Foe

J.M. Coetzee NEW When Susan Barton is marooned on an island in the middle of the Atlantic she enters the world of two men. One is a mute negro called Friday; the other is BOOKS Robinson Cruso. The island is a society already at work. Its rules are strict and simple: survival, industry and order. Cruso is master and Friday is slave. Susan watches the creation of a barren world — an architecture of stone terraces above bleak and empty beaches — and waits to FROM be rescued. Back in London, with Friday in tow as evidence of her strange adventure, she approaches the author Daniel Foe. But Foe is less interested in the history of the island than in the story of Susan herself, and battle RAVAN lines are drawn between writer and subject. Sole witness to this contest, as he was to the mystery of Cruso's island, is the silent Friday. J.M. Coetzee's previous novel Life & Times of Michael K won the 1983 Booker Prize.

157pp. R23,00

Mafangambiti The Story of a Bull Staffrider Series No. 28 T. N. Maumela

For the boys of a Venda village life revolves around the fortunes of Mafangambiti, a fighting bull whose victories are the talk of the countryside and whose rampages are destructive enough to bring his life into question. 1987 COSATU Workers' Diary Every page in this closely observed study of a cattle- herding boyhood vibrantly evokes the African setting. And there is no mistaking the epic quality of the story Since the Durban strikes in 1973 the rapid growth of the and the heroic stature of its protagonist, Mafangambiti workers' movement in South Africa has earned it a cent­ — rugged, fearless, challenging, indomitable. Inevitably ral role in the struggle for a new South Africa. Twelve he becomes a symbol of Africa's will to endure, to sur­ years of experience lie behind the formation of COSATU vive, to come back. (Congress of South African Trade Unions) founded on 1 Originally written in Tshivenda, Maumela's tale will December 1985. This attractive Workers' Diary is a challenge a place among the classics of South African fic­ response to this growth and draws on central themes of tion. working class tradition. The Diary provides dates and illustrations of major events in the workers' struggle. 112pp. Rll,95 Workers, students, activists and those interested in the workers' struggle in South Africa will find this a welcome daily resource. The Novels of 200pp. approx. R7,00 Nadine Gordimer History from the Inside From the Pit of Hell to the Stephen Clingman Spring of Life Nadine Gordimer is one of South Africa's most renown­ ed writers. Yet few are aware of how deeply her work has Staffrider Series No. 28 responded to its immediate historical environment over the last forty years. Her novels provide a 'history from Daniel P. Kunene the inside' of her world in this period. In the most in­ formed study on Gordimer available, Clingman traces a developing consciousness of history through Gordimer's The themes of bondage and freedom are central to novels, relating each to the moment from which it Kunene's writing. His characters are often people emerges, and which it in turn illuminates 'from the inside' facing significant choices, a man who must choose — from the political triumph of the National Party in whether or not to join a strike, a young boy who must 1948, to the vibrant social and political world of the cross a swollen stream to reach his home, a man who 1950s, to the Sharpeville massacre and beyond. Through sees the armed struggle as the only option left open to all this the larger historical, social and ideological codes him. embedded in the novels are revealed in their wider signifi­ Through careful observation of character and a cance. Finally a 'deep history' is investigated: the subtle understanding of the relationship between the possibility that there is an historical unconscious in individual and his community, Kunene explores the Gordimer's fiction, and the split position from which of complexity of the choice, its implications, its potential necessity she writes. to enslave or liberate.

148pp. R10.50 288 pp. R22,00 CONTENTS

Volume 6 Number 4 1987

STORIES

The Spirit of Two Worlds by Jayapraga Reddy 2 From the Backseat by Greg Latter 5 Blind Justice by Stanley Loba Mabena 11 The Lovers by Bessie Head 15 From Blame Me on History by Bloke Modisane 30 Capping It All by Lawrence Mpanya 37 Life at Home by Joel Matlou 38

POEMS

Lancelot Maseko, Kaizer M. Nyatsumba 4 Nhlanhla Paul Maake,Moritso Makhunga 13 Norman Tshikhova 20 Stephen Gray, Patrick Fitzgerald 21 Farouk Stemmet, Allan Kolski Horwitz, Robert van Niekerk, 22 Kriben Pillay, Jeremiah Masoga 28 Dumakude kaNdlovu 29 Kelwyn Sole 44 Chipane L Kgaphola 48

FEATURES

Zimbabwean Women by Biddy Partridge 7 Women's Day 23 Abdullah Ibrahim Speaks 26 When will they come home?' A mother at a DPSC meeting in Johannesburg listens hopefully for news of detained members of her ramily — photo by Eric Miller, Afrapix GRAPHICS

Mzwakhe 2, 11, 30, 36 Jeff Lok 5, 37 Percy Sedumedi 15

TRIRUTES Staff rider magazine is published by Ravan Press, P.O. Box 31134, Braamfontein 2017, South Africa. (Street Bessie Head by Cherry Clayton 14 Address: 23 O'Reilly Road, Berea.) Copyright is held Bloke Modisane by Es'kia Mphahlele . 33 by the individual contributors of all material, including all graphic material published in the magazine. Anyone wishing to reproduce material from the magazine in any Front cover illustration: Mzwakhe Nhlabatsi form should approach the individual contributors c/o Back cover photograph: Biddy Partridge the publishers. Printed by Blackshaws (Pty) Ltd., Cape Town.

HFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 Jayapragra Reddy The Spirit of Two The old woman pounded the spices in depression. She wished Radha would a wooden mortar. She sat on a grass go away and leave her to her mat in the sartorial position adopted thoughts. But Radha lingered. by generations of women before her. 'There is trouble,' Radha informed It was cool under the mango tree and her. 'Now she wants to go to work. the gentle susurration of the breeze Worlds He said she cannot go to work. She among the leaves was like the voice of was very angry.' God murmuring His comfort. Out there was open resentment. It was The old woman sighed but refrain­ here it was quiet and she could think time, they maintained, that she took ed from comment. her thoughts in peace as she prepared an interest in the family and did her She did not ask how she came by the mangoes for pickling. But today share of the housework. She couldn't such knowledge. In the rather her thoughts were not very pleasant. deny the truth of it. Sharda was cramped living conditions of the They were troubled and she was forc­ headstrong and wilful. By bringing in council house, nothing was very ed to acknowledge the disturbing fact her own ideas and an alien lifestyle, private. Quarrels became public and that there was rebellion in her she had upset the smooth running of one's tears, unless shed quietly, were household. Ever since Veeran, her her home. In her day, oh her day, heard by all. Radha went on, giving youngest son, had married, there was none of this would have been permit­ her all the details, but the old woman dissension in her home. He hadn't ted, she lamented inwardly. stopped her with a quelling gesture. heeded her advice and had obstinately Radha, her eldest daughter-in-law, She rose and went indoors. followed his own desires. So now he came out to her. 'You like some tea, Veeran stood at the window look­ reaped the consequences. A shadow Ma?' she asked, speaking in Tamil. ing out vacantly. Sundays were usual­ hung over her normally peaceful The old woman nodded and as she ly so peaceful, the old woman household. Nothing pleased her new watched her go back in again, she thought as she studied him. Sundays daughter-in-law. Nothing was good thought how good and obedient a were meant for outings attending enough for her. She complained that daughter-in-law she had been. She weddings and functions and for visits the semi-detached house in the Indian always wore a sari and her hair was to relatives. Now Sundays were torn township was too cramped and that still long and worn in a simple plait. by strife and tension. there was not much diversion in the No task was too much for her. Not 'What is wrong, my son?' she asked district. Her discontent and aloofness when it came to doing things for her. softly. He did not turn around. She did not invite intimacy and she re­ Radha returned with an enamel sensed his humiliation and hurt. mained isolated. She kept to herself, mug full of tea, which frothed like 'She wants to work,' he said reluc­ joining the family only when beer. Just the way she liked it, she tantly. necessary. The other daughters-in- thought, sipping it slowly. The hot 'Then let her work, my son,' she law were tolerant at first but now fragrant brew dispelled some of her said.

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 He turned and regarded her with reaction was one of grief. Then she disbelief. 'You want her to work!' he The car was small and felt anger. Anger because he was exclaimed. sleek. The day she brought it allowing it to happen. He didn't want She shook her head sadly. 'No, I home, the other daughters-in- it to happen but he was giving in to don't want her to work. But if that is her once too often. She studied him what she wants and if it will make her law stood at their windows and for a long moment, undeceived by his happy, then let her work.' watched her furtively. outward composure. He did not meet He turned away, his jaw setting in a her eyes directly for he feared the grim, obstinate line. 'She doesn't rendered to her whims. Sharda learnt betrayal of his true emotions. have to work,' he pointed out. to drive and demanded a car of her 'Are you sure you want to do this, 'All women are not the same,' she own. Bus journeys were long and my son?' she asked quietly. It took reminded him. tedious, she maintained. With a car him a long while to answer, and when 'She says she is dying of boredom.' of her own she could get home earlier he did it was with an effort. Boredom. She left him then and and have more time. More time for 'It is for the best.' went back to sit under the tree where what? the old woman wondered. He Surely he did not believe that! She she reflected upon this new and alien was as malleable as clay in her hands. rose and left the room and he did not plague which afflicted the young. Her It was not right. No woman ought to see the naked pain in her eyes. mind went back over the years sear­ have that much power over any man. She sat in her room for a long ching for something which remotely The car was small and sleek. The while, her hands resting in her lap, resembled this malady, but there was day she brought it home, the other numb with pain. He was the youngest nothing. There were hardships, daughters-in-law stood at their win­ son and her best loved. Perhaps that countless sacrifices which had been dows and watched her furtively. She had been a mistake. Sons were not made willingly, much pain and heart­ drove with an enviable ease, and they yours to hold. They were arrows to be break and some rare and memorable could sense her irrepressible excite­ released into the world. moments of joy and happiness, but ment as she sprang out of the car. But The old woman read the surprise in never boredom. She had married at her pleasure was short-lived. her daughter-in-law's eyes. For the thirteen, a child bride in an arranged At supper that night the family sat first time they were confronting each marriage. In those days one did not around the table in a grim silence, other directly. For a long moment question these things, one merely united in their resentment and disap­ their glances met and held. It was the complied with one's parents' wishes proval. young woman who looked away first. and submitted silently to whatever For once, Sharda was not immune The old woman recalled the day was arranged. She had had nine to their feelings. At first she ate in Veeran told her of his wedding plans. children, six of whom had survived. quiet defiance. Then a small knot of He had met her at a party, he said. An early marriage was followed by anger began to form at the pit of her She was pretty and so full of fun. She early widowhood and at forty she stomach. It was unfair! What had she hadn't objected to his choice but had found herself alone at the helm. She done that was wrong? Was it her fault merely advised him to wait. But he ( hired a stall in the Indian market and that she could not fit in with their hadn't waited. Alas, the young so managed to keep the family narrow conformity? Surely not! She wanted everything quickly and easily. | together. Her struggle eased a little rose abruptly and left the room. The 'So you are breaking up my home,' when her children were educated and silence around the table intensified. the old woman commented. The | settled in comfortable jobs. Soon she The old woman watched her go with a younger woman's glance wavered. was able to give up the stall and heavy heart. Then she straightened and her glance retire, and so came to a quiet port. In the weeks that followed the old steadied. But there were so many lessons in woman tried to hold her 'No, that's not true. All I want is to one's life which one could not pass on disintegrating family together. But live on my own. Is that wrong?' to the young. the task was too much for her. There Sharda looked up and met the old Sharda went to work as a hair­ were lessons in this for her too. She woman's eyes. There was none of the dresser in an elegant new salon in was discovering that her matriarchal old defiance or antagonism. But in J Durban. The old woman wondered authority had its limits and had to the wordless silence, the old woman I whether her new-found financial give way to a way of life that was read a quiet plea for understanding. independence brought her any rapidly becoming the norm. The old woman studied her for a long happiness. She bought a whole lot of The things her generation had while. There was strength in silence. new clothes, all modern and cherished and valued were being She would not give her the satisfac­ fashionable. Her short hair was styled replaced by an alien culture which tion of having the last word. often and in different ways. There sacrificed love and caring on the altar 'You came to this house in peace, were murmurs of jealousy and resent­ of Mammon and whose devotees so leave in peace. You are leaving this ment among the other daughters-in- foolishly pursued the things of the house of your own free will. All I ask law. Even Radha fell prey to this. flesh. is that you look after my son. You 'What does she work for? Only for The old woman took her troubles have my blessing and I hope you will her clothes and perfumes! While we to her gods in prayer. But there were be happy. If this is your wish, then let stay at home and work like slaves she no answers. Her heart heavy with it be. But know this, you too will have lives like a queen!' Radha observed grief, she saw the rift between her and children. And you too will need them acidly. Sharda widen and was powerless to in your old age. I hope when you do, But that was only the beginning. halt the inevitable. And the inevitable that they will be there.' Having got her way once, Sharda came one afternoon when Veeran an­ Sharp words sprang to the young demanded other things. Her heart nounced that he was moving out on woman's mind then. She wanted to heavy with grief, the old woman his own. The old woman received the remind the old woman that her son's I looked on while Veeran weakly sur- news in a cold silence. Her initial duty was now to his wife. That times

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 had changed. That she had tried to fit On one occasion Sharda left in The old woman watched her in with her family but had failed. But tears, chagrined by the old woman's go and savoured the lone power something within her checked her. obstinacy. The old woman watched of triumph. Let that be a Something in her mother's teachings her go and savoured the lone power lesson to them, she thought. came to mind. She looked away. The of triumph. Let that be a lesson to old woman's words touched a chord them, she thought. She was not putty feelings. Her grandson. A new life, a in her mind, and dimly, she recalled in their hands, to be moulded accord­ new beginning. This was a time for something about respect for the elder­ ing to their will. Age did not mean rejoicing, for thanksgiving. For a ly and submission to one's husband. easy capitulation to the whims of the long moment she struggled with Did these things really matter in these young. She would not bend to their herself, longing for the release of sur­ times? Perhaps they did. Who was will. The winds of change were blow­ render. Her spirit was tired and she she to question them? Her world, her ing down all the old pillars, but there was strongly tempted to call a truce. generation had all the questions but were some things to which she would Wordlessly, she followed Veeran to no answers. not easily give in. the car. Sharda moved into a flat in Dur­ There were times, though, when Later, as she held the child in her ban. Occasionally they came to visit the thought came to her unbidden, arms, she recalled another birth in the the family. With time the old woman that perhaps she ought to bow to distant past, when she cradled her last came to accept the change. Some of change gracefully, while time and born who had looked so very much the hurt was gone. But although she strength were on her side. But she like this child. She looked at Veeran treated Sharda with the fairest con­ harboured the thought fleetingly. The and smiled. sideration, she could not easily old unyielding core of obstinacy 'He's a beautiful child and he looks forgive her. Pride would not allow would come to the fore, and she just like you did,' she said. her to acknowledge defeat. There would be strengthened in her resolve 'Sharda will have to give up work were some things she would not give to remain adamant. now,' he pointed out. The old woman in to. Like visiting Sharda. One morning Veeran came to see turned to Sharda. When their eyes On special occasions Sharda would her. She wondered why he should call met there was a new gentleness, a new try to get her to visit her, but the old so early. She sensed his excitement peace in the old woman's eyes. woman always declined. When press­ and knew it meant good news. 'No, she doesn't have to. I will ed for reasons, she maintained a 'Ma, Sharda has a son,' he an­ look after the child,' she said serene­ tight-lipped silence. She was deter­ nounced. 'You must come and see ly. She put the child down and rose. mined that nothing would make her him.' The spirit of two worlds had merged yield to that. She received the news with mixed in a new beginning.

Sacrilege

King death and the law what i am have built themselves i do not really know special highways maybe a bird, wind to the cemeteries or a stone every weekend my history is not in books Tearsmoke not at universities rubberbullets or libraries or actual bullets depending on emotions look for it in museums or orders of the day on rocks and in caves you are likely to find it there Where will we belch the pain now what i am after burying our dead is the question of my life maybe i am a horse — Cemeteries the black horse i saw at the have long been zululand show the only residues carrying a young white boy of privacy on its back where we can trying to jump over hurdles shed oceans and sigh

Lancelot Maseko Kaizer Ml. Nyatsumba

- STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 %

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e are in the Zephyr. A Ford motor car with four cylinders. It W is turquoise on the outside and FROM the BACKSEAT cream inside. Cream is a bad colour for kids although these kids don't mess. Greg Latter I am in the back looking out the back He'll make sure we get through all right. in for beers. They all shook Father's window, holding onto the back-rest. The Today is the day that Zambia comes hand and asked him about his horses. He road is bumpy. My sister, two years my alive. Yesterday it was Northern told them that Flaming Harvest was go­ senior, is sitting alongside my mother. Rhodesia but the Queen gave it away. ing to run in Lusaka and that they must Their hair had been curled with curlers She had to. Mother told Father that she put their money on him for a place bet. from the night before. We all ate very was leaving. She was taking the kids out. Flaming Harvest won. I think they phon­ well. Father sat at the head of the table. She told Father after Aunty Violet was ed him to say thanks. That was last year. If he took away the diningroom wall, the attacked. Poor Aunty Violet, she Father is collecting dust. It hasn't rain­ bedroom wall, the lounge wall and then thought she had been hit on the back but ed for months and he is really getting the front hedge, he could look onto the when she got home and took off her dusty. He stops and I tell Mother but she main road. He ate slowly, deep in dress there was blood all over it. She just carries on driving. A little later thought. Mother ate quickly. She still stretched her arm and felt her back. Father catches up with us. He has a had some last minute packing to do. He There were small holes where the pen­ handkerchief tied over his nose. I think reminded her to take some mango knife had pierced her flesh. She fainted he stays behind the car in the dust chutney. He had a special recipe. on the spot. The doctor said she was because he likes it. The road is bumpy so I hold on tight. lucky to be alive. I'm getting car-sick. I want to vomit. Mother is talking to the girl alongside Father had had to use his gun. He Mother stops and I get out and do it her, her daughter. She tells her about made his own bullets from a machine. behind a bush. Father waits on the Durban, the vast seas, the tall buildings, He shot a wild cat and he shot a man. motorbike. Mother gets me brandy from You'll love it, it's just right for you. I The police said that it was a good thing. the boot and makes me drink three look out. Father rides behind us on his They came to the door and stood there m tablespoons. Then I get back in the car. motorbike. His white helmet, his gog­ their baggy khaki shorts and shirts w ah Sister looks very worried but then we all gles, his mouth, bobbing up and down. badges and took off their hats. They us­ drive off again. The roads are bad so he'll only ride as far ed to sweat into their hats and you could When I sit properly in the seat I can't as the border. We'll say goodbye there. see the brown stains. Father invited them see out the front window. I can only see

