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Introduction to politics, and so much more

During my farm days I thought that anyone who was a ‘terrorist’ was a bad guy. Now the radio news was reporting that the ‘Portuguese territories’ had fallen into the hands of ‘terrorists and communists’. This was one of the first bits of international news that I gleaned from my new exposure to the media: newspapers, magazines and radio broadcasts.

At first I was disturbed to hear about the fall of these territories: Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. My history was restricted to what I had been taught at school, which focused on facts such as the date of Jan van Riebeeck’s arrival, the first and second British occupations of the Cape, and the defeat of the Zulus. By the time I arrived in Port Elizabeth I was also aware of the homeland politics. I had believed to a great extent that the homeland leaders were doing a good job. They criticised the pass laws – in my world, whoever opposed the pass laws was my natural ally.

Some of my fellow learners had an in-depth knowledge of these issues and a completely different take on them. I was shocked and somewhat embarrassed when I started to learn the truth of what was actually happening. Much of my early history education, it turned out, had been National Party propaganda.

I felt betrayed by my farming background that had provided me with little or no understanding of the broader struggle for freedom in South Africa. I had always believed that the oppression I had witnessed was directed at my family. The dire lack of reading material placed me at an extreme disadvantage. It baffled me that, at the age of eighteen, I had never heard the word ‘politics’. The little I knew about Yasser Arafat – the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) – and the Vietnam War appeared to be distorted. I had not realised that my official sources of information were being manipulated and were not to be trusted.

One of the people who helped to enlighten me was my history teacher, Mr Maqhula. He was one of the few teachers who had a car: the latest-model blue Valiant. He was always serious and had the art of using his cane in such a way that even hardened boys winced. But Maqhula also had a way of teaching history that opened the eyes of students, especially with regard to South Africa’s social injustices. Even before I entered his class, I had heard about his history classes from his students who, at the time, were inspired by his lessons about the French Revolution. It was in conversations with them that I came to hear the slogan: liberty, equality and fraternity. It fitted snugly with my growing political awareness.

On the Saturday of the Easter weekend in 1975 I had gone to the Wolfson Stadium to watch a rugby match. Rugby was the favourite sport of people who came from rural areas and I was no exception. I loved it. At the time the stadium was used by what was then known as the South African African Rugby Board (SAARB) which, according to some of my schoolmates, was a puppet body. It was apparently used by the white government to encourage people to play in racially segregated associations.

At this game I saw a tall, well-built black man with a long beard and long hair distributing pamphlets. The man was boisterous and was loudly cursing BJ Vorster, prime minister of the apartheid government at the time. I got up from my seat and followed him to hear more. He was delivering a stinging oration against the slaying in 1960 of people in Sharpeville who had been burning the hated dompas document. He shouted: ‘Down with pass laws, down!’ Some people responded by repeating ‘Down’ after him.

I managed to grab one of the pamphlets and devoured its contents. It was the most fascinating read of my life up to that point. It was as if the author was speaking precisely about my own and my family’s woes. The pamphlet went on to link the pass laws to the dispossession of land from Africans as a consequence of political conquest. The man was Moki Cekisani, an adherent of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). I was to learn later that he worked with the likes of Steve Bantu Biko. Cekisani is now in his late seventies and is committed to environmental awareness.

A short while later Mr Dan Qeqe, a prominent businessman and non-racial sports administrator in our townships, came to our temporary school to ask boys to help him plant grass at the then open field that was to become a place where non-racial sport would be championed. Qeqe bought us drinks and bread for lunch. He told us that he used to be a teacher but resigned when the government introduced Bantu Education in the 1950s. However, he encouraged us to finish our studies so that we could escape this ‘poisonous education system’. He spoke at length about the insidious limitations imposed upon every black child by Bantu Education. It was the first time that I had heard someone criticising the regime’s system of education.

Qeqe was deeply committed to what was then called the non-racial sports struggle. He also supported South Africa’s international sporting isolation. He was a household name in sport, particularly in rugby circles. He and his colleagues were booted out of the government-controlled sports fields of Wolfson and Zwide stadiums because of their anti-apartheid views. They had previously used these stadiums for their games but as punishment for his public utterances and continuous criticism of the regime, he and his rugby association had been barred from them.

