and the world is taking notice.
I don’t have much new to add to what the BBC has already reported, or to what the Guardian is inferring, but what I’ve found most interesting is the savvy use of contraband modems and mobiles by the Burmese people to deliver a different version of the truth to what their xenophobic regime would have us accept. On the same day state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported that “saboteurs from inside and outside the nation and some foreign radio stations, who are jealous of national peace and development, have been making instigative acts through lies to cause internal instability and civil commotion”, the images of baton-charging and monk-beating captured by citizen media have burned their way into the consciousness of everyone who’s picked up a newspaper or turned their computer on since Wednesday.
The images and stories that have emerged show above all a government afraid of its own people, without control over their minds and under too many watching eyes to curb the dissent in the manner it had grown accustomed to. The regime won’t topple easily — long-time ally and trading partner China will likely see to that — but with the events of the past week the Burmese people have succeeded in getting the world on their side.