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 5 the back of the front seat in front of me. scout hall and everyone said she was promised me. I am even more car-sick. great. Mother said she followed after We stay in the car and they go with the' The road is straight and bumpy. There Granny's footsteps because Granny had passports to the office. There are quite a| are small hills off to the South and we sung in the Opera. Father took a photo few other cars with families in them also. head for them. Twice we have to stop of her in her tap-shoes and big bonnet. There are soldiers with rifles. They talk! and pull over to the left because of He put her next to the mango trees and to each other loudly and one of them trucks. They are going up to the Copper then took the photo. I was Wee-Willy- laughs at Sister. I lock the car doors andl Belt. That was where we lived. In Kant- Winky at the school fancy dress and I we laugh back at them. One of them anta Street in Kitwe. Father worked in had to carry a stupid candle even though wags his finger at me but I just wave the Cobalt Plant. After work he went to it was daytime. Father took a photo of back. the stables. He had four horses and they me as well. We are here a long time and then all raced in Lusaka, in Salisbury and also I lie down on the back seat. Father comes out and gives us a glass of in Bulawayo. Sometimes, when they At night, late at night, we were sent to water. He goes back in and we wait! won, we went out to the hotel for lunch. bed. Sister and I would sneak back to the again. I am fighting with Sister when! There was a set menu with three desserts. lounge door. They left it open to hear us they come out. Mother is crying and I used to put all the desserts on one plate. if we cried. I sat on the floor and looked Father has her by the arm. They walk Father didn't like it but Mother thought through the gap of the wall and the door. past the car to the motorbike. Father it was fine. She said that as long as we ate Sister stood up behind me and also look­ talks to Mother all the time. I have never j all our vegetables we could have dessert. ed. When we got tired we swopped over, seen him talk so much. She puts her arms I used to take a long time over mine so quietly. We saw the adult films, we saw around him and they kiss, in the open. I that my sister got jealous when hers was the love scenes, we saw fights, we saw Then they come back to the car andl finished. Once I got a hiding because of babies being born and doctors holding Father says goodbye to us. After kisses 11 that. them up for their first smack. We saw get out and go back to the motorbike This car is using a lot of petrol. the late, late news. Once we saw Father with him. It is very dusty and he lets me Mother tells me this but I don't know and Mother on the sofa together. They write my name with my finger on the what to do. I feel a little better because cried out and we got scared and went petrol tank. We hold hands and then he my tummy is warm. I turn around and back to bed. I used to check under the tells me to go back to the car but I just look back. Father is further away now. bed to see that no-one was under it. No- wait with him by the bike. Mother comes | He has taken the handkerchief off his one was ever under it. over to us, her eyes wet from crying, and nose. He waves and then grabs the We stop and the four of us stand by she takes me back to the car and Sister. I \ handlebars quickly because the bike the car. The sun is high and it's hot. This don't look up because of the soldiers. wobbles. He hunches over the petrol is the halfway point between home and The red and white pipe across the road tank. When I got my bicycle he took me the border. There are people and cars is lifted and we drive over the bridge to for lessons on the road. I rode next to and buildings. Father and I go to the the other side. I sit holding the back seat him and pretended that we were both on toilet. He washes his face and then helps rest and I see Father getting smaller anr' motorbikes and we had big packs tied me wash mine. smaller as we drive away. There is a h onto the back and we were going to Outside we all talk quietly. Father goes behind him that also gets smaller. London across the desert. and then he comes back and we all go We stop at Kariba Lake. Kariba i' A few years before, Father tried to and eat at the hotel next to the garage. part of the Zambezi — the biggest river ride to London with his friend Hans. We Then we sit in the lounge and Father in Africa. It is not as long as the Nile but were going to fly to meet him but he discusses the journey with Mother and it is bigger. came back suddenly after about a week they talk about furniture. We are sent We stay at the Motel and watch I because Hans had fallen over and the out to play on the swings. Rhodesian Television. Because there is motorbike with all the packs had crushed The swings are behind the hotel. There no more Northern Rhodesia, Southern i him. We knew something was wrong and is a black boy on one of the swings. Rhodesia just calls itself Rhodesia and Sister heard the news through the bath­ Sister gets onto the other swing and I Mother says it's safe here because now room door when Father told Mother in push her. The black boy goes quicker we are out of Zambia. Sister can't under­ secret. We flew to London anyway but it and higher so I push harder. I am push­ stand all the names so I explain and I wasn't nice because Father had got boils ing so much that the swing gets slack at Mother says I am correct. Anyway, their all over his body and they wouldn't go the top and then Sister yells and Father television is almost the same. away for a long time. Mother told him comes out with Mother behind him and Mother cries again but not in front of not to blame himself for Hans. They left he yells for me to stop it. Sister gets off. us. She is quiet all through supper and all Sister and me with Aunty Ann in Sussex She cries to show Mother and I tell through her drink afterwards. When I and went to Germany to see Hans's Father it wasn't me. We get back in the look at her she smiles and calls me her lit­ parents. Then we flew back. car and drive off again. tle man. Sister and I go to sleep early but Everytime I turned a corner on my Father stays behind on the bike and I can't because I slept in the car. bicycle I had to stick my arm out to show Mother tells us that the border is not far I lie thinking about things. I think of which way I was going. Father also away. I look out the back window all the the wild cat that Father shot and then I ! taught me to hold it up when I stopped. time. I squash a fly on the glass and then can remember him getting smaller and He taught Sister also but then she had to try to put it between Father and me. If I smaller until there is nothing left. Mother I stop because some men put a stick in her put my eye close up to the fly and close comes in. She thinks we're asleep so she | spokes and she fell a hard one. Father my other eye, I cari blot out Father but is extra quiet. She closes the bathroom said he could kill them and Mother only until we hit a bump or take a corn­ door and lets the water run. Then she agreed. er. The fly gets hot and dries up and falls comes out and gets undressed. She looks | Mother is driving fast. Her shoulders off. There is still a mark there, but. at herself in the long mirror for a long are bunched up, her eyes wide. My sister After a while we get to the border. time. She says, softly, like it's a secret: sings songs that she learnt at tap- Some of the way I sleep but Sister wakes T'm still young enough.' dancing. She had been in .a show at the me up when we get there because she Then it's morning.

6 STAFFRTnFR VOT 6 NO. 4. 1987 Zimbabwean Women Biddy Partridge • Ellen Nyamwanza and Linnet Mlambo, ex-combatants, dress­ ed for a play to reconstruct the Chimurenga. Courtesy Young Women in the Liberation Struggle ZPH, 1984 < Adult literacy tutor in ALOZ (Adult Literacy Organization of Zimbabwe) T Ellen Nyamwanza — reliving the second Chimurenga. Courtesy Young Women in the Liberation Struggle ZPH, 1984

7 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 %

Picking spinach: Women on a commercial farm near Bindura have a collective vegetable garden as part of a primary health care scheme for better nutrition Courtesy o/Save the Children fund, U.K Longina Mhaka, Linnet Mlambo and Ellen Nyamwanza sharing a meal with their children s STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, Mrs Ruth Chinamano, ZAPU MP Jlarare, 1983 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 A A Ironing nappies at Simukai ('Stand Up') Co-op, 1982

Comrade Trenah Dewa and the new pigs, Simukai ('Stand Up') Co-op, 1982

10 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1$ BLIND JUSTICE

Stanley Loba Mabena

Although it's twenty years since I lost my father, he still good at that, but useless at haunts me and his words and aspirations still linger on. everything which needed brains. Maybe that's why it keeps hurting. Everything he used to tell She didn't face the chalkboard. I me didn't move my mother, doubt if she ever lifted a pen in her who preferred to spend what life. I don't blame her. She never time she had visiting our neigh­ had a chance. My father was lucky bours, instead of listening to to end up holding a standard five my daddy's stories. But now, certificate, so he told me. It still sitting here, wondering where hangs on the wall to this very will the next meal come from, I day. It was his pride. feel the effect of his words. My father was a cobbler, Daddy would tell me about a blacksmith, and an M^^i politics, the government, relig­ artist by birth. ion, and more often he would tell Although he was a 3? me about the sad highlight of sick man he was his childhood. It is only now well-favoured in his that I feel he was cheated. small-time job. He Cheated of real childhood. could earn five rand Cheated of real life. I can pic­ a week, if he was ture him as I am sitting here, a lucky. Finding a job short, stout man, with the colour in the small village of of ebony. His oval-shaped head Umdatshana was like trying rested on his vast shoulders to hunt for an Indian in without suggesting he had any the Orange Free State, and neck at all. Behind his fore­ it was either that or join head ran a big, ugly scar he the scavenger in the had received from unreason­ muddy alleys. able thugs who roamed My daddy was an Umdatshana village. In excellent blacksmith. spite of his aggressive feat­ He could mend ures, he was the most anything from a teas­ vV marvellous and exciting poon to a car engine. father any boy ever had. I guess he would He used to make wire have ended up in a cars for me, and they famous industry if were more fun than he hadn't been most of the plastic stuff black. which children are given Our house was every day. too small. It was I could imagine my one of those mother, sitting near the adobe houses verandah, selecting which do not something green that deserve a could be eaten as second glance. supper. She was

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4, l^STAFFRlDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 11 There were only two small windows that tered. We enjoyed the land God gave us, They read things from a book, th could stay shut by means of a trick. until don't experience them,' my daddy sa There was a rusty wooden door which 'Until what?' and coughed. held stubbornly onto its hinges, but 'Until they came.' 'You are telling me what the whi i knowing very well it wouldn't hold much 'Until they came? Who?' man has done for the maximum bene t longer. Even the paint was slowly divorc­ 'The white man.' of the white power, don't you reali e ing itself from the wall. Two wooden I stared at the old man who was sick you're not in the picture? It's a wh e benches, a small table and a tiny, and tired. One of us must be crazy, I man's history, you are not involved a homemade chest of drawers were all the thought. He regarded me with a fixed ex­ the whole white port of comfort, y i home comforts we possessed, in fact they pression. won't understand it, unless you reasor 5 were all we needed. We were content 'Maybe you think I am mad, my son,' a black.' with them. We didn't have a car or a he said. 'That's why you are suffering, I was shivering and yet I was sweatir , wagon. We couldn't afford one. My and that's why your generation must suf­ I was scared of the truth or was it 1 • father owned only a bicycle, but that was fer.' truth? The chilly wind was blowing ha all he owned in the world. He wouldn't 'What is suffering, daddy?' shly, as if trying to steal my fathei have minded owning a car. Maybe he 'Nice word, but different meaning,' he words. dreamt, like most blacks dream, of own­ said and coughed. 'Imagine a hot poker 'Apartheid has killed us! It h ing many things. burning in your face forever. That's the destroyed the image of a black man, It was one of those cold evenings in definition of suffering, in short.' has moulded and shaped us as black me July when papa died. Even now, I can­ I couldn't analyse what daddy said. into a raving beast.' not understand the way he died. People He liked to speak in riddles. He could 'What is apartheid?' I interrupte simply laugh at me when I try to explain resort to nice clauses. I admired him. him. how papa died. Maybe you will too and 'But, papa,' I said. 'Our people could 'Apartheid is a living ghos add to the number of those who are still have fought them. All this could have Everybody is aware of its existenc, laughing at me. He was out there under been avoided.' apartheid is the division, it is the borde the baobab tree, mending our next door 'This land was won with guns. White between two worlds, those with guns an neighbour's washing tub. As soon as he men only came to colonize. After a while those without, those with cars and the who sit and wait, those with food a saw me, he called me with that familiar they took over. After all, the war is still those with swollen bellies. Those wi whistle. clothes and those who go bare-foote; , 'Will you sit down and warm yourself, Those who live in skyscrapers and those son?' who sleep on pavements. Those who love 'But papa,' I said, 'it's cold here out­ and those who cry. The powerful and th side, why don't we go inside? It's already powerless. The rich and the poor. Blac late.' and white. Do you realise where yo 'You know how mama is when I talk stand? Do you now understand what about the past,' papa said.'She always apartheid?' says I talk about things that are too big 'Mavuso! You are shouting at the for young ears to hear. Well . . . this child!' my mother shouted. She wa could be my last winter. What would you on, the war which is silent. The war that standing behind me. I didn't realise that like papa to tell you about?' sounds no guns, and the bodies that fall father was shouting. I was complete y 'What about the bitter life papa are only wishes that have died and the absorbed into theorising about the always talks about?' I asked sitting bullets are only words, and the blood is world. The world of division. 'It's myself stiffly on the wooden bench next only chilled tears.' nonsense! Can't you understand wh.it to the dying fire. 'Papa,' I protested, 'white men kind of a seed you are planting in or 'Do you mean my past?' papa asked, brought civilization, they brought light child?' as if posing a rhetorical question. His to this dark continent.' T speak the truth, heaven be n y eyes stared at his black hands that 'Civilization? What has that brought?' witness,' papa said softly. resembled burned wood. He made one father asked. 'Civilization has brought a 'Mavuso, won't you learn to forgi e final noise with his chisel on the enamel congested world . . . pollution . . . Can't you see it's blind justice? If G tub and put it aside. misery . . . war . . . bloody hatred. The allows it, you cannot change it.' 'This planet was not made for us. We curse of modern life. I want none of it. I 'Do you mean God allows it? Do ye fell onto the wrong planet, my son. like the land God gave us, the land God mean to tell me that God allows all this Maybe we belonged to Jupiter, or Mer­ gave to Cain .... Oppression! Apartheid? And. . . .? cury or any other planet, but not this 'The wind . . . the space . . . the 'It's blind justice,' mama said, almo Earth. I am certain of that. Sometimes I land . . . .' in a whisper. feel God has forgotten us, that, some­ I was furious now, I couldn't help it. 'No it's fair justice, even the matter how we were missed.' My father was now against reason, justice. Who can summon them? W 'How could you say that, daddy?' I against nature, perhaps even against can summon the whites? Even if I a asked surprised. God. right, they will prove me wrong, becaus 'You are too young to understand. 'Papa, you can sneer at civilization, but the people I must sue are the judges ; Sometimes I wish I had not been born. I it has bred finer men than you. Aristotle, well.' wish I could have been born forty or fifty Roosevelt, Smuts ... don't you know our I could blame my mother who w years later. At least I could have known a Prime Minister Dr H.F. Verwoerd? illiterate, and I could blame my fat! better world . . . .' All were full of ideas. What then did you who was ill. I was lost in the world. 1 'What is hurting about the past, dad­ contribute to society, except those scraps world which could only be understc dy?' of aluminium you are selling?' by those who are masters of illusion a 'Our nation was happy and unscat- 'That's how the educated go wrong. fantasy. Papa v/as shivering, his face v

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO very white and there were dark areas his hand and whispered very softly to up in the air and came down quickly with under his eyes. He was ill. It was all writ­ me, 'What is the answer for question a crash. I remember grabbing my injured ten in his black face. three?' right hand with my left hand, ramming it 'What is it?' mom asked, 'a fever?' 'Saul,' I whispered back. between my legs and squeezing my legs 'I've got a headache,' papa answered. Mr Khoza's finger shot out like a together against it. Oh! It was painful. 'I've told you, it's killing me bullet and pointed at me. 'You!' he Tears poured down my cheeks. Mamhlongo.' shouted, 'stand up!' 'You deserve ten strokes, boy,' he said 'What is it that is killing you, Mr Khoza never called any of us by quietly. 'Come quickly.' Mavuso?' our names. It was always 'you!' or Ten strokes! I couldn't take it. I 'Blind justice.' 'boy!' or 'girl!' or something like that. remember walking out of the classroom. 'What?' mother insisted. I stood up. Then I began to run. 'The blind justice of this world is kill­ 'You were talking!' he said. 'Whom When I got home, my mother was in ing me.' were you talking to?' the kitchen. Papa suddenly fell forward. His body He was shouting as if I was on another 'Hei!' she cried out, 'what happened? very painfully shoved his chisel forward, planet. I stood still. Why are you here?' then I saw his eyes roll back, and I knew 'Don't stand there like a zombie, I showed her my hands. There was a he was dead. The hero I worshipped. answer me!' long, ugly mark running right across my The only man I loved. I doubt if I shall I kept silent. From where I was stand­ fingers. ever get over the death of my father. We ing I could see the whole class sitting ab­ 'Who did it?' she shouted, 'who is the buried him next to the grave of my solutely rigid, watching Mr Khoza. brute who did this?' grandfather in our village churchyard. Nobody dared move. I told her. When papa died things at home began 'You are very stubborn, come up T will show him,' she cried T will to change. Mama no longer visited our here!' show him a thing or two!' next door neighbour and I couldn't play As I stepped out of my desk and began I've never seen my mother so angry, hide-and-seek with my friends any more. walking up toward the front of the class, her eyes were blazing like hell. She grab­ To make ends meet I used to mow our I knew exactly what was going to hap­ bed a small blanket and, before I could neighbours' lawn and sell newspapers pen. I had seen it happen to others many stop her, she was gone. I knew it was after school. times. But up until now it had never hap­ useless to run after her, she was as I was ten years old when I left school. pened to me. Each time I had seen it, it obstinate as a pregnant woman. It was in the middle of October, two had made me feel quite sick inside. I had I heard from Mazambane, that same years after father's death. I liked school seen it happen to late-comers, noise- afternoon, that my mother nearly spoil­ very much but was forced to leave. Let makers, those without school uniform ed Mr Khoza's face with her long nails. me explain how it happened. It was Fri­ and those who played truant. It was hor­ The following day I was chased out of day and we were having our first lesson rible. the school. I knew it was my mother's of the day with Mr Khoza. He had set I watched him as he reached up to the fault. I couldn't blame her. My future for us a whole bunch of Religious ques­ topmost shelf of the bookcase and was now bleak, shattered and uncertain. tions to answer in our exercise books. I brought down the dreaded white, shiny I knew I had to support my mom who was sitting next to Mazambane Nkuna at cane. couldn't even knit a doll's jersey. the back. Mr Khoza was sitting at his 'Where will you take it,' he mocked, Life goes on, it changes. Maybe this desk, gazing suspiciously around with his 'on the buttocks, or somewhere else?' world has been designed for the benefit hawk eyes, searching for trouble. I lifted my hand palm upwards and of the few. I've always reasoned life is Mazambane covered his mouth with held it there. The white cane went high full of ups and downs.

Reluctant Neighbour 16 December '84

When the reign of the prison warder's lease The ghetto rumbles. expires he will forsake the transparent doors Converted by alien spirits with a bleeding heart. it rejoices too the victory of the white god. The jingle of the rustling chains and keys Oh my ancestors, will be a phantom cry of the past. fathers of distorted sculptures, whose children have gone with the western storm He is my neighbour in prison their souls with the nightmarish twilight, and he walks the corridors with borrowed comfort. here I am, Africa in its struggle. When we like neighbours forsake our dwelling place I'll write a testimonial for him and tell Moritso Makhunga about his iron discipline.

