5 – Underground activities
After
school hours, it was a hard time also; because we must go and cook for
ourselves, because we were all young and we were all studying. Another worrying factor was that, there was
this system of a platoon system when were doing Sub B, because there were few classes
or buildings. But what happened during
the riots, you’ll find that those people who are not studying, they would make
a petrol bombs and destroy schools, fighting with our future. Because we believe they are no longer
fighting a white regime, but fighting our future. Another disadvantage of the platoon system is
that, you wake up early in the morning, you start by playing; by one o’clock
you are supposed to go to school, then you are tired, you are not fresh, not
ready to study. Another worrying factor
we were against, when we were students, was the corporal punishment, because
some of the teachers, by using the corporal punishment, it was another system
of the white minority regime, of confusing and refusing us. Even if you make just a little mistake, you
are going to be punished; it was unlike the corporal punishment, it was like a
torturishment, it was like being tortured; some students even decided to leave
school. I remember one of my friends, China
When
I was young I told myself that I'll play safe, whatever I'm doing I'll play
safe.
I know
exactly that, after six o'clock I must be at home. Because I grew up in a notorious area and it
is still notorious, even now. So, I told
myself that I mustn't die because of a knife in me on the street and all that
stuff, or the gun. So I must play safe,
stay away from all those things. So, I
blamed myself here and there, but later I said, no fine, no problem, I'll stand
firm. But I'm still playing safe
now. By half past seven I'm watching
SABC1, watching news. Every night. Stay at home.
Even our school classes or school yards were
regarded at that time as battle zone, although it is a zone of the culture of
education. So those are the things we
experienced during our lifetime when we were young. Then also after we went home, then we cooked
there, and we washed our white T-shirts, because were supposed to wear a clean
T-shirts tomorrow, and then our parents, when they came, they were making
ironing for us and all that stuff. When
we were doing Standard One, you will remember that after school hours we go
back, we were using the close fields, such as the Roman Catholic Church fields,
but we used it as kids, not as students, after school hours, we used to play
there, and sing songs, like as kids. Do
you know Bishop M------? Yes, I grew up
under his command, in charge. And people
of my area used to call me Rem Ref. I
was also a server. I took part in church. Even the struggle, I learned the struggle in
church, because reverends from there were too much active in the struggle for
liberation. And above all my role model
was Bishop David Russell.
But
the scared security forces, whilst they see that we were young, then they would
open fire to us, and we start to spread out.
It was where we started to say, we don’t want to play, but we want to
provoke them. Sometimes we do want to
play, and then we feel, Ag, these guys are going to disturb us; although we were
young, we were not scared. So that was
where we began to start those battles, and our sisters, the elders, will join
us and will collect us and say No, go to a place of safety now, we are going to
deal with them.
What
we noticed, during those days, in order for a policeman to shoot, there was no
need for him or her to get an order from the commander or the senior staff
member. If someone wants to shoot, he or she will shoot, a random shot and
shooting whether necessary or not. There
was a game that girls used to play, it is a gambling of some sort, they play
with cards; I remember one day at Wood Street, the street we call Emazizini,
those ladies were there playing with cards, playing their own gambling; then
the security forces, when they were scared, when they saw people gathered
together they know that there is something, they are planning something, so
they are going to shoot us. Okay fine,
what happened was this: the members of the SADF they went to that game, they
say some few things, but they were not fighting, but they end up playing that
game as well. We were so surprised to
see members of the South African defence Force.
And somebody said, No, is it because maybe these guys are from that pass
system, of conscription, because sometimes a white man don’t want to be a
soldier, but because of conditions. Some
were young, they were there because of pass law, their intention is not to
fight.
۞
As a youngster,
around 1988 and 1989, he told me, he had got involved with “underground
activities” for the ANC. He had been
approached by a friend of his, a man who had become a soldier with APLA. He started working for the “pioneer
department”, acting out plays, he said, sketches of future missions, so they
would get a sense of what was coming. He
was the leader in his group. “Those were
the days they called me The Commander,” he giggled.
۞
The time I
started to realise there were differences between my community members and the
police, we thought that there is a fight between our community and the police,
not knowing that the fight is between our community and the government; so when
you see a police truck you know exactly
what to do, you ought to fight. I think
I was about eight years old the time I noticed that, Here is the enemy, here is
my side. Though I was young, I was able
to speculate, what I noticed was that even if we were playing nice games, we
were discussing our writings about our future, the white minority regime would
come and destabilise us and to shoot us.
I started to question, Why, why
is that, because there is nothing wrong.
So without taking any information from our community or our parents, we
just noticed that automatically these people are wrong, they don’t want us and
all that stuff.
I
remember in 1983, there was a funeral in JD stadium, because here in
Grahamstown, once a comrade died they would only use JD stadium as a venue,
because it was big and open, so people know that if police come and start to
shoot we can escape. During that period
of the 1980s people were attending the mass struggle in big numbers without
even being mobilised because they were so thirsty for freedom. What happened at that funeral, I was upset at
that funeral; we saw a mob and fire, fire all over in our location, so I came
out – I was at my home inside, inside my yard; you remember I told you about
that house we were renting, so I was there; it was a big property there, with
many families there; so I was staying in front there, so I was able to go and
see. And I didn’t see my father standing
next to me, so I was shouting, and calling slogans, because we were young, we
knew these slogans, Amandla! I never heard that from my family members;
during school hours, someone would say Amandla,
and Long live the ANC and all that
stuff; so what my father did, he klapped me, ‘Go inside the house’. So I went
inside. That’s what I remember, my
father was not a political active, he was not even politically involved. But he was a good father, even in our
community, he was an African teacher without degree, we can see, although he
was not that much educated.
