The Purple Shall Govern

This morning I went to Caledon Square Police Station to report an accident I was involved in last night. It brought back some memories. The last time I was at that police station was in 1989, being arrested following a protest march at which I was assisting with first aid. In what famously became known as the Purple March, a peaceful protest was held in the area around Greenmarket Square, as part of the Defiance Campaign. When the crowd refused to disperse, but sat down in the road, the police attacked with teargas, batons and a surprise weapon -  a water cannon that was filled with purple dye, with which they proceeded to spray the marchers. In a further act of defiance, one of the marchers jumped onto the cannon and turned the hose onto the policemen, causing great jubilation amongst the rest of the marchers.

Our jubilation was short-lived. The police then went around arresting everyone who had been stained purple. Hundreds of us were arrested, piled into vans and taken to the nearest police station, which happened to be Caledon Square. Needless to say the police station was in chaos with more people than they could handle. It took them forever to process us - mugshots, fingerprints, the whole deal.

I well remember the camaraderie in the cell with about 40 of us, all women, bonding. We sang freedom songs, chatted and harassed the police by demanding to be taken to a toilet outside of the cell (not the less than private one in the corner of the cell) and asking for food. We knew that we had friends and supporters rallying around at St George's cathedral, and that kept us going through the night.

One of my "cell-mates" was my high school maths teacher (an Irish nun) - which came in handy as an introduction when telling my parents that I had been arrested - "Well, you know who I met yesterday...?".

I was accompanied by two friends, fellow-occupational therapists, both of them blonde, who l walked around with purple hair for weeks, comparing notes about the effectiveness of domestic bleach and other products for removing purple rinses. Which did not go down well with the powers that be at the school we worked at.

We were all released later, more resolved to carry on with the campaign. A few days later a friend presented me with a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "The Purple shall Govern" - an off-shoot of the line from the Freedom Charter - The People shall Govern. Such was the spirit of the anti-apartheid movement.

When I mentioned this to the policewoman taking down my statement, she said "Yhu, yhu!, I was in primary school then. What is the Purple March? Oh, illegal march..." She had no clue. In many ways it does feel like a lifetime ago.