Nhlanhla Paul Maake

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 Bessie Head was buried in Serowe, Botswana over the weekend of April 27 1986. Her death, at 49, has had a low profile in the press, but those who knew her through her writing have registered the loss. She was a vigorous storyteller, a novelist who swivelled her commentary to mirror the dehumanisation of South African black people in new ways, an 'exile' who rebuilt her personal identity amidst the multiracial benevolence and co-operative effort of Batswana society, and a writer who married the tradition of the novel, of literacy itself to an older African oral tradition. Born in Pietermaritzburg of a white mother and a black stablehand (after this alliance her mother was certified insane), Bessie Head's early history of literal rejection by foster parents and an institutionalised childhood — a classic history of emotional abuse compounded by the wider social abuse she then encountered in the racial structure of South African society — propelled her with great force into a life of creative reparation. She worked briefly at The Golden City Post, picking up the habits of prose economy which later served her well in fiction. But she could not get going as a writer in South Africa. The rigidity and despair of the system inhibited her essential gifts, which are humane, flexible, humorous, turning on joke, idiom and the unpredictable, which always signals individuality. After a brief and unhappy marriage, she left for Botswana in 1964, and settled in Serowe, where her work as a teacher and market gardener provided the economic base for her writing life. She produced three novels: When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971) and A Question of Power (1974). The first novel chronicles the process of transition from South African to African society. Despite its idyllic and pastoral mood, the vision is complex, taking into account the threat and darkness of tribalism as weighed against the racism left behind. Maru is more diagrammatically structured, but is a moving account of how a prominent public gesture, and a love relationship, can trigger reformist currents in a wider community. Head was beginning to move into deeper areas of human identity in Maru, as the style indicates. Her concern with inner breakdown and healing emerged fully in her next novel, A Question of Power, which drew mixed reaction. It is certainly the novel as inner nightmare, but its visions are subjectively A Tribute to Bessie Head compelling, and the hallucinations of the protagonist are BY CHERRY CLAYTON set against, and finally contained by, the practical humanity of everyday village life.. Finely researched and written it is strongly shaped and Head was always interested in the history of her moralised history, positioning an old man, memory of adopted country (where she lived as a stateless person the Bamangwato tribe, inside a modern narrative which until Seretse Khama granted her citizenship in 1979). She is corrective of white conservative historiography. She drew on the memories and crafts of villagers for her explores the benevolent paradox (the bewitched book on Serowe, Serowe Village of the Rain Wind crossroad) of Bechuanaland's history, which allowed (1981), which consists mainly of interviews, oral history modern Botswana to escape the fate of South Africa. which she presents simply. The great chief Khama is rightly the hero of the Her collection of short stories, The Collector of narrative and she validates her admiration for him as the Treasures (1977), which she seemed to undervalue as the voice of enlightened African tradition. overspill of her historical research, is in fact one of the Head sought a 'compromise of tenderness' between finest collections of stories to emerge from Southern opposed traditions in Africa, and her writing was one of Africa. Its wide sociological grasp is insistently and the finest expressions of that compromise. She served repeatedly focused in individual lives, particularly the her adopted country, which offered her self-respect, with lives of village women, and its sense of growing tragedy great eloquence and energy. The values she celebrates is finely balanced by village resilience and the author's are constructed on the corrupted base of her early South compassion. African life, and the urgency with which she sought A Bewitched Crossroad (1984), Head's last published them out provides a disturbing commentary on the book, was also her most signal service to Botswana. country she left behind. 14 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 THE LOVERS

he love affair began in the sum­ bundles of wood and began running few drops of rain beat down on her mer. The love affair began in home to escape the approaching storm. back. The sky darkened. Tthose dim dark days when young Suddenly, one of the young women Anxiously she looked around for the men and women did not have love af­ halted painfully. In her haste she had nearest shelter and saw a cave in some fairs. It was one of those summers trodden on a large thorn. rocks at the base of a hill nearby. She when it rained in torrents. Almost every 'Hurry on home, Monosi!' she cried picked up her bundle of wood and afternoon towards sunset the low- to a little girl panting behind her. T limped hastily towards it, with the hanging, rain-filled clouds would sweep have to get this thorn out of my foot. If drops of rain pounding down faster across the sky in packed masses and the rain catches me I shall find some and faster. She had barely entered the suddenly, with barely a warning, the shelter and come home once it is over. cave when the torrent unleashed itself rain would pour down in blinding Without a backward glance the little in a violent downpour. Her immediate sheets. girl sped on after the hard-running concern was to seek sanctuary but a The young women and little girls group of wood gatherers. The young moment later her heart lurched in fear were still out in the forest gathering woman was quite alone with the ap­ as she realised that she was not alone. wood that afternoon when the first proaching storm. The thorn proved dif­ The warmth of another human filled warning signs of rain appeared in the ficult to extract. It had broken off and the interior. She swung around swiftly sky. They hastily gathered up their embedded itself deeply in her heel. A and found herself almost face to face

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 15 with a young man. complicated than hers. His father had mother was very kind-hearted. But 'We can shelter here together from three wives. All the first born of the there was a disturbing undertone in her the storm,' he said with quiet authority. first, second and third houses were household too. Her mother and father His face was as kind and protective boys. There were altogether eight — and she was sure of it due to her as his words. Reassured, the young children, three boys and five girls, he detailed knowledge of her mother's woman set down her bundle of sticks in explained. It was only when the conver­ way of life — had not cohabited for the roomy interior of the cave and sation became more serious that years either. A few years ago her father together they seated themselves near its Tselane realized that a whole area of had taken another wife. She was her entrance. The roar of the rain was the young man's speech had eluded mother's only child. Oh, the surface of deafening so that even the thunder was her. He was the extreme opposite of the their household was polite and muffled by its intensity. With quiet, light chatty young woman. He talked harmonious but her father was rarely at harmonious movements the young man from deep rhythms within himself as home. He was always irritable and undid a leather pouch tied to his waist. though he had invented language morose when he was home. He spent all his time cattle-herding and specifically for his own use. He had an T am sorry about all the trouble in to while away the long hours he busied immense range of expression and feel­ your home,' she said at last, in a softer, himself with all kinds of leather work, ing at his command; now his eyes lit up more thoughtful tone. She was shaken assembling skins into all kinds of with humour, then they were absolutely at having been abruptly jolted into clothes and blankets. He had a large serious and in earnest. completely new ways of thought. number of sharpened implements in his He swayed almost imperceptibly as The young man smiled and then pouch. He indicated to the young he talked. He talked like no one she quite deliberately turned and stared at woman that he wished to extract the had ever heard talking before, yet all her. She stared back at him with friend­ thorn. She extended her foot towards his utterances were direct, simple and ly interest. She did not mind his close him and for some time he busied forthright. She bent forward and listen­ scrutiny of her person; he was easy to himself with this task, gently whittling ed more attentively to his peculiar man­ associate with, comfortable, truthful away the skin around the thorn until he ner of speech. and open in his every gesture. had exposed it sufficiently enough to T don't like my mother,' he said, 'Do you approve of arranged mar­ extract it. shocking her. T am her only son simply riages?' he asked, still smiling. The young woman looked at his face because my father stopped cohabiting T have not thought of anything,' she with interest and marvelled at the ease with her after I was born. My father replied truthfully. and comfort she felt in his presence. In and I are alike. We don't like to be con­ The dark was approaching rapidly. their world men and women lived trolled by anyone and she made his life The rain had trickled down to a fine strictly apart, especially the young and a misery when they were newly mar­ drizzle. Tselane stood up and picked up unmarried. This sense of apartness and ried. It was as if she had been born with her bundle of wood. The young man separateness continued even a worm eating at her heart; she is picked up his gourd of milk. They were throughout married life and marriage satisfied with nothing. The only way barely visible as they walked home itself seemed to have no significance my father could control the situation together in the dark. Tselane's home beyond a union for the production of was to ignore her completely . . . .' was not too far from the hill. She lived children. This wide gap between the He remained silent awhile, concen­ on the extreme western side of the sexes created embarrassment on the trating on his own thoughts. T don't village, he on the extreme eastern side. level of personal contact; the young think I approve of arranged marriages,' A bright fire burned in the hut they us­ men often slid their eyes away uneasily he said finally. 'My father would never ed as a cooking place on rainy days. or giggled at the sight of a woman. The have married her had he had his own Tselane's mother was sitting bent for­ young man did none of this. He had choice. He was merely presented with ward on her low stool, listening attent­ stared her directly in the eyes; all his her one day by his family and told that ively to a visitor's tale. It was always like movements were natural and unaf­ they were to be married and there was this — her mother was permanently sur­ fected. He was also very pleasing to nothing he could do about it.' rounded by women who confided in her. look at. She thanked him with a smile He kept silent about the torture he The whole story of life unfolded daily once he had extracted the thorn and endured from his mother. She hated around her stool; the ailments of folded her extended foot beneath her. him deeply and bitterly. She had hurled children, women who had just had mis­ The violence of the storm abated a little stones at him and scratched him on the carriages, women undergoing treatment but the heavily-laden sky continued to arms and legs in her wild frustration. for barren wombs — the story was pour forth a steady downpour. Like his father he eluded her. He rarely endless. It was the great pleasure tf She had seen the young man around spent time at home but kept the cattle- Tselane to seat herself quietly behind her the village; she could vaguely place his post as his permanent residence. When mother's stool and listen with fascinated family connections. he approached home it was always with ears to this endless tale of woe. 'Aren't you the son of Rra-Keaja?' some gift of clothes or blankets. On Her mother's visitor that evening was she asked. She had a light chatty voice that particular day he had an enormous on the tail end of a description of one of with an undertone of laughter in it, gourd filled with milk. her children's ailments; chronic epilepsy, very expressive of her personality. She Tselane floundered out of her depth which seemed beyond cure. The child liked, above all, to be happy. in the face of such stark revelations. seemed in her death throes and the T am the very Keaja he is named They lived the strictest of traditional mother was just at the point f after,' the young man replied with a ways of life, all children were under the demonstrating the violent seizures when smile. T am the first-born in the control of their parents until they mar­ Tselane entered. Tselane quietly set her family.' ried therefore it was taboo to discuss bundle of wood down in a corner and T am the first-born in the family, their elders. In her impulsive chatty the conversation continued uninter­ too,' she said. T am Tselane, the way and partly out of embarrassment, rupted. She took her favourite place daughter of Mma-Tselane.' it had been on the tip of her tongue to behind her mother's stool. Her father's His family ramifications were more say that she liked her mother, that her second wife, Mma-Monosi, was seated

16 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 on the opposite side of the fire, her face happy relationship. They treated each always in order.' She looked thoroughly composed and serious. Her child, the lit­ other as equals; both enjoyed hard work startled and agitated. T know of tle girl Monosi, fed and attended to, lay and whenever they were alone together, something terrible that once happened to fast asleep on a sleeping mat in one cor­ they laughed and joked all the time. Her someone who questioned life,' she added ner of the hut. own mother regarded Tselane as an ob­ grimly. Tselane loved the two women of the ject to whom she lowered her voice and 'Who is this?' What terrible thing hap­ household equally. They were both issued commands between clenched pened?' Tselane asked in her turn powerful independent women but with teeth. Very soon Mma-Tselane stirred in agitated. sharply differing personalities. Mma- her chair and said in that lowered voice: T can't tell you,' Mma-Monosi said Tselane was a queen who vaguely surv­ 'Tselane, fetch me my bag of herbs.' firmly. 'It is too terrible to mention.7 eyed the kingdom she ruled, with an Tselane obediently stood up and hur­ Tselane subsided into silence with a abstracted, absent-minded air. Over the ried to her mother's living quarters for speculative look in her eye. She years of her married life she had built up the bag of herbs. Another interval understood Mma-Monosi well. She a way of life for herself that filled her followed during which her mother and couldn't keep a secret. She could always with content. She was reputed to be very the visitor discussed the medicinal pro­ be tempted into telling a secret, if not to­ delicate in health as after the birth of perties of the herbs. Then Mma-Monosi day then on some other day. She decided Tselane she had suffered a number of served the evening meal. Before long the to find out the terrible story. miscarriages and seemed incapable of visitor departed with assurances that When Keaja arrived home his family bearing any more children. Her delicate Mma-Tselane would call on her the was eating the evening meal. He first ap­ health was a source of extreme irritation following day. Then they sat for a while proached the woman's quarters and of­ to her husband and at some stage he had in companionable silence. At one stage, fered them the gourd of milk. abandoned her completely and taken seeing that the fire was burning low, 'The cows are calving heavily,' he ex­ Mma-Monosi as his second wife, inten­ Mma-Tselane arose and selected a few plained. 'There is a lot of milk and I can ding to perpetuate his line and name pieces of wood from Tselane's bundle to bring some home every day.' through her healthy body. stoke up the fire. He was greeted joyously by the second The arrangement suited Mma- 'Er, Tselane,' she said, 'your wood is and third wives of his father who anx­ Tselane. She was big-hearted and broad- quite dry. Did you shelter from the iously enquired after their sons who lived minded and yet, conversely, she prided storm?' with him at the cattle-post. herself in being the meticulous upholder 'There is a cave in the hill not far from 'They are quite well,' he said, politely. of all the traditions the community here, mother,' Tselane replied. 'And I T settled them and the cattle before I adhered to. Once Mma-Monosi became sheltered there.' She did not think it was left. I shall return again in the early mor­ a part of the household, Mma-Tselane wise to add that she had sheltered with a ning because I am worried about the did no work but entertained and paid young man; a lot of awkward questions young calves.' calls the day long. Mma-Monosi ran the of the wrong kind might have followed. He avoided his mother's baleful stare entire household. The mother cast her eyes vaguely over and tight, deprived mouth. She never The two women complemented each her daughter as if to say all was in order had anything to say to him, although, on other, for, if Mma-Tselane was a queen, in her world; she always established sim­ his approach to the woman's quarters, then Mma-Monosi was a humble ple facts about any matter and turned he had heard her voice, shrill and harsh, worker. On the surface, Mma-Monosi peacefully to the next task at hand. She dominating the conversation. His meal appeared as sane and balanced as Mma- suddenly decided that she was tired and was handed to him and he retreated to Tselane, but there was another side to would retire. Tselane and Mma-Monosi his father's quarters. He ate alone and her personality that was very precarious­ were left alone seated near the fire. apart from the women. A bright fire ly balanced. Mma-Monosi took her Tselane was still elated by her encounter burned in his father's hut. trembling way through life. If all was with the young man; so many pleasant 'Hullo, Father-of-Me,' his father stable and peaceful, then Mma-Monosi thoughts were flying through her head. greeted him, making affectionate play on was stable and peaceful. If there was any 'I want to ask you some questions, the name Keaja which means I am eating disruption or disorder, Mma-Monosi's Mma-Monosi,' she said, eagerly. now because I have a son to take care of precarious inner balance registered every 'What is it you want to say, my child?' me. wave and upheaval. She hungered for Mma-Monosi said, stirring out of a His father doted on him. In his eyes approval of her every action and could reverie. there was no greater son than Keaja. be upset for days if criticised or 'Do you approve of arranged mar­ After an exchange of greetings his father reprimanded. riages, Mma-Monosi?' she asked, asked: So, between them, the two women earnestly. 'And what is your news?' achieved a very harmonious household. Mma-Monosi drew in her breath bet­ He gave his father the same informa­ Both were entirely absorbed in their full ween her teeth with a sharp, hissing tion about the cows calving heavily and busy daily round; both were uncon­ sound, then she lowered her voice in hor­ the rich supply of milk; that his other cerned that they received scant attention ror and said: two sons were quite well. They ate for a from the man of the household and Rra- 'Tselane, you know quite well that I while in companionable silence. His Tselane was entirely concerned with his am your friend but if anyone else heard mother's voice rose shrill and penetrating own affairs. He was a prominent you talking like that you would be in in the silent night. Quite unexpectedly his member of the chiefs court and he trouble! Such things are never discussed father looked up with a twinkle in his eye divided his time between the chiefs court here! What put that idea into your head and said: and his cattle-post. He was rich in cattle because it is totally unknown to me.' 'Those extra calves will stand us in and his herds were taken care of by ser­ 'But you question life when you begin good stead, Father-of-Me. I have just vants. He was away at his cattle-post at to grow up,' Tselane said defensively. started negotiations about your mar­ that time. 'That is what you never, never do,' riage.' It was with Mma-Monosi that the Mma-Monosi said severely. 'If you ques­ A spasm of chill, cold fear almost con­ young girl, Tselane, enjoyed a free and tion life you will upset it. Life is stricted Keaja's heart.

