When his father – my great-grandfather – died in 1954, the family found notebooks neatly kept in a drawer of a desk in the dining room. They were filled with minutes from local ANC meetings written in his beautiful calligraphic script. Years later, my dad and his siblings burned the notebooks, fearful that they could be found by the police. They foresaw that raids would become a constant part of their lives, continuing even after my dad fled the country.
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I think that my parents would like me to know how they contributed to our freedom. My professional skill and proximity to the primary sources should make telling their story an achievable task. But all my elders were trained in forgetting. Some of this was struggle discipline. Some of it was survival. And then there is the passage of time, decades in which some memories were lost entirely and others faded to the point that they can barely be seen.
Chapter 1: Umntu Akalahlwa: The Months Before
“It wasn’t enough to see that something was wrong, her grandfather taught her. It was imperative to do something about it.
If you ask my mum today when she first became aware of apartheid, she will tell you it was a teenager, when she became involved with the Black Consciousness movement. But some of her earliest memories are of white police raiding homes in her neighbourhood looking for Black men who did not have permission to be in the area. At eight years old she watched as long lines of men shackled to each other were forced to walk the streets of the township, before being loaded into police vans.
Chapter 2: ‘His Poems Are Seditious in Nature’: The Man Who Connected Them All
“Over the years, I have heard my uncles and aunts talk about the poetry my dad used to write. It had assumed a kind of legendary status in our family, but reading these documents was the first time I had actually seen it. I was surprised at how much it read, to me, like what it is — the writing of someone barely out of their teens. An intelligent person, with a great command of English, for sure. But words that could bring down a state? I still can’t get my head around it. I suppose that is the thing with repressive regimes. Any dissent must be totally stamped out. Even the words of someone as young as my dad. They say that you manifest what you fear, and the government did just that with my dad. He wasn't actively planning a revolution before his banning but he would do so afterwards.
’Waar is jou pas?’ the officer barked. My grandfather showed his booklet, but the police said something was wrong. The next thing my dad remembers is being at the police station in Orlando, where he sat waiting, helpless, as his father was taken to another room and sjamboked. Finally, my grandfather was let go. He and my dad walked home in silence. They never spoke about it, or the myriad other daily degradation they experienced. They buried the pain and kept going.
Chapter 9: Leave no Mark: Escape
“The story my parents want to tell is different from the one I want to write.
My dad wants to recount the political history of South Africa and the Movement. He wants to tell me about the comrade-uncles in Lusaka and London who I knew as a toddler and young child, explaining how they – and he – fitted into the broader trajectory of the ANC. My mum wants to tell the story of the people who shaped her activism, like Joe Gqabi, who guided her as she told him about the discontent at Phefeni, and her friend Baba who turned up with his Beetle on June 16. The story she wants to tell is one of shared effort and history.
The story I want to tell is of my gentle yet courageous dad, and how the path he chose cost him dearly. It is the story of my beautiful mum, barely in her 20s, with bravery I cannot imagine ever possessing. It is of both of them in love, idealistic and determined. It is of my feisty, fearless and fun-loving aunts and uncles, and my grandparents, the quiet revolutionaries.