Memory Booysen with DA leader Helen Zille and his young daughter Luna. Memory has followed the dictates of his convictions, says the writer. Memory Booysen with DA leader Helen Zille and his young daughter Luna. Memory has followed the dictates of his convictions, says the writer.
This week I had the privilege of campaigning with the DA’s mayoral candidate for the Bitou municipality (Plettenberg Bay). His story is worth telling because his political journey is such an inspiration. I believe that he, and others like him, will one day be regarded as the political pioneers they are.
Memory Booysen was born in 1969 in the Eastern Cape. These were the days when the colour of your skin determined your chances in life.
His father, John Lolwana, wanted a better life for his family. And so he changed his surname to Booysen and managed to convince the apartheid authorities that he was coloured. This enabled the family to move to Hankey, the so-called coloured area where Memory spent his early years.
When Memory’s father died in 1980, the authorities evicted the family from Hankey. They went to live in what was then known as the “black location”, a place called Centerton. The family was not accepted in Centerton. The other children used to call Memory derogatory names because he spoke isiXhosa with an Afrikaans accent.
Meanwhile, at his school in Hankey, Memory’s cover was blown. His classmates no longer accepted him because of his race. They would tease him and call him the k-word.
Such was the power of race during apartheid.
Memory lived between two worlds because he was accepted in neither. And all because of his background and the colour of his skin. That was the beginning of Memory’s political awakening.
His political involvement started a few years after that. In those days, the police where Memory lived in Centerton would hit first and ask questions later. Sometimes it was because the police couldn’t understand the language of the suspects and vice versa. Violence was the lingua franca of that time.
Because Memory had attended an Afrikaans school in a so-called coloured area, he began acting as an interpreter between the police and those suspected of fomenting political unrest during the defiance campaigns of the 1980s.
In 1989, Memory moved to Plettenberg Bay where there were more job opportunities. He joined the local ANC and rose through the ranks to become chairman of the Greater Plettenberg Bay branch as well as chairman of the ANC Youth League. By 2004, he was the ANC sub-regional chairman of Plettenberg Bay and was working as the personal assistant to the executive mayor of Bitou.
It was in the mayor’s office that Memory experienced his second political awakening. He saw how the ANC’s manifesto promises were not taken seriously by the mayor. He realised that political office was all about deals on the side, and personal favours to friends and comrades. He saw how the mayor’s discretionary fund was abused for ANC officials’ private purposes.
But none of this damaged Memory’s faith in the movement. He remained a loyal cadre. He believed that what was happening in the mayor’s office was just an aberration; that this kind of corruption was foreign to the movement and would not be tolerated for long.
Like many others, Memory believed that the ANC could be redeemed. He vowed to change the party from within.
Memory reasoned that becoming a councillor would be the best platform from which to hold the mayor to account. And so he resigned from his position and stood as an ANC candidate in the 2006 local government elections.
Memory was elected councillor for Ward 6 in Kwanokuthula, and he began to speak out against corruption in the council. He voted against his own party on issues of principle like extra bodyguards for the mayor, the purchase of a second mayoral BMW, and additional allowances for councillors and ANC members.
As a result, Memory was sidelined. He was shunned by his comrades and no longer invited to ANC caucuses. When he raised this with the regional structures, they closed ranks and devised a plan to remove him from the party. It was at that time that Memory received an anonymous phone call from a man who said he had been offered R15 000 to kill him. He said that he would not do it because he knew Memory.
In 2007, he was expelled from the ANC on bogus charges. In the by-election triggered by his expulsion, Memory stood as an independent candidate in his ward. He won the election with an 80 percent majority.
In 2008, Cope was formed. This was the opportunity that Memory and many other disillusioned ANC members had been waiting for. He was appointed Cope’s Southern Cape election co-ordinator for the 2009 elections. At that time, he did not believe that black South Africans were ready to get behind the DA in their numbers.
But the implosion of Cope dashed Memory’s hopes that the party could become a viable alternative to the ANC. He went back to his followers in Kwanokuthula to decide what to do next. They suggested that he join the DA to contest the local election against the ANC.
Since the day he announced he was joining the DA, the branch here has signed up over 200 new members. They cannot keep up with the demand for DA T-shirts.
The down side of Memory’s growing popularity is the threats and intimidation he has to endure. Three weeks ago, the police warned Memory to be careful because the political stakes are high in Bitou and he was ruffling feathers.
But Memory is undeterred. He won’t allow threats to stop him. He tells me that when he looks back over the last few years, he realises that the ANC and the DA are like the two banks of a river. The one bank represents the past, the other bank represents the future. Cope was the stepping stone he needed to get from one bank to the other.
l Helen Zille is the leader of the Democratic Alliance