Would Don Mattera, if he were alive, want us to eulogise him as a saint? Mattera, who died on Monday after a long illness, was streetwise, tough as steel, and bore the characteristics of a township rogue, schooled in the intricate and unconventional ways of the underworld.
A former gangster he was – a wayward saint, if you like, who like the biblical Saint Paul, would be struck by lightning, ending up as society’s icon of justice, after being cleared of human frailties.
In those heady, faraway days of Sophiatown and Newclare of the early 1950s, fisticuffs and knives and guns ruled the day. It is that environment that reared young Mattera, and formed his outlook towards life. He embraced the brutal world of gangsterism, using his toughness, sheer raw pluck, and streetwise demeanour, to get his way.
Sociology tells us gangsterism is enabled by poor human conditions of squalor, socioeconomic factors, among others.
That was the world Mattera’s formative years inhabited. Yet, thanks to goodness, light came, and the scales were removed from his eyes. Love of literature and poetry and journalism, and political activism took control of his life, enlightening it.
He embraced liberation strands of black consciousness, pan-Africanism and congress politics, and showed rare versatility of a person not bogged down by dogma. He was pragmatic, and with much ease transcended narrow political doctrines of division, while seeing himself as an Africanist, a stand he held to the end of his life.
On many occasions he reminded me: “You are a priest, and you probably believe in church dogma. Please, M’Afrika, let us revise that position; let us widen life’s horizon and see the world as multicultural and diverse, with many strands to it. I refuse to be blinded by dogma.”
I have obviously reconstructed his words, without deviation from their central truth. Yet, this is what Mattera stood for – an open mind.
He was critical of the ANC’s missteps and felt ashamed of them. “It is a white man, an English man who inspired me to join the ANC. He was of foreign origin, a Briton, a monk. It was Father Trevor Huddleston who helped me to see life afresh. He spoke with authority at the Congress of the People gathered at Kliptown on the day of the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955, a charter for justice and liberation.”
Again, I reconstruct his words. But the point to be made about them is that the ANC was an organisation of noble men and women. An organisation of decency espoused by Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Albert Luthuli, Robert Sobukwe and Desmond Tutu.
I apologise that I did not find time to anoint Mattera with oil of gladness, as is the tradition of the church to do so when a person approaches the end of life, and as he requested I should do so, adding that it did not matter, and it was of no grave consequence, and would hurt no one if I did so as an Anglican priest, “after all, we all go to the same God at the end of our lives, whether we are Christians or Muslims”.
An extraordinary poet and writer, world acclaimed, he spoke to us and our consciences with power and authority. He was the voice of the oppressed. He loathed racial prejudice, and demanded we treat each other with kindness. Those whose hearts had been hardened by greed and political power, he used the sledgehammer of his poetry to discredit their narrowness of thought.
In newsrooms of this country, his mentorship is lionised.
A great teacher is gone.
Rest in peace Bra Zinga.
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