Johannesburg – If one watched any of the spectacles in which popular revolutionary songs are performed today, one might think that our memory and imagination of struggle are limited to stone-throwing, spear-brandishing, molotov cocktails, grenades, bazookas and AK-47s.
But we have many other weapons of struggle whose efficacy we tend to underestimate.
One such underestimated weapon is humour.
In part, our apparent diffidence about humour is a function of the violence of the apartheid state and how it has made many of us in its own image.
At the height of the struggle, our leaders needed to be austere and we needed to harden our hearts. In those contexts, the cultivation and use of humour often seemed fruitless – at least on the surface.
Ironically, in the democratic era, it is the walking political jokes either vegetating or brawling in our provincial and national assemblies who have deadened our collective sense of humour.
But humour has been our secret weapon throughout our struggle against apartheid.
Even the generally sombre Nelson Mandela of the apartheid era occasionally succumbed to humour.
In the biography, which he wrote while on Robben Island, he tells the story of how he and fellow prisoners were stripped naked and lined up against the wall at a Johannesburg prison: “Despite my anger, I could not suppress a laugh as I scrutinised the men around me … If fine bodies and impressive physiques were essential to being a leader, I saw that few among us would have qualified.”
One would not expect much humour from Steve Biko.
There was too much urgency in the powerful agency of his life – a life cut short prematurely.
But he too left us many witty adages of great humorous potential.
The story Biko narrated about a black man who expresses anger against apartheid “in the privacy of his toilet … but brightens up in sheepish obedience as he comes out hurrying in response to his master’s impatient call” is as tragic as it is hilarious. Nor could Biko avoid a slight giggle as he reminded a group of politically conservative pastors that “God is not in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people’s problems on earth”.
No one can read with a straight face Biko’s characterisation of a white liberal who “kicked the black butt … also told him how to react to the kick”.
At one point during Biko’s appearance as a witness at the trial of Black People’s Convention and South African Students’ Organisation leaders in 1976, judge WG Boshoff tried to demonstrate Biko’s knowledge of “failed” African politics by, among other things, inquiring of Biko whether Kenyan politician Josiah Mwangi Kariuki survived the violent politics of Kenya.
Biko retorted: “Oh well, My Lord, several politicians don’t survive, it seems, like Verwoerd didn’t survive.”
In the last decades of the apartheid regime, one of the most formidable wielder of humour as a weapon of struggle was Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Using an amazing repertoire of story-telling techniques, Tutu turned many a biblical story into such brilliant comedy material, many stand-up comedians would love to have. Consider how Tutu remakes the archetypical story of Adam and Eve. Having decided that Adam should have a partner, God puts up a beauty pageant of animals so Adam could choose a partner.
“What about this one?” God asks. “Nope,” says Adam. “Well, how about this one?”
“Aikhona,” says Adam.
And so God put Adam to sleep, took his rib and formed that lovely, delectable creature, Eve. When Adam awoke and saw Eve he said: “Wow! This is just what the doctor ordered!”
It boggles the mind as to how Tutu managed to make people laugh at the height of the brutal apartheid system. And yet, he is neither a Tumi Morake or a Trevor Noah.
He is a dead-serious preacher who employed humour as a weapon of struggle.
On October 7, he will celebrate his 90th birthday.
A week later, the woman to whom he has been married to for 66 years, Nomalizo Leah Shenxane Tutu, will turn 88.
We owe an enormous debt to this couple.
• Prof Maluleke is a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship. Follow him on Twitt er @ProfTinyiko
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