Читать книгу A Just Defiance - Peter Harris - Страница 27

Driving through the suburb of Milpark in Port Elizabeth, or PE as we call it in the Eastern Cape, the houses seem so much smaller than my childhood memory of them. Where are the wide green spaces that I played on? The parks neat and trim with spinning roundabouts? Now they’re lonely places amidst lifeless houses struggling to lend this east coast city some respectability. A windswept town in slow decline after much of its industry has left for greener pastures in the Transvaal. Once thriving with a busy port and a motor manufacturing industry, now largely bereft of both and with a massive unemployed population. The local tourist authority calls it ‘The Friendly City’. Believe me, this is a city that needs friends.

The black people who live here stay to the north of the city in New Brighton and Kwazekele, areas of sprawling matchbox houses. These are tough places where those lucky enough to have jobs are the elite.

The Eastern Cape is often viewed as the frontline of our politics, and with good reason. The traditional heartland of ANC support is embedded in this province, with Fort Hare University as the graduation school of choice for ANC leaders. This is counterbalanced by the toughest security police in the country who know they have a blank cheque from Pretoria, which is why any activists detained in PE will have to dig deep within themselves if they are to survive. Some don’t. Politics has few rules in the Eastern Cape. Removed from the glare of the foreign camera crews, street protests have become an art form in guessing whether police will open fire before or after they give their warning to disperse. In these barren townships, the ANC does not need to organise and recruit; it is in the blood of the people. They drink it from birth in their mother’s milk.

None more so than Govan Mbeki. The Rivonia trialist had been released from Robben Island in late 1987 after twenty-three years. Although he was ‘free’, he was under a restriction order that confined him to the Port Elizabeth magisterial area and he could not be quoted in the press.

I have secured an appointment with him through Boy Majodina, an attorney in PE who represents Mbeki.

Entering the New Brighton township, I drive past two yellow Casspir armoured vehicles and a police van parked next to each other on the left-hand side of the road. I wonder if they have seen me, a white boy, because if they have, the van will follow me and when I stop they will want to know what I am doing here. The questioning will take up valuable time. If I am unlucky, I will be detained and maybe lose the whole day. In the rear-view mirror, I see that the van hasn’t moved, nor the ‘Mellow Yellow’. The farther I go into the township the more potholed the road becomes with broken cars littered along the roadside.

The houses are packed together and have tiny gardens. Children kicking a tennis ball in the dirt scatter the chickens and scrawny dogs that range these dusty spaces. No green parks here. I recall the holidays of my childhood lying at the beach with my friends. Kings Beach and Pollock Beach where the surf was much better, endlessly baking in the sun and drinking Coke, the sun and salt bleaching the hairs on our arms to a golden yellow. Watching the lifesaver competitions. Or waiting in the surf for that perfect wave.

About me the wind whips up dust and I know I am in a poor place.

I’ve met Boy Majodina a number of times and he’s done a lot of work with our firm. He’s played a key role in torture cases, and established a reputation as a tireless human-rights lawyer. It takes a brave man to do this work in this area where ‘disappearances’ are often the security police’s answer to troublesome individuals.

I stop outside Boy’s house. It’s bigger than the others in the neat row. He has built an extension so that the house now covers the entire property. The effect is odd, like a giant in a Mini. A brown and mangy dog runs across the road to bark madly at me. Yet it keeps a safe distance, darting in occasionally, feigning attack. He probably doesn’t see many white people. I once heard tell that in the white areas the dogs bark at black people and in the townships they bark at whites. Even if we change people’s attitudes, I wonder what we’re going to do about the animals, with generations of rabid racism in their veins. Who is going to change the dogs?

Boy comes out to meet me, probably conscious of the stares of the children and people standing in the street. He is a tall and handsome man, always well dressed. Today he wears dark well-pressed trousers, polished black shoes and a white shirt. He beams, courteous and friendly, never revealing the hardship of the work and the risks that he takes. We go inside. Boy has positioned his legal practice in the front of the house. In this room the decay of the township vanishes; we are in solid legal quarters. The rooms are small but professionally furnished. We go through the reception area to a fully equipped legal library and boardroom. Like most legal libraries, the room is sombre and quiet, the walls panelled in dark wood with shelving stretching to the roof. Rack on rack of leather-bound law journals. The whole set-up wouldn’t be out of place in a big law firm in Johannesburg or London for that matter. A proper law office in the middle of New Brighton! I admire Boy for creating something professional in conditions where most people would despair. His legal life outside this office, in the deprivation of the township and in the cold hostility of the courts in which he practises, may be a constant battle to achieve even the most basic of rights for his clients, but at least here, in this haven, he can reflect peacefully on his work and conduct his preparations for trial.

Govan Mbeki is seated in the library. Boy, friendly and accommodating, introduces me to this grand old man of the struggle and discreetly leaves us alone. Govan Mbeki is a stocky man with silver-grey hair. Moving slowly and with great dignity, he rises and we formally greet one another. I am conscious of being in the presence of a living symbol of resistance. Small talk with such a person is petty. I get straight to the matter in hand.

I tell him about the accused, their families, the charges they are facing, and their decision regarding the trial. ‘They have decided to follow the prisoner-of-war option,’ I say, ‘and will reject the jurisdiction and authority of the court. This means that they will not participate at all in their own trial and will, in all likelihood, receive the death sentence. The accused hope that such a stand will bring a new dimension to the way the ANC approaches treason trials. They will also place into question the legitimacy of the entire judicial system.’

I add that they do not want to take this path without consulting with the leadership of the ANC.

‘When are you going to Lusaka?’ he asks.

I tell him at the end of the week.

Mbeki nods.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘you must see what they say, I will be interested. I must tell you, I have some sympathy for their position, that whichever way they turn, they will be playing the game of the Boers. Even by admitting that they are guilty, they are making criminals of themselves on charges which only the enemy has formulated. You know, we found ourselves in a similar position in the Rivonia Trial when we did not want to plead guilty to acts which we knew we had committed, and yet we also were not prepared to plead not guilty. For us, it was also about moral guilt.’

I know Mandela’s speech from the dock well. In fact, it influenced me to become a human-rights lawyer. It changed the course of my life. But I’ve forgotten the intricacies of the Rivonia Trial and since recent political trials have adopted different legal strategies, the parallels hadn’t sprung to mind.

Mbeki continues. ‘In our trial, we had resolved that even if we received the death sentence, we would not appeal. Are they prepared to see this through to the end, even if they get the death sentence?’

‘They say so, but it is a different thing when an accused is sitting on Death Row. That is not for me to say. It is for them and the ANC. I will give them legal advice, but ultimately, it is their decision.’

He nods slowly. ‘You can tell them that I also say that this is their decision. I am not telling them to take this position, what I am saying is that I have no problem with their position. But ultimately Lusaka must decide if it wants them to do otherwise. They are clearly very brave, but they must also act in a way that reflects on the history and dignity of their movement. They must never behave like hooligans. They are soldiers and professionals.’

I tell him that I will convey this to them and to those in Lusaka. We have the tea that Boy’s secretary has brought in. We talk about the inaccessible places that the State chooses for big treason trials. We finish our tea. I say goodbye to Govan Mbeki, now frail and old, passing his final years in the crumbling poverty of the Port Elizabeth townships. As I drive to the airport the knowledge of what this country has lost staggers me. Such a waste.