So, I went to Achimbolekwa, there
was a taxi violence; and there was a fight between AZAPO and UDF members, or
ANC members, because the UDF was playing the role of the ANC whilst it was
banned; that is why it was dismissed after 1990, because their role was to
mobilise and to play the role of the ANC. And I remember one my friends Mputumi called me
one day, whilst we were students at the Primary School, we were in the hall,
and said, Vuyo, turn your head, and I turned my head, and looked through the
door, and everybody was trying to get out of the windows, because there was a
policeman, he was surrounded by fire, he was dying there; there was this guy
handling a tyre, a ‘necklace’, that is when you put petrol, and newspapers, and
they put petrol inside the tyre, and they hand you the light, or they give you
the bottles of petrol to drink it, and they give you a cigarette, and they ask
you to light; so you explode [he clicks
his fingers].
So
I grew up during those days. I also
remember, because my aunt, the one who worked for the University, one day, it
was a Sunday, sent us to a shop we called here W., W. is one of the families
that played a role in the business industry.
So whilst we were going to the shop in the location, we saw a mob –
justice – burning a policeman, whilst we were there – also a necklacing. So we decide not to go there to that aunt,
the one who was working with my mum; we decided to go back; whilst we were
going back next to the Apostolic church, we were told that policeman, he was
from Joburg, or Durban, something like that, but he was not Xhosa-speaking. During those days if you were not speaking
Xhosa but you were in our region or in our location you were in danger, unless
you are a student of the university, or at Rhodes, or let’s say you are from
Zimbabwe; they will fight with you. But
the focus in our community in terms of the language was with those people who
were speaking Zulu, because the Zulu people were used by the past regime during
those days to do some work for them. There
was also another unit of the police, called the amagundwana; those were the municipal police. People throughout the Eastern Cape, they
vowed they would not join those municipal police, because the job was to
oppress, worse and worse, our communities.
A very few members of our community joined those police units, so the
government decided, in order to fulfil their mission of fulfilling those
municipal police, they went to Kwazulu-Natal to mobilize more police. Their strategy, or plan was so successful;
they came to town in big numbers and they did exactly what we were scared of,
they were shooting our people. I
remember the death of C., she died whilst she was nine years or ten, shot by
those municipal police. You ask a
reason, there is no reason for a policeman to kill a ten year-old kid. Even us, we were the victims or targets,
because during the mob, we would join the mob, and there was some other
politicians they would ask some leaders not to allow the kids, but some would
say, No, they must learn now because we don’t know what will happen in
future.
So
I went to Achimbolweka to study Standard 3, when the students appointed me a
prefect, or we prefer to say class representative, because the fear was that
once we say ‘prefects’ we follow exactly what the past regime wants, so let’s
call them ‘class reps’. In our classes,
we were doing it to be represented; there were so many things we were lacking,
so as students we were supposed to gather and send a representative. During
that time, the management, the governing body would always obey the
instructions from the past government, so I used to show them that I don’t like
that, that I hate that, and we are the people we do have our own ways; if right
is right and wrong is wrong, definitely.
For example, they were against the Freedom speeches, they will tell you
that a school is not the terrain of politics or the struggle, and if you gather
as students and you forward your demands or requests, sometimes they will take
the information straight to the Department of Education and the Department of
Education had no solution than to call the police. So those were the things we disliked; and as
I grew up I didn’t surrender or withdraw to ask a student or to mobilize a
student not to accept a corporal punishment, so I was in that struggle
also. Also we had some progressive
student movements, such as COSAS, PASO, AZASO, something like. So when we formed the branches or the
structures, the governing body would report that straight to the Department of
Education, and the security branches, the governing body was the cause of the arrest
of the students. The number of students were
increasing here and Port Elizabeth prisons, and some of the senior students
they were sent to Pollsmoor, if they see that a certain guy is a mastermind
they will send him to Pollsmoor prison.
So those were the things that I was supporting. Also the position of the teachers was not,
how can I say, they were not clear exactly where they were in the struggle,
while we were all oppressed, they were oppressed themselves, so we said No they must join us, because we
are not fighting for us as students or as individuals: we are fighting the
national struggle, or facing the common enemy.
And another thing, what the national
defence did, the South African Defence Force, during the weekends, they will
supply kids with oranges, and apples and all that stuff, but the committee
members they became angry because they believe that anything can happen, they
may be poisoned; there was also an accusation that in those oranges maybe they
will supply TB, TB medication; you will remember what happened in Angola and
other countries whereby the freedom fighters were poisoned.
Then also the question of
black-on-black violence. Yes, it is
something I observed with my eyes, but what I noticed is what is actually
happening even now, the culprits or criminals were used to fight, to form a
gangsterism of some sort, using the name of the freedom fighters, then the past
regime gave them weapons to destabilise everything but to use the name of the
freedom fighters. There are many people
who died in front of me, people who were innocent, people did nothing wrong;
but they died because a mission of the past regime was to be fulfilled and
those people, the perpetrators, they are walking free even now, because they
were paid for what they did, just to kill and to reverse the high morale of the
revolution. That’s what happened. Yes,
there was a black-on-black violence, but there was a motive or an agenda;
because the past regime played such a role.
۞
Text and images © Dan Wylie
"Township: Edge of winter"
Grahamstown 2016
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