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 17 'Who am I to marry, father?' he ask­ private and personal but affected by a her work areas until he had caught ed, alarmed. large number of social regulations and some glimpse of her. She was always in 'I cannot mention the family name taboos. If he broke the taboos at a per­ a crowd of gaily chattering young just yet,' his father replied, cheerfully, sonal and private level, death, sickness women. The memory of their first en­ not sensing his son's alarm. 'The and great misfortune would fall upon counter had been so fresh and stimu­ negotiations are still at a very delicate his family. If he broke the taboos at a lating, so full of unexpected surprises in stage.' social level, death and disaster would dialogue that she longed to approach 'Have you committed yourself in this fall upon the community. him. matter, father?' he asked, a sharp There were many periods in a man's One afternoon, while out gathering angry note in his voice. life when abstinence from sexual rela­ wood with her companions, she noticed 'Oh yes,' his father replied. 'I have tions was required; often this him among the distant bushes and con­ given my honour in this matter. It is abstinence had to be practised com­ trived to remove herself from her com­ just that these things take a long time to munally as in the period preceding the panions. As she walked towards him, arrange as there are many courtesies to harvest of crops and only broken on he quite directly approached her and be observed.' the day of the harvest thanksgiving took hold of her hand. She made no ef­ 'How long?' Keaja asked. ceremony. fort to pull her hand free. It rested in 'About six new moons may have to These regulations and taboos applied his as though it belonged there. They pass,' his father replied. 'It may even to men and women alike but the initia­ walked on some distance, then he paus­ be longer than that. I cannot say at this tion ceremony for women, which ed, and turning to face her told her all stage.' Tselane had also experienced the he had on his mind in his direct, simple 'I could choose a wife for myself.' previous year, was much more complex way. This time he did not smile at all. the son said, with deadly quietude. 'I in its instruction. A delicate balance 'My father will arrange a marriage could choose my own wife and then in­ had to be preserved between a woman's for me after six new moons have pass­ form you of my choice.' reproductive cycle and the safety of the ed,' he said. 'I do not want that. I want His father stared at him in surprise. community; at almost every stage in a wife of my own choosing but all the 'You cannot be different from her life a woman was a potential source things I want can only cause trouble.' everyone else,' he said. 'I must be a of danger to the community. All She looked away into the distance parent with a weakness that you can women were given careful instruction not immediately knowing what she talk to me so.' in precautions to be observed during ought to say. Her own parents had Keaja lowered his eyes to his eating times of menstruation, childbirth and given her no clue of their plans for her bowl. There was no way in which he accidental miscarriages. Failure to future; indeed she had not had cause to could voice a protest against his society observe the taboos could bring harm to think about it but she did not like most because the individual was completely animal life, crops and the community. of the young men of the village. They smothered by communal and social It could be seen then that the com­ had a hang-dog air as though the socie­ demands. He was a young man munity held no place for people wildly ty and its oppressive ways had broken possessed by individual longings and carried away by their passions, that their will. She liked everything about passions; he had a nervous balance that there was logic and order in the careful- Keaja and she felt safe with him as on either sought complete isolation or true lv arranged sterile emotional and that stormy afternoon in the cavern companionship and communication physical relationships between men and when he had said: 'We can shelter here and for a long while all appeared in women. There was no one to challenge together from the storm .... order with him because of the deceptive the established order of things; if peo­ 'My own thoughts are not compli­ surface peace of his personality. Even ple felt any personal unhappiness it was cated,' he went on, still holding on to that evening Keaja's protest against an smothered and subdued and so life for her hand. 'I thought I would find out arranged marriage was hardly heard by the community proceeded from day to how you felt about this matter. I his father. day in peace and harmony. thought I would like to choose you as His father knew that he indulged his As all lovers do, they began a per­ my wife. If you do not want to choose son, that they had free and easy ex­ sonal and emotional dialogue that ex­ me in turn, I shall not pursue my own changes beyond what was socially per- cluded all life around them. Perhaps its wants any longer. I might even marry missable; even that brief exchange was pattern and direction was the same for the wife my father chooses for me.' more than all parents allowed their all lovers, painful and maddening by She turned around and faced him children. They arranged all details of turns in its initial insecurity. and spoke with a clarity of thought that their children's future and on the fatal Who looked for who? They could startled her. day merely informed them that they not say, except that the far-western un­ 'I am afraid of nothing,' she said. were to be married to so-and-so. There polluted end of the river where women 'Not even trouble or death, but I need was no point in saying: 'I might not be drew water and the forests where they some time to find out what I am think­ able to live with so-and-so. She might gathered firewood became Keaja's ing.' be unsuited to me,' so that when Keaja favourite hunting grounds. Their work He let go of her hand and so they lapsed into silence, his father merely periods coincided at that time. The parted and went their separate ways. smiled indulgently and engaged him in corn had just been sown and the From that point onwards right until the small talk. women were idling in the village until following day, she lived in a state of Keaja was certainly of marriageable the heavy soaking rains raised the weed high elation. Her thought processes age. The previous year he had gone in their fields, then their next busy were not all coherent, indeed she had through his initiation ceremony. Apart period would follow when they hoed not a thought in her head. Then the il- from other trials endured during the out the weeds between their corn. logic of love took over. Just as she was ceremony, detailed instruction had Keaja returned every day to the about to pick up the pitcher in the late been given to the young men of his age village with gourds of milk for his afternoon, she suddenly felt desperately group about sexual relations between family and it did not take Tselane long ill, so ill that she was almost brought to men and women. They were hardly to note that he delayed and lingered in the point of death. She experienced a

18 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 paralyzing lameness in her arms and The young man was full of fore­ fered from theirs. Keaja had not been legs. The weight of the pitcher with thought and planning. He knew that, in idle all this while; he had prepared all which she was to draw water was too terms of his own society, he was they would need for their journey and heavy for her to endure. starting a terrible mess, but then his hidden their provisions in a safe place. She appealed to Mma-Monosi. society only calculated along the lines The second alternative was more dif­ 'I feel faint and ill today,' she said. 'I of human helplessness in the face of ficult for the lovers. They could inform cannot draw water.' overwhelming odds. It did not calculate their parents of their love and ask that Mma-Monosi was only too happy to for human inventiveness and initiative. they be married He was not sure of the take over her chores but at the same He only needed the young girl's pledge outcome but it was to invite death or time consulted anxiously with her and from then onwards he took the in­ worse. It might still lead to the escape mother about this sudden illness. Mma- itiative in all things. He was to startle route out of the village as he was not Tselane, after some deliberation, decid­ and please her from that very day with planning for death. ed that it was the illness young girls get his logical mind. It was as if he knew So after some thought Tselane decid­ when they are growing too rapidly. that she would come at some time, that ed to tell her parents because, as she She spent a happy three days doctor­ they would linger in joy with their love- pointed out, the first plan would be too ing her daughter with warm herb drinks making, so that when Tselane eventual­ heartbreaking for their parents. They, as Mma-Tselane liked nothing better ly expressed agitation at the lateness of therefore, decided on that very day to than to concentrate on illness. Still, the the hour, he, with a superior smile, in­ inform their parents of their love and physical turmoil the young girl felt con­ dicated a large bundle of wood nearby name the date on which they wished to tinued unabated; at night she trembled that he had collected for her to take marry. violently from head to toe. It was so home. It was nearing dusk when Tselane ar­ shocking and new that for two days she A peaceful interlude followed and rived home with her bundle of wood. succumbed completely to the blow. It the community innocently lived out its Her mother and Mma-Monosi were wasn't any coherent thought processes day-by-day life, unaware of the disrup­ seated out in the courtyard, engaged in that made her struggle desperately to tion and upheaval that would soon fall some quiet conversation. her feet on the third day but a need to upon it. The women were soon out in Tselane set down her bundle, ap­ quieten the anguish. She convinced her the fields, hoeing weeds and tending proached the two women and knelt mother and Mma-Monosi that she felt their crops, Tselane among them. She down quietly by her mother's side. Her well enough to perform her wood worked side by side with Mma-Monosi, mother turned towards her, expecting gathering chores. Towards the after­ as she had always done. There was not some request or message from a friend. noon she hurried to the forest area, even a ripple of the secret life she now There was no other way except for carefully avoiding her companions. lived; if anything, she worked harder Tselane to convey her own message in She was relieved, on meeting Keaja, and with greater contentment. She the most direct way possible. to see that his face bore the same laughed and joked as usual with Mma- 'Mother,' she said. T am expecting a anguished look that she felt. He spoke Monosi but sound instinct made her child by the son of Rra-Keaja. We wish first. 'I felt so ill and disturbed,' he keep her private affair to herself. to be married by the next moon. We said. T could do nothing but wait for When the corn was already high in love each other . . . .' your appearance.' the fields and about to ripen, Tselane For a moment her mother frowned They sat down on the ground realised that she was expecting a child. as though her child's words did not together. She was so exhausted by her A matter that had been secret could be make sense. Mma-Monosi's body two-day struggle that for a moment she a secret no longer. When she confided shuddered several times as though she leaned forward and rested her head on this news to Keaja, he quite happily ac­ were cold but she maintained a deathly his knee. Her thought processes seemed cepted it as a part of all the plans he silence. Eventually, Tselane's mother to awaken once more because she smil­ had made, for as he said to her at that lowered her voice and said between ed contentedly and said: T want to time: T am not planning for death clenched teeth: think.' when we are so happy. I want that we 'You are to go to your hut and re­ Eventually she raised herself and, should live.' main there. On no account are you to with shining eyes, looked at the young He had only one part of all his plan­ leave without the supervision of Mma- man. ning secure, a safe escape route outside Monosi.' T felt so ill,' she said. 'My mother the village and on to a new and For a time Mma-Tselane sat looking kept on giving me herb drinks. She said unknown life they would make into the distance, a broken woman. it was normal to feel faint and dizzy together. They had made themselves Her social prestige, her kingdom, her when one is growing. I know now what outcasts from the acceptable order of self-esteem crumbled around her. made me feel so ill. I was fighting my village life and he presented her with A short while later her husband training. My training has told me that two plans from which she could entered the yard. He had spent an en­ people are not important in themselves choose. The first alternative was the joyable day at the chief's court with but you so suddenly became important simpler for them. They could leave the other men. He now wished for his to me, as a person. I did not know how village at any moment and without in­ evening meal and retirement for the to tell my mother all this. I did not forming anyone of their intentions. The night. The last thing he wanted was know how to tell her anything yet she world was very wide for a man. He had conversation with women, so he looked was kind and took care of me. Event­ travelled great distances, both alone up irritably as his wife appeared ually I thought I would lose my mind so and in the company of other men, without his evening meal. She explain­ I came here to find you ....' while on his hunting and herding ed herself with as much dignity as she It was as if, from that moment on­ duties. The area was safe for travel for could muster. She was almost collaps­ wards, they quietly and of their own some distance. He had sat around ing with shock. He listened in disbelief will had married. They began to plan firesides and heard stories about wars and gave a sharp exclamation of anger. together how and when they should and fugitives and hospitable tribes who 'Tselane,' Mma-Monosi said, meet. lived far away and whose customs dif­ earnestly. 'It is no light matter to break

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 custom. You pay for it with your life. I 'They have taken the direction of the The hill from then onwards became should have told you the story that hill. He knows that the hilltop is an unpleasant embodiment of sinister night we discussed custom. When I was superior to any other. People are angry forces which destroy life. It was no a young girl we had a case such as this and someone might think of attacking longer considered a safe dwelling place but not such a deep mess. The young them. An attacker will find it a difficult for the tribe. They packed up their man had taken a fancy to a girl and she task as the young man will hurl stones belongings on the backs of their to him. He, therefore, refused the girl down on him before he ever gets near. animals, destroyed the village and his parents had chosen for him. They Our child is quite safe with him.' migrated to a safer area. could not break him and so they killed The deserted area remained unoccu­ him. They killed him even though he pied until 1875 when people of the had not touched the girl. But there is Bamalete tribe settled there. Although one thing I want you to know. I am strangers to the area, they saw the same your friend and I will die for you. No phenomenon, heard the loud groans of one will injure you while I am alive.' anguish and saw the silent floating Their easy, affectionate relationship spirits of the lovers. The legend was returned to them. They talked for some kept alive from generation to genera­ time about the love affair. Mma- tion and so the hill stands to this day in Monosi absorbing every word with the village of Otse in southern delight. A while later Mma-Tselane re­ Botswana as an eternal legend of love. entered the yard. She was still too angry Letswe La Baratani, The Hill of The to talk to her own child but she called Lovers. Mma-Monosi to one side and informed her that she had won an assurance in high places that no harm would come to her child. And so began a week of raging matter of factly storms and wild irrational delibera­ tions. It was a family affair. It was a i like the blackman public affair. As a public affair it Then the story took a horrible turn. who reeks of sweat would bring ruin and disaster upon the Tension built up towards the day the i like the blackman community and public anger was high. lovers were supposed to return to com­ with his odour sweet Two parents showed themselves up in a munity life. Days went by and they did when his sweat he licks bad light, the father of Tselane and the not return. Eventually search parties and feels the sweet mother of Keaja. Rra-Tselane was ada­ were sent out to look for them but they salty taste of it mant that the marriage would never had disappeared. Not even their foot­ matter of factly take place. He preferred to sound death" marks were visible on the bare rock he likes it warnings all the time. The worm that faces and tufts of grass on the hillside. the blackman likes it had been eating at the heart of Keaja's At first the searchers returned and did mother all this while finally arose and not report having seen any abnormal devoured her heart. She too could be- phenomena, only a baffled surprise. i, like the blackman heard to sound death warnings. Then a Then Mma-Monosi's precarious im­ like the sweet curious and t mporary solution was aginative balance tipped over into taste of my sweat handed down from high places. It was chaos. She was seen walking grief- that flows said that if the lovers removed stricken towards the hill. As she reach­ a bitter stream themselves from the community for a ed its base she stood still and the whole of gall certain number of days, it would make drama of the disappearance of the drowning my cheeks allowance for public anger to die down. lovers was re-created before her eyes. i also like the sweet Then the marriage of the lovers would She first heard loud groans of anguish taste of sweat of toil be considered. that made her blood run cold. She saw matter of factly * So appalling was the drama to the that as soon as Tselane and Keaja set community that on the day Keaja was foot on the hill, the rocks parted and a bitter salty sweat flows released from his home and allowed to gaping hole appeared. The lovers sank down the blackman's cheeks approach the home of Tselane, all the into its depths and the rocks closed over like a jelly of caked blood people withdrew to their own homes so them. As she called, Tselane! Keaja!' of gaping dead men as not to witness the fearful sight. Only their spirits rose and floated sound­ strewn on pavements Mma-Monosi, who had supervised the lessly with unseeing eyes to the top of last details of the departure, stood the hill. the blackman openly watching the direction in which Mma-Monosi returned to the village likes the sweat the young lovers left the village. She and told a solemn and convincing story of toil and burden saw them begin to ascend the hill not of all she had seen. People only had to the blackman far from the home of Tselane. As be informed that such phenomena ex­ likes the sweat darkness was approaching, she turned isted and they all began seeing it too. matter of factly and walked back to her yard. To Mma- Then Mma-Tselane, maddened and Tselane, who lay in a state of nervous distraught by the loss of her daughter collapse in her hut, Mma-Monosi made slowly made her way to the hill. With Norman Tshikovha her last, sane pronouncement on the sorrowful eyes she watched the drama whole affair. re-create itself before her. She returned The young man is no fool,' she said. home and died.

20 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 Crossing the Desert This is the landscape of prophecy the ancient Namib tilted sand from the mountains desert upon desert from Okahandja Okazize Wilhelmstal Karibib the N71 where the squat graves of the Mahareros assert the honour of rebellion by a deep dry riverbed where the municipal pool's wired in on blue alert where towering koppies named for kaisers long dead helmeted in ironstone clad in the yellow braid of acacia commemorate colonial massacres and the railhead mi the low of cattle now the meat-rack of Namibia this is carcase land where blood is cheaper than rain turning west we travel through rocks like a brazier the tyres fry on the tar the highway leads where they came there are crows which mean carrion bugs on the windshield we are warned of kudu vaulting from Francoisfontein over the foot-and-mouth fence the embankment the four- wheeled vehicle like a capsule comfortable against the descent down an escarpment hiding nothing all revealed Renegade Blues but once the marble hills fade the bushes relent Seeing that most of us live day by day and only stones flower and the grasses thin and only a few impala-leapers into the rubble of eternity piled and spent hurl themselves across weeks and months across borders, fences, roads and seas there is Usakos corrugated white and buckled tin across drought and across hunger and Ebony Arandis Rossing where the sky's red from the one past to the multiple future . . . Spitzkuppe to steer by on the planet's rim at 80 kms an hour there I lifted my eyes from the dead what can we say, we pedestrians world into the next world saw instead of tortured lava flows stuck into the ground like thornbushes new courses geysers wells channels a fountainhead eyed-out by these people and their cattle too dumb to order ourselves a drink there where we have been eroded and worn destroyed arose too paralysed to know fear exactly what mad visionaries see in the wilderness a celestial city welcoming wide wondrous I suppose a gun in trained hands is knowledge by definition it must contain all qualities we in our its hinges and oily places intimate as a lover, viciousness but now we must fight with bare-hands can never maintain floating as in a dream against the monstrous spectacle of wasted time caressed with the perfect hand of gentleness Reading the newspapers we hardly even I gather it held all knowledge all peace everything supreme look between the lines, in short no armaments no sirens no hatred no police what happened to the times when our talking made sense it was the only place I knew where things were what they each newly lit conversation making ash out of the enemy, seem and what happened to our leaders, I call upon Doris Lessing St John William Blake and what happened to our friends Nongqawuse even without God they're all the same these heavenly projections hard men have taken over, seen by prophets disgusted with the long tyranny of woes we are no longer consulted — or hard women for all we know, when will this empire fall at last release subjection for we know nothing anymore when in the name of those who first challenged the status except this purple night and beyond it quo the rotting pumpkin of our spirit did humankind first conjure this alternative perfection? that chair, plastic and empty, turning left a few degrees we go where we have to go these cigarettes, those glasses, that brooding waiter, a Coke sign a palm-tree the sea-breeze rolling down mist all these things make us suspect each other and in Swakopmund we find a tourist bungalow we feel it like the damp sweat running down our backs tonight we swim in the sea drink beer get pissed one of us will soon be turning traitor Eve they say rose from Adam's rib Christ from a herder's leaving us here alone crib we have crossed the desert to pink dunes foggy damp and and joining the movement. blessed.

Stephen Gray Patrick Fitzgerald

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 21 (or Tenjiwe Njikelana the sun came up and it was morning). I am happy They brought me a bowl of pap, I am glad coffee, I feel that I have done something cigarettes. and, at the same time, They said — 'you'll be a good boy.' I do not yet know this thing so well I am a little bit confused In the evening, the sun went down at this new world (or that suddenly the sun went down and it was evening). I can see through eyes that are wet I was left alone for an hour. I can feel 'Take a piss,' they said. inside 'Get comfortable. warm Tomorrow's another big day. and can make Ja, you'll talk and you'll talk and you'll talk'. with hands that shake and are not yet very sure. That night, a spirit the colour of ants To hold a pencil came through the window. is a strange thing And we talked and we talked T-e-n-j-i ... w-en-N-ji-... k-e-1-a-n-a and we talked. It has so many words I mean, Allan Kolski Horwitz sorry, It has so many letters I want to write so many letters to my mother The Flame in the Fire who is still alive (Dedicated to Ben Moloise, I want to write to her another victim ...) about what they are doing to us at KTC Moloise is dead there are so many things They hanged him one apartheid morning, I want to read before the sun rose what stamp before the sleeping lion awoke they are making in my pass before justice could protest I want to know Even before the publicly announced time when they make the wrong stamp. One day Moloise is dead I must read these laws. Executed in the name of white justice apparently he was a poet turned terrorist 'EACH ONE, TEACH ONE' apparently he turned his pen into a gun I will apparently the swop was never made I will Seems like someone's not telling the truth One day Anyway he's gone now, My children will write better laws. testimony and all

farouk stemmet Moloise is dead The Internal Security Act does that to people: the liberals say it's shocking the intellectuals say his spirit lives on TALK the conservatives say it leaves them cold the leftists say he's another victim of oppression Ben's mother shed tears of pain, of anger, They had me on the floor. Silently The stick came down, down. saying more than all of them They had me crawling and licking their boots. Moloise had died 'You can talk now, The spark became a flame or you can talk later. The flame has joined the fire But you'll talk. And the fires raging from angry hearts Ja, you'll talk and you'll talk into cordoned townships, and you'll talk.' Seeking freedom.

In the morning, the sun came up robert van niekerk

22 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 On the 9th of August 1956 20 000 women from all over South Africa gathered outside the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the pass laws which affect the majority of the country's people. These notorious laws were implemented to restrict and control the movement of black people. These women — among whom were Helen Joseph, Lilian Ngoyi and Raheena Khan — handed over a petition to Strydom's secretary and waited for the Prime Minister's promised response. And waited ... and waited .... Today, thirty years later, women are in the vanguard of the liberation struggle, resisting oppressive laws and fighting for a free, democratic South Africa. Staff ridersalute s these courageous women.