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My life in the city brought dramatic change. When I had lived on the farm we would wake up very early to milk the cows, no matter what the weather was like. After milking, we herded the cattle to the grazing fields, then cleaned the dairy of all the cow dung and spilled milk. We scrubbed those concrete floors with a hard wire brush and removed the dirt with a hosepipe. After that we had to help with the hoeing in the mealie (maize) fields. This was the routine to be followed whether it was a school day or a holiday.

Although we were busy on the farm, it was nothing like the pace I had to get used to in Port Elizabeth. I was hurtling along, learning so many things in a short space of time. There were books, books, books. There was a new, thrilling political vocabulary and I had access to many exciting recreational facilities. I could never have imagined that all of this would be available to black people. And then there were cinemas showing movies, day and night. On the farm I had only managed to catch a glimpse of cowboy movies by looking through the farmer’s windows. Holidaymakers used to turn the Oyster Bay tea room into a bioscope or hold dance parties there. Of course this was for white holidaymakers only – we could only watch furtively from the outside.

In Port Elizabeth I attended live music shows and boxing tournaments at the Great Centenary Hall. This was a good life! I was able to see household names I had previously only heard of on the radio. At weekends hundreds of people would go out to watch their clubs playing on the bumpy township soccer fields. In New Brighton alone, there were more than fifteen soccer clubs; the most prominent of them included Boast Pirates, City Lads, Red City and Young Ideas. I became an avid fan and supporter of the Boast Pirates for two reasons: the team was named after the area we were living in, and all my cousins were prominent players in the team.

Mawonga Sume, one of my cousins, went as far as being selected to play for the national squad of the South African Football Association (Safa). Soccer was the preferred sport at my uncle’s house. I got into it by knowing the rules of the game but I never went as far as playing. I continued to love my rugby. The soccer association, I was told, was made up of people who believed that South Africa was an abnormal society and therefore we could not play normal sport. The campaign of not participating in government-controlled sporting associations was spearheaded by the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC), which was an umbrella body for all sporting codes opposed to racially segregated sport. I had been totally unaware of the existence of these organisations while I was growing up on the farms.

At the time, the only thing I had been interested in beyond playing rugby was trying to get access to commentary on the big games. In May 1972, a touring English rugby team was set to play against a black side at the Wolfson Stadium. The hype around this game was huge. The England team was captained by hooker John Pullin who played at Bristol RFC. The game was going to be aired live on a Wednesday and, after much persuasion, I managed to convince my mother to buy us a radio. (She has never forgotten my insistence.) Our home was only the second in the farm labour community at Oyster Bay to own one. The other radio belonged to my grandfather; it was an old one given to him by my Uncle Fred, with whom I was now living in Port Elizabeth. My grandfather used to lock the radio in its wooden case and take it out only to listen to ibali (radio stories) and funeral notices, called imiphanga, every evening at 6.30 pm.

Having a radio at my home was the best! I had unfettered access to radio news and all other programmes. The only limitation was the radio’s battery. I was the only person who cared about buying the battery and saving power. My brothers and sisters were only interested in radio stories and music programmes.

Now, in my neighbourhood in Boast Village, Port Elizabeth, most of the boys mocked my love of rugby, and especially my playing the sport because at school I practised with the junior boys. Those who excelled in the sport from our satellite school were selected into the Loyiso High senior rugby team. Some of the boys from our school became strong players not only at school but also at club level. In those days there was no difference between a school and a local club game, both of which attracted huge crowds of spectators. A rugby match between Loyiso and Kwazakhele high schools was the highlight of black schoolboy rugby. These games were packed, with some spectators travelling from as far afield as Grahamstown, Uitenhage or Somerset East. School rugby games were played on Wednesdays and soccer games on Fridays. School soccer was dominated by Cowan and Newell high schools. Saturdays were mainly for club, provincial and national rugby games, whilst soccer matches were played on Sundays.

