2 February 2020
Lack of transformation and state mismanagement undermines Apartheid struggle
The testimony of Rev Frank Chikane at the Neil Aggett inquest this week helped the nation, in no small way, to remove the cobwebs gathering around our eyes about the actual detail of brutality visited upon freedom fighters.
We take the pain and sacrifice for granted. We believe we “know” the stories. We watched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). We remember some detail of how Nomzamo Mandela, for example, was dehumanised in that prison cell, peeing on herself and denied menstrual kits.
With the haze around our eyes, we recall some guy called Eugene de Kock, nicknamed Prime Evil, because he presided over horrible torture at Vlaakplaas. But the detail, if we do in fact remember De Kock, escapes us. The names Dirk Coetzee, Craig Williamson and Wouter Basson, also known as Dr Death, that evil man who spearheaded biological and chemical warfare for the apartheid regime, do make sense to us even if their detail is hard to grasp – especially for the born-frees.
First-year political science students may not even be able to connect any of these names to the cruel death of Ruth First in 1982. But there is a TRC clip deeply etched in my mind on how Champion Galela, one of the Pebco Three, spent his last days in 1985. It’s a quote I have used before while at The Star, but a quote that, because of its significance, is necessary to repeat.
Joe Mamasela, an Askari, testified: “… During the assault of Champion Galela, something brutal happened because Warrant Officer [Gert] Beeslaar took out the testicles of Champion Galela. He squeezed them very hard until they became the size of almost … uh … golf balls. And then with his right … right hand, he punched them severely, very hard. I saw … I saw the man changing the colour of his face, becoming pale and bluish, and there was some yellowish liquid that spurted out from his genitals.”
He died. His body and the bodies of Sipho Hashe and Qaqawuli Godolozi, were discovered at the Post Chalmers Farm in Cradock. All things relative, it is hard to imagine a crueller killing.
Chikane reminded us of the horrors of apartheid police this week: “We were tortured thoroughly at John Vorster. That is the detention where they used third-degree methods, which means there were no rules. They trampled on me and did anything they could to you. About three people died during that detention. The story was either you hung yourself or slipped in the bath shower…”
Many others were caught but, unlike Aggett and Galela, their bodies are unaccounted for. This democracy that they fought for is unable to help their families find closure. Others are buried in shallow graves in faraway lands. Sometimes when we say “sacrifice”, many of us can’t relate because the detail of how Galela died and how many others were tortured have escaped us.
If a minute before his demise Galela was informed that the type of democracy he was dying for will be what we have today, would he still have wanted to make the ultimate sacrifice? For us to be negligent around Eskom, allowing the entity to be an albatross around the country’s economy? To hold on to SAA, pumping billions into the airline for national pride when our children continue to perish on the country’s roads because of a lack of proper scholar transport. To waste billions in fruitless and irregular expenditure when those in QwaQwa and many villages in our land go without basic drinking water or basic sanitation.
The sacrifices made and how gallant our struggle for freedom was are now but distant memories.
Yes, without having to rely on search engines, we do recall some things. We remember that Rolihlahla, Nomzamo’s husband, spent 27 years behind bars. We do recall that Bantu Biko was not one to allow racists to disrespect and dehumanise him. If you clapped him and you forgot to handcuff him, he would clap you back. That much we know.
We remember too that doyen of our liberation, Mangaliso Sobukwe, but our information is scant.
Science has shown that with each passing day, we forget 50% to 80% of what we learned the previous day. A month later, we only remember 3%. So, as you may imagine, years later we remember the names Sisulu, Tambo and so on, but not much about what they taught us.
So, naturally, as we become increasingly forgetful of our painful past and the necessary detail of the sacrifices of those who came before us like Galela, our leadership of the country and, specifically, the management of its assets, suffers.
The point is not so much to live in the detail of our painful past or compete in its regurgitation as it is to ensure that the lessons forced upon us by that pain are not lost on us as we struggle to become a new nation led and sometimes misled by Cyril Ramaphosa. “Our children may learn about heroes of the past. Our task is to make ourselves architects of the future,” observes Jomo Kenyatta.
As we remember our painful past, we become complicit in the horror visited upon our people by apartheid if that pain does not help us do better than our oppressors.
For Galela, Aggett, Chikane and many unsung heroes who survived torture chambers or were killed, we should hang our heads in shame.
