I have returned from the Million Man March (MMM) at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Let’s get this out of the way off the bat: There were not a million people. All the nay-sayers have been proven right but I hope they are wishing that they weren’t proven right and instead contributed their body to the numbers.
Apparently the final count was 5000 and there abouts. But on the plus side there were over 15 countries with media representation at the march and broadcasting in one way or another. That is good news.
I have been a part of events like this all over the world and I think that I overestimated this one. I arrived with my brother, John, at about 7:30. We parked close and waited for the masses to arrive.
In amidst of the waiting I managed to get some face time with the incredibly humble Desmond Dube, organiser of the MMM. What a great man. He has the ability to make you feel welcome and inspired. He greeted my, I introduced myself and showed him the SA Rocks T-shirt that I was wearing and he was immediately warm to me and give me a hug hello. He thanked me for my work and praised my deep love for South Africa. When you hear people thanking you out loud it really is quite rewarding.
I left Desmond to his devices, which included interviews with what seemed to be e-tv and other TV stations.
At this time it’s about 8am in the morning and there is an inconsistent and slow trickle of people coming in to the Union Building grassed area.
Then at about 10am I think it was, The Times gave me a ring and did a podcast with me about the vibe and attendance and such things:
Click play to listen to the podcast!
At the time of writing this post the podcast had been viewed 1100 times! Not too bad I think.
Things started to get a bit interesting as the day developed. The DA showed a strong presence and tried hard to market themselves effectively throughout the day. Azapo arrived and tried to show their presence, unfortunately that was short lived as they downed their protest tools and chilled out.
My main gripe the entire day was with Altec Netstar and their brand punting the whole day. I was approached by 6 different sales people informing me about their new product called the gaurd-something-or-other. I was a bit offended, being sold to while protesting crime. They really missed the point of the march. It was not an event to punt a product to people. Not at all. Bad move. I wont be buying their product any time soon.
I did a mini-vodcast with a couple of people and managed to get Helen Zille herself on camera speaking to Bongani from Carte Blanche. Nice work I think.
One of the most impressive things that I saw the entire day was the presence of St Mary’s school at the march. Their Matric class was present in full force, full school uniform and voices warm. They showed great spirit and intention. I interviewed the headmistress of the school and she was steadfast in her convictions. She also mentioned to me that the entire St Mary’s school marched in Waverly to show that they own their area, not crime. Great stuff.
And here is a video of the girls from St Mary’s showing us how to protest peacefully.
Below are some of the photos that I took throughout the day. There were many more, but these were the ones worth placing online.
I also twittered (live blogged) the entire day to some mixed responses. Some of the more interested tweets are listed below:
At The union buildings. Very empty. Hope it fills up. Already spoken to desmone dube.
#millionmanmarch ppl streaming in. Vibe is great! Music, support. Loads of political parties unfortunately missing the point
Just did a short podcast with the times. Nice one, numbers slowly increasing. 1hour 2 go.
Live coverage started on sabc. Helen zille just arrived
Numbers here very sad but not focusing on negative. Ppl here have been fantastic.
Desmonds opening line “can a comedian do it?”
‘we need to remove those who cannot hear the cries of the people’
victims of crime speaking. Sad stories. Everyone in crowd nodding in agreement. Sad that we can all relate.
‘crime is robbing us of eachother’
‘crime is the government not servicing its people’
‘we cannot allow criminals to mess with our freedom’ minister booed off stage. Perfect treatment.
One of the most incredible things that happened to me at the MMM was realising that I am making a difference. This blog is actually being read (even though the stats say that it’s anothe thing to realise it in the real world). It is being read by all sorts of people! I found this out at the MMM. People came up to me, asked about the shirt and told me that they read SA Rocks every day, once a week, in the inbox or on the MMM website. To hear people (and see them) face to face telling you that you are making a difference, that they read your website without you asking them to and that they support your efforts is moving and mind blowing. It must be one of the greatest rewards for a blogger – to have “Real life” people telling you that they know who you are. What a great feeling, a very rewarding day all round. I feel like I made a difference and I feel like standing together with 5000 other people is better than standing alone. Whether it was 1 million or not, I don’t feel alone anymore.
Similar Posts:
- Million man march moved to April
- Desmond Dube talks to SA Rocks about the Million Man March
- March against crime
- Million-man march on the 13th of March
- I marched against crime – the badge
Popularity: 9% [?]
June 10th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
You have made, are making, and continue to make a difference Nic. Through your blog, your beliefs, your hope for the country and your ability to spread the word within your own circle and the wider online community at large. You represented many hearts and minds today, all wishing for peace, safety and happiness for all. Thanks for making the effort and for giving us a glimpse of what it was like to be there for those of us who couldn’t be there.