Women Arise Masechaba Women of our land arose heard call of distant drums summoning to unity to war oppressive laws Africa mother of children 1913 call impatient vibrated from eardrum to ear reluctant they arose those warrior-women to be like the rivers that and marched in the Tree State' ... meander to the seas eyes blazing they hammered forward their path, and racists quivered. Africa The women blazed nearer and mother of children nearer destitute forcing the final cowards dying but to burn that violent law determined their special restrictive permits of paper to prescribe themselves freedom that arrested human movement. to describe themselves free Forty years later Africa we were there your children no longer nestle in your arms holding the fort ... fiercely again, women crawl on your belly Lilian and Helen accept their fate (dumb, silent) who followed Charlotte Maxeke your children have rejected their garments leading our women to apex; August fifty-six of indifference of docile acceptance Women arose your children no longer (your children) sleep and do not thoughts bathed in sweat they marched sleep two's and three's of colours coming, coming Africa torrents of defiance the voice of your children to the very contaminated steps of Pretoria's Union Buildings erodes the mist-shrouded mountains they marched like hungry rain Petitions submitted and cuts through the valleys Strydom rewhitened like the pounding rivers looked, then preferred to hide ... that ravage and rape your fields taught his secretary lies ... 'Out on business!' Africa Bravery kept vigil today your rivers heal our wounds night transforming to triumph your fields offer us refuge how did their beings know and your mountains do not silence, no they hold and police dogs were watching waiting harbour for the slightest move to jump the sounds of warriors answering the call for justice. against that victory! Mothers can march to battle! WOMEN OF AFRICA, ARISE! Hva Mackay Alice Ntsongo

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 Dedication Ode to Aunt Mary For seventeen years for Helen Joseph she had to live in isolation among her community Mother of freedom Helen At seventy-three still a threat For seventeen years What savagery aimed against her she had to stay in the prison Bullets, batons, shattering windows that was the Transvaal Helen Joseph has defeated aggression, For seventeen years Her soul is free from racial contamination, she had to wear the heavy shawl Mother, lover of freedom of a banned person Dauntless ever, A banned woman Look at her refusing bread in old age A banned wife Eating rock A banned black-mother With the downtrodden, Her heart grows fonder, profounder Up to her dying day shown no mercy Her face is carved from steel up to her dying day Her eye is gentle and brave She enters the dock, stands still And some claim Listens carefully: the indictment read ... this is a Christian country It says nothing, nothing base about her and others claim Not anything to brand her foe of the people, this is a Christian government The people she lovingly serves, But we know it is not So she swallows and takes a deep breath. and so does Aunt Mary Moodley We are winning the battle! and all those restricted Down to the dark cell she strides and listed persons The Amandla trumpet behind her hundreds and more Blowing, blowing, blowing ... who wear the claw-marks scratched crimson on their lives by a 'Christian law'! Susan Lamu Anonymous The Great Day — August 9th

Your mother, my mother Our mothers, Marching ... They heard the call They came together and shared ideas They all had one aim in mind To show the regime They were not what the regime thought they were — robots. One husband might have reprimanded his wife, 'What do you people think you are up to?' And the wife might have answered bravely, 'We know our aims and objectives We mean to carry them out' Your mother and my mother. The day dawned, Staunch ... 'To the Union Buildings' They had heard the commanding tone And indeed they went Carrying us on their backs Gallant heroes of the time Courageous they were Women from all walks of life. Your mother, my mother Our mothers.

Jumaimah Motaung

24 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 198' Militant Beauty Fragility, flimsy womanhood flowers on her birthdays luxurious apartments and flashy cars have never been her aspiration Distorted women's lib refusing to mother kids and provide family comfort harassing a tired enslaved dad have never been her deeds. Attending to the needs however meagre they might be slaving for their well-being pretending abuses don't mean a thing Fighting Women her only aspiration keeping candlelight burning. Brilliant daughter of Africa Hardened by oppressive regime Fighting woman of our land she refuses to weep Hunted across the country even at death of innocents Once who continue age-old fight for justice By ever frenzied Special Branch hiding behind laws her only aspiration ... liberty. Who now have their pound of flesh behind bars Their pound of flesh on scales of blood behind walls of Standing defiantly writing in face of brutality But still Dorothy, age-old African victim and victor resulting from corrupt illegal minority. You still instill fear in their hearts. Flowering in natural beauty through progressive ideology Fearless sister she overcame imposed passivity Locked in barbed Barberton prison and became essence of militancy Where people live and die Spending stabbing days Her beauty is not her criterion Entangled nights but justice for all humanity, person to person. In the silent cell of angered hell. Gloria Mtungwa We are proud of you good sister You whose light bathed the path Whole-heartedly we tread the trail Refugee Mother Prepared to lay down our lives For mothers of your mould. In a world of war and restless nights words fill mouths like dictionaries Esther ka-Maleka the joining spear but they do not fill her heart A display of seasoning bravery she squeezes blood out of a dream Pushing forward struggling and dry weeds tumble from her eyes Militants born and mothered as black bark in a forest of ash Drawing in the fighting milk she forgets her name — forgets the clock That begot them the scorching sun — the long dusty road and remembers only that she is Mother You dedicated your life with a vacant mealie bowl in hand sacrificed your youth and a swollen belly of sadness Living the torture of 'solitary' in the crowding of dreams in a desert of dark grieving and memories Alone in the cloud of loneliness in the restless nights of war But still the chin uphigh a gape of hungry mouths For this we honour you suck at her sagging breasts for a morsel of freedom Keep fighting, Dorothy, keep fighting lick her empty fingers Tomorrow we'll stand united for the taste of peace Hand in hand comradely and she remembers only Holding the dream by the hand that she is Mother In a liberated South Africa ... to the many children of hope for the children of a new age creating history from her hidden tears writing history in the blood of our fallen heroes Duduzile Ndelu Dee September

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 25 > Q)

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Jazz pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) is South Africa's most internationally acclaimed musician. In December last year in New York, U.S.A, he spoke to South African poet Hein Willemse about his commitment to his art and to the struggle for liberation in South Africa.

ILLEMSE: Abdullah, can we start off from society, the keepers of the knowledge of how the society something you once said, namely that you see should be structured. Our duty is just to remind. To remind Wyourself as a 'delivery boy'. Explain that to me in ourselves and others what the true reality is, especially in terms of your music and your commitment to South African South Africa with the political situation. society. We have been playing this music for many many years. IBRAHIM: In the traditional society, especially (in) Africa, And all these waves come and go. Wat het Adam Small gese: the position or job of the so-called musician was never viewed jy is Moses, jy loop met die stok/so Elvis Pelvis daai jailhouse (as it is today) in the western world, where the musician is an rock/ jy skree Hosanna bly, maar jy moet skree teen Johnnie entertainer. In the traditional society if, at an early age, you Ray.' We're trying to keep the purity and the innocence and showed any musical inclination you were immediately drafted rhythm of the community that they have now turned into a in the field of medicine — traditional medicine. Because in subterranean culture with this constant institution of cultural the traditional society medicine and music were synonymous. imperialism. What they make us believe is that what we have A healing force. My great grandfather was a medicine man. I is inferior. That's all part of the strategy too, on a political remembep^he knew all the herbs. He was a stable-boy for level, make you feel inferior as a human being, make you feel Paul Kruger. inferior as far as learning is concerned. It's the same with the W: Do you really see your music as affecting society? I can music and culture. Once they get you to do that, I think for instance remember: I saw you singing the tribute to you've become completely subjugated. Solomon Mahlangu — unaccompanied. And I was greatly W: I agree with you completely. We have to get to the stage moved and touched by it. Do you see your music also fulfill­ where we dominate the cultural scene. Dominate the cultural ing that role, namely a vehicle through which people can view scene in the sense that our language is the norm, our music is themselves; an instrument through which they caA. -eact? the norm, our poetry ... And I see your music, from earlier I: Oh, definitely. I couldn't have put it better. What is our times onwards, taking elements of the community, taking role? As I've said: the West completely misinterpreted our elements of the downtrodden, the forgotten people, the work­ music. What shall I do? Become a millionaire? Buy a house in ing class and making that — almost in a raw form — accessi­ Malibu Beach? That has no meaning. As delivery boys we are ble. Presenting it as their voice, their authentic voice. And I like the keepers of the books, the keepers of the keys of the think that is necessary.

26 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 198~ I: The music is playing out our tradition. Being aware of our gets you to do his work. You see? If you can say to him: wait tradition is the most potent way of looking within ourselves, a minute, I am not begging you anymore, as from today. One truthfully. (People used to tell) me about 'this great of our songs says: 'Final arrival, end of the line/ nowhere to musician', this 'great music' ... You know, Kippie Moeketsi look but your eyes in mine./ No, no not anymore, we are not always used to say, 'My friend, do you know Planet Earth?' afraid of freedom.' Because die probleem is ons is bang. Nie He always used to ask, 'What is great music?' And I bang vir hulle nie. Ons is bang vir vryheid. Want wat se hulle remembei when Kippie asked that question nobody vir jou — hulle se vir jou, 'jy meen ek moet onder 'n govern­ answered.What shall they answer? I asked myself that ques­ ment bly waar jy vir ons gaan govern? Wat weet julle?' tion — many times. I've come to the United States and I went Afraid of freedom. The time must come when we say, 'We all over the world and listened to 'great musicians'. And then are not afraid of freedom'. you hear 'that by general consensus this is supposed to be W: I think we have reached that stage — in the last three, great music or great musicians.' So you just agree to it, you four months, the last eighteen months especially have proved go with the stream. But deep in your heart you know this that we've reached a pinnacle in the development of a doesn't really move you. historical consciousness of South Africans. Now, we know: Then I go home. I've stayed out for nine years in the we can, it's possible for us to overcome. It's the marvellous United States. I go home. I go to the (Athlone) stadium on thing of the committed artist. He is able to see himself and New Year's day with (the) Klops. And this troep comes by! insert himself in society and see that his interests are coter­ Man! And the music! Right! it makes my hair stand on end, minous with (those of the oppressed community). man! You know: daai tamboeriene en die banjo's en die bass. I: That's why I've said, I'm a delivery boy. My function in That's rhythm man! I feel tears come to my eyes. How am I the society is no more important than that of the street going to deride this, because there is no music that does this sweeper or a worker. The musician is no exception. to me. Except that. That for me is the yardstick. I don't care W: One way in which cultures function is that very often how intellectually it has been considered. elements of the subjugated classes are adapted, co-opted into the culture of the ruling class. A strange thing is actually hap­ W: Coming back to that, Dollar. It is common knowledge pening to your music. I am yet to learn about ruling-class that you see your roots essentially in the Coons. Some of your musicians who are taking over your music and co-opting it. It music refers to or is based on and reflects something of that seems to be very hard to adapt and co-opt. Why? old Coon element. A lot of people vilify that music saying it's I: The music is only the ultimate expression of the intention. 'only Coon music'. What you did was to take it, put a revolu­ The music says exactly the same about the intention of the tionary content — almost — to it. Saying, 'this is the music of people. The intention is so concrete and so strong that it can­ the people, listen to it.' not be co-opted. Maar hulle try ... I: You want to say this is not traditional music? Then what is? If this is not the traditional music, what is? Jy kan nie vir W: Taking the point of a commitment a bit further. How do die mense gaan vra, 'is die traditional music?' Die mense gaan you see artists — people like yourself — struggling in the se, 'Jy's 'n case, moenie vir my kom vra of dit traditional ghetto. Struggling to get out. What do you say to people like music (is) nie. Dis 'n vastrap of dis 'n square!' You know, the that about the need to express themselves? But now in order music functions as the music functions. And the music func­ to express themselves they say, 'okay to be known I rather tions in society. Now you ask people in Cape Town en vra of chose to play commercial disco,' rather than looking at the die Klopse traditional music is. 'Nee,' se hulle, 'dis Diena- real roots of the people here. (That means) looking at my kanna-kiena!' community. You know there are different choices and they opt for the one which is commercially viable. What do you On the 26th March 1658 the Dutch ship, Amersfoort tell people like that? docked at the Cape with about 300 slaves from Angola. These I: To come back to the previous question: it's the intention. slaves were captured by the Dutch ship from a Portuguese When we started playing the music there was no question of vessel, bound for Brazil. When we are playing this rhythm, importance, that we wanted to be known. It's by grace, by nou se hulle, 'dis samba, and samba comes from Brazil.' Do God's grace, that we are here. We accept it as it comes. But you know how it comes from Brazil? When you go to Brazil there is no intention that I'm going to be a superstar. If there's a large Angolan community. This is how the samba you're busy, if you work with this purpose it's going to take got to Cape Town. From Angola. Slaves. Jy weet — ons is so you at least twenty years to hone your art. Dizzie Gillespie toegeweld met die history wat hulle vir ons vertel. And the says it takes thirty years to learn what to play and then it takes people believe that (history), not knowing — really and truly another thirty years to learn what not to play. We have arriv­ — what happened. ed at the second thirty. There is no way that you can get in W: Ek sien heeltemal daardie soort rol vir die kunstenaar. I here by faking it. The admission fee is ... totally see the role of the artist as being the facilitator of this W: honesty and truthfulness? new history of ours. I: That's right ... and dedication. We can recognize it. That's I* Sure, it's like the sage in West Africa. If you want to know how we met Ellington. There was that immediate recognition. what happened in 1215 he'll sing it for you. It's the same We met Coltrane. We met Monk. When I first met Monk I thing. introduced myself and told him that I'm from South Africa W: You're known, not only for your music, but also for your and all that. And I said, 'Thank you very much for the political commitment. You're not only singing about inspiration' . And he looked at me and said. 'You know, 'African Herbs' or 'Manenberg', you're also singing about you're the first piano player to tell me that' . And I believed the heroes of the struggle. What does that do to you as an it. artist? W: Your own history is quite an interesting one. You went I- It puts everything in perspective. If you haven't done that it from the Cape to Sophiatown. En die boytjie van District Six is very hard to describe. How can I ask anybody 'how do you kom in Sophiatown aan. At that time, what was the Fifties feel about commiting yourself?' It's something you cannot like, for you? What was it like to be in Sophiatown. To be explain in words. It's a feeling. When you take that step it's there where you actually saw a culture being developed, being such an incredible feeling because, like Allah says in the in struggle. Trying to get out against all the 'cultural Koran, 'the devil threatens you with poverty'. That's how he imperialism' around you?

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 27 I: It was fantastic. But it was not just there. It was all over. se, 'Voetsek, jy dink ou Duke is 'n ou wat jy net by die st at All over South Africa. It was in the Cape as well. It was in kan meet. Hulle't respect ...' You see it was that kind of Durban. It was in Port Elizabeth. It was all over the place. Of awakening to say, 'wait a minute man, you are being course you must remember now that we had counterparts in recognized. We have something that is different and new.' the United States. People like Charlie Parker, Monk. And W: Perhaps the last question. How do you see yourself in the like always the revolutionary spirit is contagious. So I future? Your vision as an artist. remember as one example: I was with Kippie in Johannesburg I: Perhaps on three tiers. Firstly there's the devotional asp ct; one time. And Kippie was saying, 'Ja, you see, Dollar. You then there's the personal aspect of the music, of working with see people in South Africa they don't respect us, man. They oneself and discovering and working with new direct! is. don't respect us.' We were walking in the township — And then there is the question of the struggle. And the st ig- Western. Ou Kippie said, 'Ja, jy sien die mense vat ons nie gle and the music is synonymous. Where the struggle g *s, kop toe nie. Hulle treat ons soos moegoes.' Hy se, 'Jy dink the music goes? ou Duke Ellington man — kyk ou Duke en ou Monk — jy W: Doesn't the music sometimes lead as well? dink dis ouens wat jy net by die straat kan meet. Those ouens, I: The music is only coincidental, you know. The music is like hulle is dignified, man. Daai ouens het offices. Jy moet a freedom fighter. One time it's a pen, another time it's a phone, jy moet appointment maak. Dis nie net 'n ou wat jy sword and at other times it's a stick. We're in a revolutionary kan meet by die straat nie.' And just at that moment a situation. So we have to use revolutionary methods and flow youngster walked by and he said, 'Hi, bra Kippie!' En Kippie with the wind.

Of a photograph in newsweek That Dirty Child

I know this boy; She walks the streets naked, Bearing a people's sorrow her peers prop her against the wall, To the grave, She gets nothing, Clench-fisted with echoes of She knows nothing. military dress, His action is not to save This is free training, The burning hostilities no paying, but pay in future, Of a land always mad, This is enjoyment, But to rave, rave, rave, It will be business soon. And yet, That dirty child, I'm sad. What does she do with so many boys? I'm sad that he might die, She'll get pregnant soon, Without the awakening eye There is nothing she can do. Seeing something new No money, No school, Issuing through, No school, No money, But die for other madnesses to prevail, Sex, pleasure when people blindly hail Sex, money. The moment's passion moulding them, Returning to the past hostilities of past men.

Kriben Pillay Jeremiah Masoga

28 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 Makeba Poem Masekela Poem Makeba Magic Home Is Where the Music Is Waves of dark ebony flair, Transcend from one generation to another. Been such a long time gone. Beads of Zulu maidens. Even trumpets have echoed Dazzling under the moonlight. the plight of the toiling masses Hang all over the body been such a long time gone as if to cover mother Africa, but the voice still shouts loud and clear, to protect her innocence. home is where the music is. I remember sitting on a mine dump thinking of our lost gold, Home when I first heard you sing where the sorrow is, A PROMISE. home And as if in a Midas dream where the tears are, my whole body was transformed home into a pillar of gold, pillar of resistance. where the suffering is, Then I remembered the promise that was made home in Soweto on June 16 where the music is. when we died in our thousands, when our mothers promised Been such a long time gone to bear us sons and warriors so the dream would never die. Gone from home. Long live Makeba But the heart is still in place. and your magic. The music shapes a tradition, tradition of good music, The spirit moulds into vibrating notes tradition of beautiful music, and envelopes darkness into space. tradition of survival music, The voice oozes from the body tradition of struggle music. spreading motions into togetherness Been such a long time gone, as you sing of Kilimanjaro. but home is where the music is, I remember the mountains as the boys do their thing. that separate me from Nonkululeko, man created mountains. Home I was sitting on top of mountains of dreams where mahlabathini is, when I hear you sing home INHLUPHEKO IPHELILE where kippie is, and reminded us that home the dreams that make our future where the manhattan brothers used to be, are carved into the present home in the yesteryears of the jazz epistles, in the today years home in the tomorrow years. of zakes nkosi, So build that dream home of a free tomorrow. of hardcore mbaqanga, Sing your song home and bring melody to our sadness. where the music is. Mould our togetherness into dreams of lost children, forgotten masses, apprehensive people. Been such a long time gone The silent souls. But the trumpet still echoes from Zimbabwe Lelizwe linomoya from botswana Lelizwe linomoya from lesotho Lelizwe linomoya echoes the tears of the masses IZWE LAWOBABAMKHULU. echoes the cries of mothers and fathers. Been such a long time gone but home is where masekela is, where the music is. where the heart is.