Formal and informal businesses were booming in the Port Elizabeth townships and beyond. The white town had pubs, we had shebeens which for black people in 1975 were the most viable and lucrative businesses. The shebeen was where everyone gathered and conversed as equals. It was a place for those who were educated and those who were not, for rich and poor, the employed and the unemployed. It was also a hangout for dodgy characters – smugglers, prostitutes, crooks, and outright thugs. People preferred to drink out of bottles and beer crates were used as chairs. The shebeens were filled with drama. At the drop of a hat you would see guns being drawn, and the wielding of knives, especially the blade of the feared ‘Saturday night special’, the slipjoint Okapi knife, was commonplace.

On 16 March 1975, I first heard about Aristotle Onassis. A man who had been sitting in a corner of my local shebeen, Kwa Nobelungu, reacted with shock when it was announced on the radio that Onassis had died. ‘What a tragedy!’ he exclaimed. I approached him to ask what had happened and who was this Onassis? He said: ‘Onassis is dead.’ I said: ‘I am very sorry to hear that, is he your relative?’ The man looked at me as if his eyes were going to pop out of his head. But before he lost his cool and cursed me, he looked me straight in the eyes and I saw them glaze over with a sorry feeling for my rural ignorance. ‘Onassis is a multibillionaire Greek national,’ he said with some irritation, but was equally proud to talk about the subject, and I got a brief history of the Greek shipping magnate.

The motor-assembly industry was booming in Port Elizabeth. Young black men and boys could drop out of school and find work fairly easily. There were jobs aplenty, especially for those who had all the necessary pass law documents. Fancy and expensive clothes were the obsession of the township boys. They loved brands like shiny pointy-toe Crockett & Jones, Hush Puppies, Tripple A Loafers, and Moccasins with their distinctive extra vamp patch and top seam gathered around the big toe. Hard-core factory workers in the Port Elizabeth townships imbued blue-collar authenticity when they wore their Levi’s and Lee jeans and perky Stetson Hatteras caps. The shebeen was one of my greatest fascinations. I could go there and just sit and watch people drink and talk. It was a kaleidoscope of township fashion, culture and style.

My interest in politics was growing at breakneck speed. White South Africa was living it up under the cunning and sarcastic prime minister BJ Vorster. Apartheid signs proclaiming: ‘Slegs Blankes’ (whites or Europeans only) or ‘Slegs Nie-Blankes’ (non-whites or non-Europeans only) were everywhere: in bottle stores, toilets, restaurants, beaches, public parks and graveyards.

Afrikanerdom was riding a wave of political and economic success. The military might of the apartheid state was rated the most potent in Africa and its naval and air forces were easily comparable to any of the developed nations. The country was producing most of its military needs domestically. BJ Vorster’s arrogance and disregard of the muted protests of the international community came off a base of this domestic dominance.

On 4 January 1975 the British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan visited South Africa and met BJ Vorster at the Elizabeth Hotel in Port Elizabeth. Vorster was upbeat because he was enjoying a diplomatic coup in the eyes of his domestic followers and foreign friends. That year, he had a highly publicised dialogue with Zambia’s President Kenneth Kaunda at Victoria Falls. At the time Vorster was spearheading a concept called détente, which was meant to improve dialogue between South Africa and neighbouring African-ruled states.

And in the midst of all these political manoeuvrings and posturing, the yoke of colonialism was broken by the people of Mozambique and Angola. Preparations were made for the transfer of power to the people of these former Portuguese colonies. Across the Limpopo River the nationalist guerrillas of Zimbabwe were intensifying their liberation war against Ian Smith’s white minority regime. In Namibia, the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo) was intensifying its war against South Africa’s illegal occupation of Namibia.

Understanding contemporary politics correctly was my biggest challenge. Up until then my interpretation and analysis of world events had been impoverished and skewed by a lack of diverse and in-depth information. In the city this changed. I met a lot of ‘political lecturers’ who were more than pleased to enlighten me on South African politics.