It’s interesting to note that SA Rocks has outstripped, outshone and outlived the anti-SA sensationalist sites. Yes, crime is a major concern for all South Africans on a daily basis. But through sites like yours, the people who love our country and care about it’s people (and who want to stay, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else) will continue to believe in, and fight for, a beautiful future for us all.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Well done Nic and I enjoyed receiving the tweets – felt there!
June 11th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Nic
I think that in every breath you inhale and exhale, you are imbued with a sense of purpose and life that I have hardly ever seen in anyone. Your drive and belief in this country is awesome. I thank you for your intentions and motivation. You are inspiring.
And i loved the tweets!
C
June 11th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Dude, whenever I get into conversations about people that want to leave SA, or they talk about the crime etc etc, I almost always think of SARocks and you. You and this blog are a serious source of inspiration for me and most South Africans.
I also enjoyed your live tweeting of the MMM, which made me wish I could’ve been up in Pretoria supporting it too! I was in mind and spirit none-the-less.
Keep it up Nic!
June 11th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Nic,
My biggest wish here is that Thabo Mbeki had the same passion and concerns about this country as you do.
By the way, where was he when the march-memorandum was handed over?
June 11th, 2008 at 8:46 am
I think this event was badly organised.
I only heard about it by luck last week. When i had a look at the details the route hadnt even been published.
How are a million people supposed to pitch up somewhere with less than a weeks notice on where the event is.
I think the failure of this falls squarley on the organisers, just calling something a million man march doesnt mean a million people are just going to pitch up.
If they really cared about there cause they could have got sponsership and tried to organise properly.
It looks more like a publicity stunt if you ask me.
I think this an embaresment and no matter what a nice guy Desmond is. He propably did more damage than good.
I mean they were only short like 995,000 people.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I followed your twitter from the march and thought it was an excellent example of effective filing from the source using a web2.0 platform. I think this is something SA newsrooms should consider.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Hey Nic, your passion for SA continues to inspire me – keep up the great work.
There have been a few accounts of how Twitter is breaking news before some of the major news networks and is indeed as Saaleha says something SA newsrooms should consider. Add hashtags and the ability to document tweets is pretty powerful. Great work on getting your stuff onto Zoopy so quickly also.
Well done also on the live tweets etc, great example of web 2.0 citizen journalism
Keep it up – you Rock!
June 11th, 2008 at 10:39 am
great coverage – probably more comprehensive than any of our local media peeps!
June 11th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Love your work Nic, awesome stuff, and thank you for keeping us, sitting warm in front of our laptops, so informed.
This post leaves me with mixed feelings: part of me says ‘great for trying’, the other part of me says ‘why don’t enough people care?’
Eli Wiesel, the Auschwitz survivor, says the only way change is affected is to ‘sensitize the desensitized’.
Are we too desensitized?
Regardless of whether it was organization, logistics, timing or apathy; there should have been more people to stand against this cancer afflicting our country.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Hi everyone, wow, thanks for all the comments and positive reinforcement. Looking through the post I must say it is one of the first times in my short career in journalism that I feel as if I truly realised the potential of MULTIMEDIA content: Text, audio, video, photographs, tweeting, blogging, citizen Journalism and potentially more. Feels good to finally make use of the whole bang-shoot!
I’ll try to respond to everyone here:
Jason – thanks for the words my friend, glad ppl feel like im helping. And yes, SA Rocks has whipped those negative, racist, sad people in every aspect. And it feels great.
Walter, Cath, JBagley – thank you all. Inspiring people is a byproduct of the hard work that I think we owe this truly stunning nation. I am really satisfied that it took me only a year to begin to inspire people!
But honestly, it’s everyone who reads and participates that makes it worth while.
ST – spot on. The crowd felt the same and voiced this while Booing off the present Ministers.
Jamie – you are harping on the wrong things here unfortunately. Who cares what it was called, who cares by how many we missed the million, what matters is that the people who were there were focused on a single goal and there was enough media presence world wide to get the message out there. It was not a publicity stunt, tell me, who benefited if it was a stunt?
And Sponsorship was sought out but Desmond and his team ran in to great obstacles in the corporate world with this event.
saaleha & Melissa – again, thank you. I glad everyone in tweet-land enjoyed the coverage and benefitted. Pity more people weren’t there tweeting with me.
Carls – Thanks for the chance to feature on The Times, was greatly appreciated! And ye, I think that this event proved that all you need is a digital camera, phone with internet access and you are golden in the CitJourn department. Hell, I beat Carte Blanche to the punch with their own interview.
Fred – I share your mixed feelings hey. I can’t decide if I should be pissed off and writing a scathing review or if I should be glad that there were 5000 ppl there. I also agree with South Africans being desensitised to the things that happen here. We are too hard. We feel no pain, pity or sorrow. Or we feel it, but for some reason just not enough to stand up and be counted. Very odd.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Big time.
I agree that it’s odd – it feels almost like a vacuum and we’re in the middle of it, unaware of reality until something seriously shocking happens.