Dumakude kaNdlovu

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 BLAME ME ON HISTORY BLOKE MODISANE hatever else Sophiatown was, it was home; we spirit was high. made the desert bloom; made alterations, con­ As children, mixing was easier, and Wverted half-verandas into kitchens, decorated the together we had our normal — by South houses and filled them with music. We were house-proud. African standards — racial skirmishes We took the ugliness of life in a slum and wove a kind of with the white boys from the adjoining beauty; we established bonds of human relationships working-class white area. There was a which set a pattern of communal living, far richer and mud pool in the buffer strip which divided more satisfying — materially and spiritually — than any Sophiatown from Newlands, and as a lad I model housing could substitute. The dying of a slum is a joined in the fights for the right to swim in community tragedy, anywhere. the mud pool. Whichever group got there It was especially true of Sophiatown, the most first imposed its right to use, and continue cosmopolitan of South Africa's black social igloos and using the pool; we threw stones at each perhaps the most perfect experiment in non-racial com­ other. The white boys usually dominated munity living; there were, of course, the inevitable racial the contest in the end, invariably resort­ tensions, which did not necessarily flare up into colour- ing to pellet guns. At the beginning, it caste explosions. Africans, Coloureds (mixed-bloods), In­ was for the right to use the pool that dians and Chinese, lived a raceless existence. It is true that we fought, but this rationalisation as racial groups, we were placed, socially and economically soon lost its validity — it was for on different levels of privilege; white was the ultimate stan­ the sake of fighting that we dard and the races were situated in approximation to this went to the pool. standard: the Chinese were nearest to white, they were I was in the water allowed into white cinemas and theatres and some when one of these restaurants; the Coloureds, nearer white, and the Indians, near white. Social mixing was difficult, but community

>**• s

:^^, m fights started, and they threw stones at Johannesburg city and Westdene and ing at me; I turned away from the ruins me and trying to ward off the stones I Newlands. We were part of the riot pro­ of the house where I was born in a deter­ I was drawn deeper into the water, until gramme, stoning the police and being mination not to look upon this death of suddenly the earth under my feet gave shot at, and hit, like everyone else. I Sophiatown. I removed my hat and way. I struggled against drowning until I learned early in life to play games with stood still while a modest funeral train preferred death to the agony. My hands death, to realise its physical presence in drove past; it was an open lorry carrying searched for a weight to keep me down. my life, to establish rapport with it. The a small white coffin and not more than a During the struggle to stay down I was children of Sophiatown died in the dozen people. grasped by a hand and guided out; and streets, being run over by the Putco Another child victim, another Nancy. once out of the water I threw stones with buses and the speeding taxis and were Those of us who survived the clutches of one hand, at the same time as trying to shot during riots. malnutrition, the violence of the streets, pull my trousers on with the other. I have Standing over the death of lived with another kind of ugliness; the never learned to swim. Sophiatown, another death came into dry-breast barrenness of being black in The African children, as a race group, my consciousness; I remembered the white South Africa. There are times did not fight Indian, Coloured or room in Gold Street, the all-in-one room when I wish I had been born in a bush Chinese children, as race groups; but we which was kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, surrounded by trees, wild flowers, vales, fought each other in gang wars in which maternity room and a room for dying; dongas and wild life; to have grown opposing factions would be made up of thoughts of my sister, Nancy, who died gracefully like the seasons, to have been individual members of the group units. of starvation, delicately referred to as spring's simplicity, the consciousness of Yet we would unite as a Sophiatown malnutrition. For twenty-four hours a summer, but I became, as they say, a gang — a non-white group — to fight day, every day for the days of one week, man before I was a Boy. the white boys from Newlands or relatives, friends and neighbours mourn­ My father, Joseph, was always the Westdene; children divided by the race ed over the body, the hymnals were sung signal of authority, unapproachable, the attitudes and group conflicts of our as a kind of religious ode to death. I was judge symbol; the only time he came society impressed by the ceremonial of the wake, close to me was to administer the cane or Like America, South Africa has a by its symphonic solemnity; the women lay down the law of Moses, and this six- frontier or voortrekker mentality, a were wailing a chant of mourning, seem­ foot-two giant towered above my world, primitive throw-back to the pioneering ingly talking to each other, throwing the only real force I ever feared, the era, the trail-blazing days, when the law phrases at each other; one group stating authority I respected; perhaps I should dangled in the holster and justice was the melodic line of sorrow, the other have loved him too. One afternoon he swift, informal and prejudiced. Instant singing the harmonic complement, a came carting a rough bird-cage with justice, lynching and horse-whippings consolement almost causing a sort of seven pigeons and leading a dog which are deep in the traditions of these coun­ unintentional counterpoint. he presented to me, then wrung from me tries; both are compulsive addicts of There was solemnity about the lighted a pledge impressing upon me the serious­ horse operas, we are always playing candles over the body; they moved my ness of my responsibility for the protec­ cowboys and Indians. The mud pool was sister, Suzan to tears and she was permit­ tion, the maintenance, the sustenance of the Wild West of America or the dark ted to cry because she was a girl. the pets. interior of Africa; and to us, out there in 'A man does not cry/ an uncle stress­ I was excited and together we con­ the pool, the white boys were the Red In­ ed. structed a kennel for Rover, the dog, and dians and we were the cowboys. The Seeing Ma-Willie, as my mother was a compound cage, the top half for the symbols were undoubtedly reversed in called, crying was unbearable, and trying pigeons and the bottom for the fowls the white camp; and in the rivalry for the to be a man was difficult; the sight well­ Ma-Willie wanted to keep; the working mud pool we ravaged each other, ed up that tear which I brushed off so together brought us close and all through desecrating the sanctity of the body of discreetly; but death failed to horrify me, that time he became a friend I could our society; we, the colour pieces of a except that I hated it for what it did to touch, even if I pretended, with colour society, inflicted festering sores my mother and perhaps blamed Nancy calculated casualness, that it was on each other, and on the society; for dying. On the day of the funeral Ma- accidental. After the construction he rehearsing our roles, arranging and Willie was overcome with grief; the retreated into his tree-top tower, to dividing ourselves into the colour groups aunts, the other women and the girls become again the symbol of authority. I determined by our society. We were the broke down into weeping fits, a cousin prepared the feeds for the dog and the warriors of Dingane, commemorating, became hysterical, seized by epileptic pigeons, and knew I would be punished celebrating the victory over the wiles of spasms, shrieking aloud and writhing on if I fell behind with the schedule. Piet Retief; we were the heroes of Africa: the ground and fainting. She was carried I resented having lost him, felt enslav­ Tshaka, Hintsa, Moshoeshoe and to another part of the yard and laid on a ed to the pets because the schedule made Sekhukhune. rug and fanned by a neighbour, the plain encroachments into my playtime; friends As a boy growing up in the white coffin with silver handles left our would whistle signals for me to join them Sophiatown without playgrounds we house, irrevocably, and I was never to in play, but the house duties; fetching improvised our own games, the games of see Nancy again; it was this fact, alone, water from a communal tap fifty yards the children of the streets; our repertoire which emphasised the permanency of away and having to fill two ten-gallon included games like dodging traffic, death. drums; washing dishes, cooking the feed stealing rides on horse-drawn trolleys, If my father had not walked up to me for the dog, nursing the baby, kept me getting on and off whilst in motion, and at that precise moment I wrould have away from the streets, away from my the more proficient we became the more most probably disgraced my masculinity; friends until just on sunset, and after ambitious we got, graduating to the he took me into the house of a sunset I was not allowed out of the yard. green Putco buses. During riots we neighbour; and thus death had made his I risked the cane, disobeyed my would be in Main Road stoning cars first personal intrusion into my life. mother, disappeared from home, driven by whites, and the red tramcars I switched off the memory machine, neglected my duties and was away until which carried white commuters between but there was another kind of death gap­ an hour before sunset; then I hurriedly

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 31 started the tire in the mbaula, brazier, ing winter vacations I fought Uncle emotion of shame and the sense of uilt fetched the water, cooked the dog's food Louie, the Gold Street strong man. which he said was a sterile and introver- and washed the dishes, and by seven We had been playing marbles and I sive form of torture which dissip ted o'clock my dog would be fed; the tight had won all his beautiful coloured itself rather than focused on the e or- schedule worked except that the time for marbles which we called glass eyes. Then mity of the wrong; guilt swamps the my school work was wasted, all my suddenly he demanded them back and individual while ignoring the deed i if. energy would be sapped. This arrange­ they had been the most beautiful I had My father fastened on the deed, exp sit­ ment was disorganised the afternoon my ever owned; he was the street bully, so I ing the emotion of shame, and in his father returned from work earlier than gathered them into my marbles bag and way I turned away in disgust becau of expected, and I was playing in Good handed them to him. He had hardly clos­ the shame, and it was this sense of si me Street when I saw the dread figure, a ed his fingers round the bag when I which has motivated me from hui ag whip in his right hand; I disappeared into snatched it and dashed for home with people by word or deed. the nearest yard, jumping fences and cut­ him on my heels. About five yards from Then the wall of my world c; me ting across to Gold Street, round into the gate where I lived he tripped me and I tumbling down, everything colla ed Victoria Road and into the yard. I fell flat on my face. When I looked up around me, wrecking the relations ip. preferred to be whipped at home. Ma-Willie was looking down at me; the My father shrunk into a midget. I ere I loaded three four-gallon tins on to humiliation was unbearable, I lashed out was a Pass raid and two white pc Ice my push-cart and hurried to the tap, at Uncle Louie flaying him with fists constables with their African 'p ice rehearsing excuses, selecting the ap­ from all directions. He was so surprised boys' were demanding to see the P ses proach most likely to soften my father, that he put up a clumsy fight and when of all adult African males. the appropriate manner of apologising, we were separated I kept my winnings. 'Pass jong, kaffir,' demanded the begging for forgiveness; when I returned There was a glint of pride in my police constable from Uncle George, a with the first load he was in the room father's eyes when the story was related distant relation of my father. 'Come on, with Ma-Willie who was ill in bed, and to him; we began to grow closer, he we haven't all day.' Suzan, realising the trouble I was in, was spoke to me directly more often, and his He would not dare to address my trying to start the brazier fire. image took on another stature. One father in that tone, I bragged, my fa! ler Thanks, Suzie, I'll do it,T said. 'Is he afternoon he defended me when I had is older than he. very angry?' been punished unjustly by a stranger at 'And you, why are you sitting on ur Little Suzan was too terrified to speak, the tap; I went home to report to him black arse?' the constable bawled at ny she was biting her bottom lip, signalling and without another word we returned father. 'Scratch out your Pass, and .' with her head. I started the fire and rush­ to the tap together, with me carrying a I was diminished. My father was calm, ed out to the tap again, when I returned I fighting stick. the gentleness in his face was unruff d, lighted the Primus stove and boiled T agree that a naughty child should be only a hardness came in his eyes; he p li­ water for tea which I served to my punished,' my father said, 'but my son ed out his wallet and showed his parents. My father remained silent. I says he was not impolite.' documents, an Exemption Pass cer­ heated more water and washed the 'He tells lies,' the man said. tificate and a tax receipt for the cur:-it dishes, and Suzan drank her tea between 'My son does not lie,' my father year. My hero image disintegrated, wiping dishes. Whilst the supper was emphasised. 'And if he has deserved a crumbling into an inch high heap of cooking, the fowls locked in and Rover beating it is I who will give it.' ashes; I could not face it, could not whining for his feed, I knocked on the This demonstration of faith in my understand it, I hated the young con­ door. integrity filled me with pride and admira­ stable for destroying my father; qu s- 'I've done most of the work, father,' I tion, and almost as an objection to being tions flashed through my mind, I wanted said, with all humility. 'I'll wait in the called a liar I struck out against the man to know why, and I think I resented r y kitchen.' with the stick I had, and drew blood with father, questioned his integrity as a man. He joined me ten minutes later, locked the second blow. I turned my face away and disappear d the door and administered to me a whip­ 'Don't do that,' my father said, taking into the bedroom, searching for a pa - ping to remember, a whipping I took the stick away from me. ing in the earth that I could crawl ii o without a squeak, but with plenty of My father apologised for me and the and huddle up into a ball of shame. tears; and when it was over I dried my man apologised for having punished me; In my little prejudiced world of a > eyes and went into the bedroom to col­ the image of my father ennobled itself in solutes my judgement was cruel, impos­ lect the cups. my mind. Our relationship grew ing upon him the standards of my ov. n 'Would mama like another cup of stronger, he seemed to grow fonder of world of fancy; we lost each other from tea?' me, we talked about my school work, that moment, and in his own way e She shook her head, I looked at my what I wanted to be, and when I inform­ tried to recover his son, but I was had father and he said 'No', then I started ed him that I wanted to be a doctor his and monstrously unjust, and so he again for the door. mind fastened on something else. became the harsh hand of authority, the 'He's not a bad boy,' Ma-Willie said, 'A doctor is a man,' he said, with an authority I could no longer respect I as I closed the door behind me. abnormal emphasis on the word 'man'. began to fear him, keeping out of his It was the statement which was to He had in th£ past punished me, not way and in the end I saw only the cru y blackmail me all my life; I wanted to live so much for what I had done, but for the never the man. I grew closer to i- up to it, to embrace the responsibility im­ lies I had told in the desperate attempt to Willie and the four of us, Su 1, plied in that statement. It became impor­ escape the cane, and it took me a long Marguerite and I arranged oursei es tant for me to have it changed to: he's a time to understand this. I was seldom against him, united by our fear of h X good boy. When my friends were pilfer­ punished if I told the truth; we discussed he must have been the loneliest mai in ing I would conveniently be on an errand what I had done, and I would usually be our little black world; I knew very s !e for my father, I chickened out of street filled with a sense of shame, not a guilt about him, never got to know whether 'ae fights, concentrating my efforts into be­ complex. He insinuated into my con­ had parents, brothers and sisters; I kr # ing a 'good boy'. But one afternoon dur­ sciousness the separation between the vaguely that he came from

32 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1' >87 pietersburg area, that there were some lived alone in himself and died so, alone definition; there were no eyes nor kind of relations in Medigan. and lonely, the children were at school mouth, nose, only a motionless ball, and Once when Ma-Willie pushed me he and Ma-Willie had gone to visit her rela­ the only sign of life was the heaving became very angry and threw a chair at tions in Alexandra township. It was chest. Recognition was impossible, I felt her, and watching my mother shrink shortly after the lunch break when I was only revulsion and pity for the faceless away from him filled me with a loathing summoned to the principal's office. Mr man; he could have been anybody and for him and a sympathy and closer G. Nakeni, headmaster of the Dutch the horror would have been the same, I attachment for Ma-Willie who was the Reformed Mission School, Meyer Street, shuddered at the brutality of the assault. only parent that was real to us; she took Sophiatown, was waiting for me as I I looked at the man back at the gate, us on shopping expeditions to town walked out of the classroom. I followed who could have had the heart to do such supervised and bought all our clothing, him to the fence next to the street. a thing; he looked like other people, the school uniforms, the school books, 'Was your father sick?' Mr Nakeni there was nothing visible which could set took us on our first day to school and said. him apart from others, and I did not feel helped with the homework. 'No sir,' I said, thinking it was a rather anything towards him. Walking up Toby street I passed the pointless question, not worth interrup­ The story was that there had been a beautiful house of the Mogemi family, ting the history lesson. quarrel with this man, that both parties they had not yet sold their property to 'You better go home.' had stormed away from each other in the Resettlement Board, but everything 'Now, sir?' anger and later my father went into the else around it was levelled with the dust; 'Yes.' extension of our yard in the hope that the Lutheran Mission Church, Berlin I returned to the classroom, reported both of them had cooled down, but the Mission, stood erect among the ruins, to the teacher and gathered my books; I man surprised him with a blow on the and a hundred yards up the road was the walked home leisurely, playing with a face which knocked him down; the man palatial home of Dr A.B. Xuma with tennis ball along the way. There was a then proceeded to pound him with a two garages. I turned south at Edward crowd gathered outside the corrugated brick until my father lost consciousness, Road and stopped at Bertha Street and iron which fenced in our yard, I slithered from which he never recovered. the sight to the east was deadening, my through the crowd and standing next to I returned to the blood-splashed spot eyes spread over a desert of debris and the gate were two African police con­ where lay my father, and gazed at the desolation. Suddenly I needed my father, stables and between them was a manacl­ distention, hoping to find something to appeal for his protection, to say to ed man. I walked through the gate and as familiar in that mass, anything to bring him: Do you see, my father, do you see soon as Dorothea, a neighbour saw me the man closer to me, some mark of what they have done to our Sophiatown? she started crying; she told it to me as recognition, some sign of identification; But he was only a patch of earth with a simply and as gently as she could, and I could not cry, I wanted to break number at the Croesus cemetery, he was leading me to the spot. out and collapse at his side, but suddenly a number I had burned into my mind She informed me, between sobs and I could not remember his face and there that day we buried him. sniffles, that the battered and grotesque­ was nothing to remind me; all through It was on the afternoon of February ly ballooned nightmare, hardly the interminable wait for the ambulance 16, 1938, that he died, and I was at recognisable as a human being, was my I did not, or could not bring myself to school unable to help him that moment father; the swollen mass of broken flesh cry, I have never cried since that day when he needed it desperately; he had and blood, which was his face, had no when I was fourteen.

Bloke William Modisane... social scene, for Post and Drum, will remain a vibrant A tribute to a great artist record of South African life on this side of the colour divide. In November 1985, Alex La Guma died in Cuba. Now Bloke's style was a true product of the turbulent 50s, it's Bloke Modisane. They've gone and joined the when sub-editors were liberated persons fired with a ancestors in the happy land of whispering silences. sense of adventure and reverence for the language that Do they — those who run our lives here, whose dredged the deep levels of a soul in torment. But also a system pitchforked these stalwarts of Africa into exile — soul that was reaffirming its own African dignity, its lust know our deep sense of loss? for life. How could they know, even care! The machine of Volumes have been said about Bloke — the ultimate tyranny can only maintain its relentless thundering pace dandy, cool, unpretentious, sure of himself. He was an on the assumption that its victims are expendable. escapist who created a world of his own in his Arthur Nortje, Can Themba, Todd Matshikiza, Nat Sophiatown one-roomed pad — a concourse for Nakasa, Gwigwi Mrwebi — to mention only artists — members of all races. already went ahead of Alex and Bloke. His taste for classical music, which he privately And all of them in exile: more's the pity that they treated us all to whenever we visited him — and his could not be buried on ancestral ground. taste for jazz when he was news-hunting — will always Henry Nxumalo, Jacob Moeketsi and other departed be remembered. musicians were already exiles of a kind in their own land The near-weeping ecstasy with which he often before death stole them from us. What a waste! described feminine beauty in real life was like an artist Bloke's passing reminds us all of these times. whose head is turned around by his own model. All Cameraman Jurgen Schadeberg, former colleague on this is now legend. Drum, says he and Bloke were utterly homesick in West Still vivid in my memory is Bloke Modisane — the Germany when they met. artist of the written word, a man with exuberant feeling. Bloke's short stories, his autobiographical book, Blame Me on History, and his sketches of the Jo'burg Es'kia Mphahlele

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 13 othing in my life seemed to have the body surrenders to the music, to the during one of those moods of justifica­ any meaning, all around me there nice-time, to the sensuous; still the tion I preferred to believe that she did N was the futility and the apathy, rhythms multiply with a compulsiveness not understand the things which pumped the dying of the children, the empty which enslaves the body, a mask-like and drove me on. I was trying to gestures of the life reflected in the seem­ trance encases the face, and we become reconstruct the pieces, to find some ingly meaningless destruction of that life, dizzy; the gyrations become gymnastics, sense, some meaning, some purpose, and the demolition of Sophiatown; my life is the body contorting spectral patterns all that I could find was the nagging like the penny whistle music spinning on which respond only to the noise. Then monosyllabic Why? I could not frame eternally with the same repetitive per­ suddenly the music stops, the link with the question, there was no single answer sistency; it is deceptively happy, but all the spiritual world is broken; the real which could encompass the scope of the this is on the surface, like the melodic becomes present, and anger and revul­ question; there was a moment of trans­ and the harmonic lines of the kwela sion break loose, we want to strike at ference of guilt. It was nobody's fault, played by the penny whistle, or the voice something, the nearest thing. the whole thing was bigger than all of us. of Miriam Makeba, which bristle with a You pushed me, spy. It was not my father's fault, nor that of propelling joyousness. But contained in So what, tsotsi? his ancestors; it was not Fiki's fault, it it is the sharp hint of pain — almost en­ You want to see your mother? was not the fault of any one single being. joyed in a sense — as is at times heard in Make me dead, man. Kill me. So the 'why?' was invalidated. the alto sax of Paul Desmond, the A woman screams and the people When? desperation of a man in search of God; throw themselves against the walls, they The landing of Van Riebeeck was in-1 beneath all this is the heavy storm- fall silent; the musicians are packing evitable, the conflict of interests was trooping rhythmic line, a jazzy knell toll­ their instruments, pretending a casual- inevitable, the clash of arms and the con­ ing a structure of sadness into a pyramid ness. Three men walk slowly up to the quest of Africa were inevitable; the Act of monotony; the sadness is a rhythm bandstand. of Union in 1910 was inevitable, even the unchanging in its thematic structure, op­ Play! betrayal of the rights of the Africans was pressive, dominating and regulating the It's two o'clock, the dance is over. inevitable; the group attitudes and the tonality of the laughter and the joy. My Play! discrimination was inevitable and yet life, like the kwela, has grown out of the We are tired, friend. somewhere the question has to be asked. gutters of the slums, from among the Your mother's your friend. Play! Why? When? Perhaps an amalgam of swelling smells of the open drains, out of The musicians unpack their instru­ the two will some day be necessary in the the pressure of political stress and the ments, the mouthpiece is adjusted, the construction of a question which might endlessness of frustration. leader stamps the beat with the foot and be written in blood. But there is always the kwela and the the music rises, the dreams swirl and the Why did I mutate into a hollow man? nice-time when we surround ourselves nice-time continues. I hoped, there in my room, the white with people, screaming noises almost as This strange mixture of sadness and man would perfect his ultimate weapon if to convince ourselves of our existence, joy is perhaps the real heartbeat — the and blow himself and his prejudice into in a glorification of our living at a song of Sophiatown, whose destruction the hell he has subjected me to; if he feverish pitch, on our nervous system; at had shocked and angered me so pro­ should fail, then I, who hate and fear our nice-times to the orgiastic rhythms of foundly in the course of one day; the violence, will be forced to appeal to the the kwela we conglomerate into an in­ Sophiatown which brought back so arbitrament of violence. What is it that cestuous society where sex becomes pro­ many memories on that Monday in July, will change men into beasts of destruc­ miscuous and friendship explodes into and with them mainly the sadness. tion? I do not as a principle or a murderous hatred. The penny whistle I was back in the noise, having run psychology hate the white man, but I do band picks up a tune — a rhythm, to be from the screaming silence which sur­ hate to see the death of children from exact — and the music swells, the emo­ rounded me in Millner Road; I was again causes which have been willed by man's tions rise and the imagination waxes, a piece in the human traffic, a part flow­ greed; that these children shall not con­ then suddenly — for a brief moment on­ ing into the whole. Victoria Road was tinue to die so horribly I must coolly and ly — the noise is stilled, then another writhing with the smell of human bodies calculatedly force myself into acting out kind of noise rises, first tentatively, then as I walked back to my room behind the within myself the contradiction in the swells until the music can no longer be corrugated iron fence. My sister, Daisy, dilemma of the whole of modern man, heard; it is a noise which is a mixture of brought a cup of tea and placed it on the who builds up an arsenal of weapons of Hollywood films and the sounds which dresser, she revolved her body around absolute destruction on the moral of are not words, but moods of the feeling the waist without moving her legs, defending peace. I believe that no single required to transport us into an existence throwing around feelers and sizing my life is more important or merited than where white South Africa is another mood; her eyes were furtively shooting another, and in a determination to save planet in another galaxy and apartheid glances at me and around the room, and one life I may have to destroy the life en­ becomes a sound in a nightmare. I pretended not to notice that she was dangering it. I want life for all South Stuik uit. debating a decision as to the moment Africa, and if the greater safety of one Hop, man. most appropriate to present her case, but life shall be purchased at the price of Shangri-La. she must have decided against it. another, then I will take it. This morality Veza. 'It's dark,' she said, drawing the cur­ is as pretentious as the biblical fact that Jika, rubber. tains to let in more light, and left. with the help of God — the same God Heaven can wait. I fought against the loneliness of being that both white and black South Africa Our bodies become obsessed and alone. I wanted to call her back and ask worships — Moses closed the Red Sea possessed by the rhythms; time is frozen, her what it was she wanted, but it was over the pursuing army of Egypt. The memory is obliterated as we enter into a her game and I had to let her play it her white man in South Africa functions on cosmic existence; the dance becomes own way; I wanted Fiki and Chris back the same principle, except perhaps argu­ loaded with sex symbols, the suggestions with me, but the things which threw us ing from the point that a black life in the gyrations become more explicit, apart were still real and present, perhaps deserves less; but I argue on the side of

34 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 Abraham Lincoln: 'It seems strange that invading the imagination of South he white man has laboured earnest­ any men should dare to ask a just God's Africa; and whilst the free-world nations ly, sincerely and consciously to assistance in wringing their bread from were smacking their lips over the elo­ Tdeface the blacks, with the result the sweat of other men's faces.' quence of the Declaration of Human that the black man has ceased to be an I am disgusted by the men who have Rights, one word, — with no specific individual, but a representative of a left me no other choice than to kill; I am dictionary meaning — changed the despised race; they hate me, not as an in­ not even sure that I sincerely want to kill South African scene overnight, and won dividual, but as a collective symbol; the them — perhaps if I could divest them of the general election for the Nationalist African has been reduced to a symbol the power to injure others — but this is Party; one word, three-syllabled, charg­ which has to answer to labels like Jim, the precise point at which we are in con­ ed with an emotional intensity which John and boy, and when the whites feel flict; the white man would rather destroy suited the general temper of white South any affection for him it is characterised the perfect harmony of the whole coun­ Africa; a one-word ideology which by forms of endearment such as, My try than surrender the power which inflated the political life of Dr Daniel boy, which is intended to impress strikes at children, and I would accept to Francois Malan and punctured that of liberalism and fond possession. The destroy him rather than accommodate the General Jan Christiaan Smuts, and operative word is 'my' which is used as murder of children of whatever colour. unleashed the race monster of our age. an adjective of detached intimacy, Colour is fundamental in South Apartheid, the one-word onslaught on something in the area of 'this is my African thinking, is the dominant factor the human dignity which the men in New Siamese cat', perhaps an unfair figure, in the making of our mores; but it goes York were so lyrical over, became a decidedly prejudicial to Siamese cats, even deeper than is normally realised. parliamentary joke the opposition which, relatively speaking, enjoy a Perhaps Nadine Gordimer came closest members of the United Party made greater measure of attention and care. to understanding this when she wrote undergraduate witticisms about, whilst it White South Africa was morally that 'it is far more than a question or a entrenched white supremacy and disturbed, and with demonstrative in­ matter of prejudice or discrimination or relegated the Native to his place; and as dignation they protested with banners conflict of loyalties — we have built a they did this the non-white races were and solemnity when Russian scientists morality on it. We have even gone dehumanised and defaced. The pigeon­ orbited Laika, the space dog, and when a deeper; we have built our own sense of hole philosophy of apartheid manifested signal was released that the dog would be sin, and our own form of tragedy. We itself when the segregation notices went poisoned because it could not safely be have added hazards of our own to man's up everywhere, particularly in Johan­ brought back into our planet; the Society fate, and to save his soul he must wrestle nesburg: 'Europeans Only' and 'Non- for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals not only with the usual lust, greed and European', but I noticed a peculiar — if in South Africa and most of the world pride, but also with a set of demons not subtle — omission of the 'only' on bodies conducted prayer meetings bubbl­ marked: Made in South Africa.' the Non-European signs. ing with Christian ritual; yet African It is impossible to be South African I was soon to find myself being forced children die in their hundreds, every day, and without some shade of race because there is not enough to eat, and attitudes, conveniently known as race — by the letter of the law — to use separate entrances into the post offices, African prisoners and the labourers on prejudice, and the favourite question forced labour farms are tortured, flogg­ liberal South Africans love to answer is: banks, railway stations, public buildings; it became a criminal offence for me to ed and kicked to death by white farmers Are you race prejudiced? Whereupon and police hooligans. This does not so use the amenities set aside for the whites, the answer is: I have no race prejudice at much as raise a mascara'd eyebrow. all. At this point we become noble and who were either indifferent or satisfied conforming and purged. Against the with this arrangement. There was no The de-personalisation of the African background of South Africa this ques­ massive white indignation at this insult has been so thorough that I have no tion and answer is a bigoted over­ on the dignity of the black races. I found name, none of them care to know simplification, and almost as loaded as: myself unable to use the Eloff Street whether I have ont, and since there was Would you like your daughter to marry a entrance into Park Station, a habit I had very little point in having a name — in Native? The question which should be cultivated over the years; I became any case, I have no name, the only one I but never is asked is: How race pre­ resentful, it was a pleasing-to-the-eye en­ had was buried on the coffin of my judiced are you? trance, there were flower-beds, a water father — I adopted the label Bloke; it I am not suggesting there was no pre­ fountain and other details I have not was a symbolic epitome of the collective judice prior to the South Africa of 1948, seen for so long that I have forgotten thing I was made to be. The African is a but it was around then that the white them; and, of course, the Non-European collective which cannot be classified and man in South Africa decided to recognise entrance, then still under construction, distinguished apart, or hated apart, as an the portentous presence of the black peril was dismal and bleak, and because I individual; this is perfectly justified, threatening his existence as a white man; have been educated into an acceptance of there are nine million of us, it is humanly it was that moment in history when he the primacy of law and order I accom­ impossible to hate nine milliion people decided to rally round the flag of apart­ modated, rather than defied, this individually, it is, however, less exacting heid in defence of Christian principles, effrontery. Everywhere I turned there to hate them collectively. democratic ideals and Western civiliza­ were these prohibitions taunting me, de­ It is this collectivist mentality which tion; the black peril was made to become fying my manhood .with their arrogance, has mutated me into a destructive synonymous with Communist infiltra­ their challenge was driving me out of my monster which cannot, poetically, see tion. mind; but I am only a man, afraid and people as individuals, they have trained Whilst the freedom-loving nations of apprehensive, perhaps even a coward. I me not to. Because I am black I must the world, including the Government of should have walked past the notices and conform to the needs of nine million South Africa, deliberated in New York registered to myself a protest against that blacks, it is not accepted that my to entrench the rights of man, to reaf­ which offended my manhood, but I was individual needs may be different from firm for all time the dignity of man and afraid to go to prison, rationalising that that of other Africans; if Meadowlands to banish from the face of the earth the it would have been a futile gesture. Dear, is appropriate to the requirements of Hiroshima of wars, one single word was dear God. Africans, then it must accommodate the

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 35 individual requirements of every single by stray bullets whilst sitting in their clinic in East Bank location, she vi ted African. By the consistency of this homes which were built of wood and the sick in their homes, was a fan liar reasoning, if Italians like spaghetti, then iron bars; the incensed Africans went on sight in the location; every Africa in every individual Italian must therefore a vengeance prowl in the streets, seeking that location must have known he on eat spaghetti. There is the opinion that to avenge themselves on the whites. The sight, her figure was far more persor Us­ the English have an insulated sense of first car they encountered — with two ed — by dress — than perhaps any c her superiority, are contemptuous of other whites in it — was stoned, but they failed white, but all this did not divert the nations; the Americans are said to be to bring it to a stop; the second car — vengeance from striking out at her. The loud and uncultured. The polemic driven by a nun from the Saint Claver's Africans saw only the symbol of a h ted therefore would be bigoted and pre­ Mission — following almost immediately race, the nun's dress became, itself the judicial. was stopped. The nun was outraged, kill­ mask of that symbol. This symbol v ich And because man learns by imitation ed and placed in the car which was set they saw must have conjured up ant her the system of de-personalisation has alight, and it has been suggested by white symbol of fear which man is sel om transported over to the Africans; they friends — probably in the hope of satisfied by mere killing of it; the thing have been trained and conditioned to see insinuating that there is a left-over must be annihilated, the memory f it whites as 'baas' and 'missis', and in their savagery in all blacks — that the nun was obliterated from the face of the eart . It collectivist reaction every white is the desecrated and cannibalised in a ritual is how a man kills a snake, he conti ues signal of authority, a symbol to be hated and parts of her body removed to rein­ striking at it long after it has ceased be and feared. There are no individuals force medicines. They made it sound like a danger. among the whites, and by their actions an Edgar Allan Poe tale. None of us wanted to look his the Africans do not regard them as peo­ The desecration of the nun's body tragedy in the face, like Oedipus we ple. horrified white South Africa which was blinded ourselves behind easy ratic al- 'Don't worry,' an African will console shouting the familiar platitudes: these isations, we determined not to loo at a friend who has been injured or Natives are savages, not fit to take their this issue of our intolerance. The un humiliated by a European. 'It's all right, place in the white man's world; Western was killed because she was white, noi ny they are not people.' civilisation, culture, religion, everything, particular white, just white. The nun as A human injustice is regarded with has failed to make an impression on desecrated, not because she was a v. ite grave significance by Africans, the in­ them. Why the nun? She was their nun, she became a symbol of somet ng jured party will brood for hours, with friend, devoted to their welfare. Why kill they hated so much the only way it coald incredulity and dismay, that such an act her like that? I listened to the in­ be destroyed was to obliterate it phys al­ could have been committed by a human dividualists talking, it made me sick. ly and organically. being. 'I would understand if this was Why the nun? This was the precise Such is the passion of the hatred w ch done by an animal.' point, and it held up two lessons of war­ the gold and the diamonds of Sc-ith During a riot in East London eight ning. White South Africans are not Africa have purchased. Africans were killed in a clash with the famous for the ability to think. The nun police, three of these were struck down had been working in the only African

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36 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 1987 individual requirements of every single by stray bullets whilst sitting in their clinic in East Bank location, she visited African. By the consistency of this homes which were built of wood and the sick in their homes, was a farm liar reasoning, if Italians like spaghetti, then iron bars; the incensed Africans went on sight in the location; every African in every individual Italian must therefore a vengeance prowl in the streets, seeking that location must have known he on eat spaghetti. There is the opinion that to avenge themselves on the whites. The sight, her figure was far more personalis­ the English have an insulated sense of first car they encountered — with two ed — by dress — than perhaps any c her superiority, are contemptuous of other whites in it — was stoned, but they failed white, but all this did not divert the nations; the Americans are said to be to bring it to a stop; the second car — vengeance from striking out at her. The loud and uncultured. The polemic driven by a nun from the Saint Claver's Africans saw only the symbol of a hated therefore would be bigoted and pre­ Mission — following almost immediately race, the nun's dress became, itself the judicial. was stopped. The nun was outraged, kill­ mask of that symbol. This symbol which And because man learns by imitation ed and placed in the car which was set they saw must have conjured up another the system of de-personalisation has alight, and it has been suggested by white symbol of fear which man is sekom transported over to the Africans; they friends — probably in the hope of satisfied by mere killing of it; the tiling have been trained and conditioned to see insinuating that there is a left-over must be annihilated, the memory of it whites as 'baas' and 'missis', and in their savagery in all blacks — that the nun was obliterated from the face of the eart:i. It collectivist reaction every white is the desecrated and cannibalised in a ritual is how a man kills a snake, he contii ues signal of authority, a symbol to be hated and parts of her body removed to rein­ striking at it long after it has ceased to be and feared. There are no individuals force medicines. They made it sound like a danger. among the whites, and by their actions an Edgar Allan Poe tale. None of us wanted to look this the Africans do not regard them as peo­ The desecration of the nun's body tragedy in the face, like Oedipus we ple. horrified white South Africa which was blinded ourselves behind easy rational­ 'Don't worry,' an African will console shouting the familiar platitudes: these isations, we determined not to loo at a friend who has been injured or Natives are savages, not fit to take their this issue of our intolerance. The mn humiliated by a European. 'It's all right, place in the white man's world; Western was killed because she was white, not any they are not people.' civilisation, culture, religion, everything, particular white, just white. The nun was A human injustice is regarded with has failed to make an impression on desecrated, not because she was a white grave significance by Africans, the in­ them. Why the nun? She was their nun, she became a symbol of someti ng jured party will brood for hours, with friend, devoted to their welfare. Why kill they hated so much the only way it could incredulity and dismay, that such an act her like that? I listened to the in­ be destroyed was to obliterate it physical­ could have been committed by a human dividualists talking, it made me sick. ly and organically. being. 'I would understand if this was Why the nun? This was the precise Such is the passion of the hatred which done by an animal.' point, and it held up two lessons of war­ the gold and the diamonds of South During a riot in East London eight ning. White South Africans are not Africa have purchased. Africans were killed in a clash with the famous for the ability to think. The nun police, three of these were struck down had been working in the only African