So, how can a million people be sensitized? How could it have been done differently / successfully?
(I admire your restraint, btw…)
June 11th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Hey Nic – magic! Ex-Gautenger now living on Garden Route. Wish I could have been there so spent all of yesterday trying to get some feedback on what was going down & it was useless – TV/radio etc. Wish I’d thought of checking your site & twitter
Awesome dude – think SAers are definitely moving in the right direction!! Good on ya! And good on all the folks that made it!!
June 11th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
More people get murdered in a year then the amount of people that actually made the event…
June 11th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
cloud – were you there?
June 11th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Alison – thanks so much! Pity you didn’t pop over here or on twitter!
June 11th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Fred – I think that instead of asking where it could have been done differently, maybe we should be looking at this as the first step in sensitising the masses?
June 11th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Hi Nic,
I am happy to note that your blogging efforts are being appreciated in South Africa and that your usefulness is being felt accross the board.I have been trying the same thing here in Kenya and its slowly starting to catch up.I know i have a gift/talent in the way i express myself nd people are reading and unlike mainstream media i lack vested interests.As a fellow blogger-thumbs up!
June 11th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Nic, ure a legend!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Hey Nic – always great to feel your positive vibe!
You should bring out little SA Rocks lapel badges that people can wear with pride. Or little SA Rocks ‘Buddha’ statues, with your likeness, that we can rub its belly when we are feeling down, or uninspired (can also be used against criminals if its nice n heavy)!
Keep marching man!
June 11th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Nic, I feel a post coming on…
June 12th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Fred – I think you might be right…
June 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am
You Rock! I just love your straight-forward ‘let just do what needs doing’ postive attitude. I regret I was not there in body, but support yours and everyone else’s effort on this platform of postivie action, with heart and soul. Keep doing what you do…
June 12th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
It looks like there was a really nice vibe there. The school’s participation in such an historic event is so admirable. That is education! Was St. Marys the only school there?
June 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Meshi – It looked as if St Mary’s was the only school that was present in it’s formal capacity. I saw St David’s Marist Brothers uniforms and a few others…
Mercedes – Thank you. New way to describe how I feel “straight-forward ‘let just do what needs doing’ postive attitude,” I think I’ll use that!
June 12th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Awwwwww!! GANGSTER, GANGSTA!!!
I am thoroughly impressed, and you have definitely inspired me, especially by using this platform to highlight such an important cause, NIC thank you very much for this, because i have realised that it start with an ordinary man, like you and me.
And who cares that there were not a million people, physically, i am sure that spiritually there were a billion in attendance. The reason i did not go was because, i was writing my exams on Tuesday, 10th June and today 12th June. Otherwise, my man you know, I WOULD’VE been FIRST on the queue.
I did send an e-mail to MMM, and pleaded and begged for them to move the date to 16th June, the public holiday, perhaps then more people would’ve come thru. And this march shouldn’t stop here, they MUST organise one again to show the criminals that we are now taking back our country.
Keep it up son!, And next time you do something like this, I’M COMING WITH YOU GANGSTA!!!
***Digged and Stumbled!!***
June 16th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Dear Nic
Just discovered SA Rocks. I am coming back to Cape Town my home after 10 years overseas. Am concerned about crime but appalled by the negativity of ex Saffers living in the UK. Think they have to be negative as they have no choice but to live a life of compromise and dreary weather over here.
I am inspired by comments read on your site and thrilled that so many young and bright Saffers are not leaving the country but staying and being positive about (I believe) the most beautiful country in the world and I have lived in a few namely Canada and Australia.
I have 5 weeks to go and counting the days…..
I’ll keep reading …..
June 16th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Mehmood Mamdani, a well-respected critic of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission spoke of it creating a “diminished truth” and one that would form the foundation for future “truths” of the same kind. The Million Man March was a wonderful and proactive initiative by the South African public that forced attention to be paid to the issues plaguing the country today – a clear attempt at recognising the real truth. What is deeply disturbing, however, is the lack of attention being expressed by our country’s leadership and particularly its current executive. The sudden response by government to the recent “xenophobic” attacks across the country was one that concurred with Mamdani’s theory in that such violence is more a symptom of a greater societal-ill and labelling it as “xenophobic” provides a diminished rather than whole truth. This having been said, the causes of this symptom need to be treated; the mediocre levels of education, less than adequate public healthcare and poor service delivery are just some of the causes of pandemic crime levels. With ineffective attention being paid to these causes, it is little surprise that government chose to limit its participation in a March that challenged the otherwise dense smokescreen in place to disguise South Africa’s major problems. Having matriculated from St Mary’s School Waverley last year, I reserve no elation in saluting the School’s 2008 matric class and headmistress as well as Helen Zille, also a St Mary’s Old Girl, for speaking up, being present, demanding change and forcing truth to be heard.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
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