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 where he went, whom he belonged to or what kind of a life he led. When wealthy people died, they left their slaves to other people, just as they left their other belong­ ings. A wealthy farmer outside De Wild near Ga-Rankuwa township .... He did not see it, but his staff were slaves. He looked after his staff and saw around him only people doing work. But his staff were slaves. He built houses, fed the staff, transported their children to school and to hospital, and guarded them at night when they were asleep. The farmer thought he was doing well, that he was a good farmer and }o*i /*?*+/# H not like other farmers. But, in fact, his peo­ ple were slaves and suffering. How It Was It all went well and quiet for about ten years. Then a certain family on one of the On The Farm farmer's properties became worried and unhappy, about the life they led. It was a family with grown children. It was the fami­ ly of 'Mr Matlou' as he was known. Matlou's family was so worried because after every Where we were, we could really feel what ^ two years there would come a new farmer on the life of a slave was like. Bought and sold their land. The farmers were changing land like a piece of furniture, having no say over

the animals and watching over the property _ after two years, but Matlou's family must But he could not see that his favourite staff always remain on the land with new driver was a slave. In the afternoon Mr farmers. Matlou had to lock all the gates and count all They were living in a two-roomed house. the animals in the vard. The house was fitted with a double door of For Mr Matlou and his grown family it the kind called a 'stable' door, and there was was a hard work to unsuccess. He used to an oven in the house which they did not use. work seven days a week without any time Their furniture was old and broken. There off The farmer did not want anyone to help were two small windows like toilet windows. him because, he said, Matlou was a hard­ The windows were welded shut, not to be working man and a 'good boy. He was opened. working hard so he could feed his children Matlou's family were worried. The and his wife. His wife was a kitchen girl families in the other five houses were not with a good old reputation. Also she was a worried about their children. But they were hard worker. Matlou did not drink or smoke slaves, and suffering. Mr Matlou was wor­ ' Matlou's family were trusted because of all ried about his health. He wore Railway their hard work. His wife was so tiny and boots, Railway overalls and an old army hat beautiful with a baby face, but he was, oW. from the boss. He wanted to dress in clean There were many people working at the clothes during the weekend, but could not armer's fields, women, mer.and chiIdre m because he did not have enough money for But Matlou's wife was a 'kitchen girl. When his body. she was finished at the house she used to help He was a tractor driver, without a licence. the other workers at the fields. He would wake up early in the morning to Every Sunday afternoon Matlou grouped people to make a small church He was a feed birds, pigs, cattle, cats and dogs. When the boss woke up at ten o'clock he would see Moruti'. He would take an empty 25 litre that his staff driver had done well, feeding

^# o^°V '^V & ^ V vM* i /'.» cT» U S\ \rT>^->^'Jm v Xx ,Y\J»V.. K\ W rv I j^x^x :*'/ v 3S STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO - ^ can and cover both sides with an old suitcase's leather, and beat it to make Matlou And Family 'Moropa'. When the sound of the 'Moropa' started to 'blaf people started to sing and dance around and around, wearing white dust coats with the cross embroidered at the back. His wife was a 'MmaMoruti'. They stole red and green wool at the boss's house and But Mr Matlou and his family were slaves. tied the wool to people, around their necks, Life At Home says Matlou's family were their wrists, their waists and their ankles, so 'swop-shops'. The farmer was an old man. that the staff churchgoers might be healed. He used to walk using his stick. His head was Also, the Moruti baptised people with a cup not bald. His eyes were weak and he could of salt water, and prayed for them while not talk properly. He liked to wear bell- touching their heads. His church was under bottom trousers and velvet jerseys. He was 69 a tree. years old. Because of his age the days of his life were short. Anytime he could die. Matlou was just 45 years old and healthy. Feeding careless animals for Mr Matlou was a tough job. There he was, cleaning pigs' dungs all day without anyone to help him. Life At Home says Matlou did not have a m reference book, even his wife did not have CD one. But Matlou was a clever man. The boss f JZ did not know his favourite staff was a clever [- man. He started to steal small plants, l-Q < CO chickens and tools and put them at a friend's - c o 7 c ^~yr *vto ..-< x

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De Wild Farm. Matlou did not have a clocking-off time for his work. Sometimes his 'boss' (the farmer) would call him at night, using the sound of a gun, to help him at the garages of their two old-model Ford station wagons. When Matlou heard the sound of a strong gun he would know that his boss wanted him nearer. The growing of his children without education and this working all day until late without extra pay made Mr Matlou to be a worried man.

house, somewhere in Ga-Rankuwa township, so that when he got a house he would be able to use them. His stealing of His wife although she was old was still a chickens was never found out. When he stole 'kitchen girl'. The name of his wife was An­ small chickens he would just take two and nan. Her first son was called Moloko. put them in his jacket pocket. Those chickens Moloko was also a farm worker herding cat- would cry all the way to Ga-Rankuwa from

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At Mr Matlou's house, Makoma was a quiet good girl. She did not like fighting. She was the only daughter at home in five boys. She was liked by most people at the family side. Makoma's favourite staple meal was 'putu\ Their third child whom they called him Medupe, was a boy. The fourth Kgashane, the fifth Andries, the last one was called Piet. All three were farm players. Not one of the three children were working.

tie near the slow flowing river. Herding all those years in the bushes taught Moloko how to catch hares using wires on the small path, using two sticks. During the bad rainy days, Moloko did not go on herding and the cattle were fed with lucerne which the boss used to plant at his farm. Moloko did not have the mind that he was a slave. Their second child was a daughter called Makoma. At that time Makoma was 12 years h old. She was not working at the farm. She was cooking food for her parents and other children while they were at work. Makoma was a family cooker. She knew very well how to mix things and started the family fire. 10

: ~SVf .v" V .JO i II.

I! ^ If &, vc^ Matlou Makes Plans 'doek\ They knocked several times on the door. But the boss did not answer their knocks because he thought it was the dogs' tails knocking at the door. But Matlou called his boss by the name. 'Baas Dick! Baas Dick! Baas Dick! It is me.' Matlou was the scoop of the year? No, he Without any problem the boss opened the was the slave of the year. It was on 24 old wooden door. He was wearing morning September 1964 and in the early morning shoes and T945 World War pyjamas'. His when Matlou met face to face with his head was not bald but his feet showed us that favourite boss about their problems. Matlou he was old enough to be slow, no one to was wearing his usual dirty farm clothes blame. The family told their boss that they with black big plastic boots. His wife was wanted to apply for reference books, even wearing 'kitchen wear'and on her head was a their grown children wanted reference books. For the boss it was very simple. The following day they were taken to the com­ missioner for their books. They were fixed without any problems. Now the family wanted to move to the township, to have their own house there and educate their small slaves. The boss, Mr Dick as he was called, did not know anything about their daring escape. As the years pull­ ed away one by one, Mr Matlou was one of the forgotten days visited by his old friend who was living at Ga-Rankuwa where his 11 12

*r <}*Y<.>^/N vs^ /{< s^;cr^r< 40 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, l9»' \vv>e /&\> i

stolen chickens, tools etc. were kept. He tip­ ped Matlou that the new location called Boekenhoutfontein had been built two mon­ ths ago near Hebron village. Without any wasting of days Matlou, accompanied by his friend, took to the location using their old bicycle as their transport. S The way to Boekenhoutfontein was long and was enjoyed by both. His friend wanted him also to leave the farm life and come to the location. At the government offices at the new township they met a man who gives people houses. Everything was fixed and written and Matlou was given a house which he locked using his friend's bicycle keys. On that day the boss at the farm was away and He pushed his bicycle using his left hand all Matlou's only first-born son occupied his the way home. His face was sweating heavily father's job and fed the animals. without a handkerchief. The man arrived Of course the slave was happy. Even he home safely, with a smile. He sat down on could not believe his friend's aid. On bicycle the old bench and his children were just around him. again, coming home, was Matlou and his friend. His friend took to Ga-Rankuwa What he could tell his family was that he where he was living and Matlou took to the had found a house. All was happy as the old farm where he was a living slave. The road man smiled for the last time with his missing to De Wild was sandy and old Matlou grew teeth. Telling his family, he took out the tired driving his machineless bicycle home. receipt and showed it to his loving wife. He

L: 14

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said, 'This is my receipt, this is the date and here is the number of the house, 252A Bandits Are Boekenhoutfontein, here at the left are all my names. Now my children are going to be On The Run educated and some will be at the university. I am going to work at factories in Rosslyn or Brits or Pretoria. My wife will remain at home. That is all, I am happy. The farmer Mr Dick will not see me anymore and I will Speech is silver, silence is golden. Back to his not tell him when I move from this camp of job again he worked without telling his boss slaves,' said Matlou. what had happened. After two hard weeks he again took another lonely journey back to his friend at Ga-Rankuwa, using his special * < foot's bicycle. He told his friend to organize transport for his furniture because on Sun­ day he would not be seen at the farm anymore. Back at De Wild again he kept quiet and worked. During the week his friend arrived at the farm. It was daylight and Matlou was on top of the tractor. The tractor was making a big noise, and the friend approached Matlou. He switched off the noisy engine and took off his hat. With i his slow voice Matlou said, 'GOO-D AFT­ ER NOO-N.' The two were happy, and the news was that the transport would come on Sunday morning. 15 16 -<& I STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 ,i 41 J A v^v ;V .K //&?&*& ' ?J&V r,i &*?,^o .N- ? &>

Back to square one - Matlou told his wife ditafola, ditulo, dibanka, disofa, dikotlolo, and children to be prepared, because the maupi, digarafo, dikatse, ditshwene, transport would come on Sunday morning. dikgogo, ditokolosi, maeba, masenke, The house of the boss was very far off from dipala, matsetse, ditlhako tsa kgale, mafele, I the house of the Matlou family, nearly deep diruiwa, and other common things to the in the bushes. The day of the escaped con­ new township. The truck roared off at slow f. victs opened and the truck arrived, the speed. The driver was a young man from driver accompanied by Matlou's friend. Hebron. When the truck met the dust road They broke into the jail and the daring and the dust road met the truck things began escape was made. Now bandits are on the to shake and all the children especially were run. Detectives are watching on TV2. But shaken by the truck. The driver, Matlou and Matlou's family is never seen again. That is his wife were sitting at the front. But the how he escaped to educate his clever truck was open at the back and the dust was i children. just flying high all over the road and through The truck was full of goods like mbaola, the bushes. The heads of the family were full mepeto, dikobo, holodoropo, sepilikase, of dust. The children were busy eating mielies which had been cooked by the daughter Makoma. On the mielies they put salt so that the mielies can be tasty. The 1

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palas, wild pigs, ostriches, etc. Also they met Croco And Impa small boys herding cattle at the bottom of the i \ i Hebron river. Also they passed the big building which used to be Mmanotshe school. Nowadays they called it 'Hebron College of Education'. The driver was talk­ ing about 'that' and 'there' using his hands with which he also managed the steering of In the bush near the road there was a big the moving truck. Also, their favourite dog dam and near the dam there were big rocks called 'Oubaas' was happy all the time, even which looked like sleeping cattle or horses. smiling with its nose touching the mouth. The driver slowed down the truck for all to have a look. On the rocks there were two big crocodiles, resting there without movement. The driver stopped and switched off the ^ engine. They looked at the two monsters. There was a movement between the two crocodiles. The one with its tail in the water moved back to the water slowly, followed by the second one which was on top of the rocks. Why did the crocodile move back to the water? Were they escaping because they s i had seen Matlou's family? No, the crocodile *« has seen its enemy. There were ten impalas moving in one group to drink water. They * came nearer and nearer and started to have a sip. The water started to move like a wind

20 I 19 •W/ SSVA .$*> 1987 42 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. —«$£* 1^1 £==xr^-, VI*

and all the impalas ran away. But there were still some which had not drunk enough water. They came back again and started to drink fast as they had been startled by cer­ tain moves in the water. In less than a second 3 the two strong crocodiles jumped out of the water and grabbed the innocent impalas, and pulled them inside the big dam. They started chowing the two impalas. £1 Fearing that it would be their turn next to be attacked, the family of Matlou told the driver to start the truck and take on their journey again. He put the key in the ignition and tried to start the old bully truck. But it did not start. No one was talking but they looked at the young driver with their wide opened eyes. At last smiles started to appear as the truck took on its journey. There were stories in the truck, talking about 'croco' and

*impa\ ^ ;^.v I 2 Libe At Home

• !(.• •//- T Vcame ne^ place u nowtoseeth u- "8 I grass 6SS0n y street 1 for fJ,em S the i »#A 0W^JVe' s? ^ F v> '^-«V» -<\ > Ms7,X<^?\ X.SH eT> <*ft ) t> A ^C D°Ss were h^v-11 b*bies «,» house 'C**^ sweepfog, wSng- ^C 7^ into the house. After emptying the truck the thej g Pe driver took the road again to Ga-Rankuwa. Some wen. r / ? ^ two rv, ' ople That was a good night to be at home. Being at home was like being at the game reserve of 'Manyeleti'. Life at home was really like at ^ ^fosP nVta"°ns> Ces °?°PS> hell. But everything was all right. There was furniture all over the house and Matlou prepared to put everything in position. There was an outside toilet and the govern­

y ment had used the soil they got from digging P"t furniture the toilet to make the floor of the empty 24 house. The soil from the toilet was red in the house. Matlou was the owner. ^W,v-o "*v-.v ^ Ovamboland

Lake Otjikoto lies azure .<&»>',- round a bend in the road, and wakens you after miles of sleepy veld, trees which gesture warnings. gets up with cracking knees pokes our doors' lining an There is a prehistoric frog old man is led away on four wheels 1 squatting in the carpark protests in Ndonga a sick blotched brown, his splayed feet pull its steel chassis canted up at the useless earth we're motioned into a v to the table. to lessen landmine blasts. 'Jou naam?' to me. At the lake they sit, — Ferrets in his ear three policemen, with the butt of a pencil two white and one black. half listens Slowly they feed the fish their sandwich crumbs. scratches his belly with his non-writing hand then writes We stare in wonder: with great care improbable peace has spread tongue tip held between teeth its blankets on the body of the morning CALVIN SORE — meticulously sketching the boils small tilapia onto my puritan soul flick like solace to the surface of our waking dreams • ** and disappear once more From the window of the car, slapping waves upon the edge: a burnt-out a brigandage of jays car. We look at it, has shown up in the withaaks, start and sweat. to gabble for the bread. * * * Suddenly there's a — SCREAM — like tearing paper So, late, we hurried through the sky, and one Mirage, as the late afternoon flung grey no two, THREE! cleave across the grey road the air at tree-top height and covered with clouds in tight formation, the sunset's flow and blister arrows of death, arrows of portent we had no time to see directly overhead: that Ovamboland is perversely beautiful: recoil. arrived at Onandjokwe The birds are gone. just before the curfew The pictures on the lake scrubbed off. 'Don't,' said our host, 'go outside after dark. There's a path And they sigh, here that people' (emphasized, a smile) gather their remaining lunch 'sometimes use.' the peels and the eggshells and climb back into the darkness Throwing belongings in a chest, darkness pressing in, I felt of their patrol my bowels wrench and stiffen * ** dashed outside into the close evening looking for an outhouse. Roadblock. Figures A drop of water on the thatch, order cars off the road between flashing red lights. then another, and it seemed the heavens must have opened like a sewer A crouching man in camouflage the first downpour of spring prises our hubcaps with a bayonet and me bemused, black passengers are jostled together too dry to run and too terrified to stay, in long lines and searched vacillated far too long.

44 S1AFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1 By time the unending roar a large pink brassiere of water began to ease flops from her torn t-shirt it was eleven o'clock. Outside SUN CITY BOPHUTHATSWANA the blackness grew intense, a mighty fist that clutched no moon. to our minds, he's polite enough: a lover's quarrel, merely — A muscular spider pulled itself we gulp our drinks into view on the cistern carefully ignore and glared at me: the rocket launcher strapped then, to my added horror, to his sodden back footsteps crunched stealthily * * * past the door. Here the policemen go barechested I sat in the dark and contemplated and the makakunyas,2 young boys, spit this first heroic encounter on their country: last night the passage of a leftist a store was destroyed by 'persons unknown' in search of new experience the police blame the guerillas, my first night in the war zone, the guerillas blame the police; spent sitting on a toilet and the small trader • * * caught in these sudden eruptions like dog's vomit on the ground — and the other space of fear: sat up in bed (knowing which side he was on) 'a landmine victim's face will freeze and wondered so he looks like a laughing mule which side his upper lip pushed up was on him by the fiery blast of air * * * and a betrayed grin The bodies pile in the morning, of surprise', he says found in neat rows 'landmine victims who don't die next to the homestead palisades usually lose their pecker and both legs In front of the sights — in any case. a six-month child, its face There are only two blown away by the careless ways to drive in this screwed-up country gesture of a finger: watch the road in front of you a cast off doll like it was your mother-in-law that was his mother, or drive like hell' her chest tattooed with bayonet thrusts (inching through the drifts of sand They are easy to delineate more jumpy than you'll admit where a half buried coke tin Behind the sights — 's enough to cause you panic) a question mark '— you'll get used to it' What did he think of, afterwards? (the crackle of shots in the night firecrackers * * * cut short) The army, the headman says, and the worst moment of all have taken to noting drinking with three friends those villages they think at a bar in Oshakati feed the swapo's all red plush and flies plant landmines the door bangs open: under bushes in the area, a drunk Home Guard carefully smooth over Pushes a woman in, kicks and slaps her the disturbed earth she screams 'fuck off, go to hell!' and strew the ground with sweets

^AFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 45 * * * Reimo Hakonnen, fifty, balding he only smiles. with a wife and two boys, lives in a pink sprawling bungalow of stone Months later under a huge fig tree in neglectful Windhoek fifty yards off the dirt road. I hear he finally drove his bakkie over a double landmine: You can hear his rueful laugh the result looked as the army convoys like a giant lizard took a bite spread dust on its fitful leaves out of the engine block. on winter days, Reimo Hakonnen, however, stood up wending their stubborn path and walked away from the wreckage to the north. almost apologetically. — It's not the best of times, here. The school you can see And still, from time to time, from the west verandah friends of mine is deserted now, students fled journalists and voyeurs past the borders for military training speak of his wife, his hospitality, or southwards to the mines. the house's cool interior and his inscrutable children. I hear Their lonely goalposts lean like drunken sailors on the plain. he lives on with his ordinary courage, with patience and with forbearance Once, he says, you could look through the cursory war eastwards past the mission lands past forever where the cucimbas3 jewel the plain * * * to the wisping shouts of children fishing I see your coloration, your ghost lifting their flamingo legs in the water; much clearer than did yourself the cobwebs of skein nets raised and dipped when you traded sight for obedience even real flamingoes and the futile doctrines of your skin — once, he says, young girls would promenade on Sundays so when your truck danced twirl parasols as bright as parakeets on the road of your amazed innocence rest under the palm trees at noon and your death spat from the sand and politely refrain from gossip in one enormous tongue only about each other. and the legs came apart from your body and the blood ran, placidly Reimo Hakonnen is a builder, into the disregard of a foreign land and has lived here sixteen years. it was too late for questions, The Hakonnens still eat cold meat and bread, tomatoes and cheese for every meal too late a humbling, the rage and say their grace seriously pulls back your lips now without speech while spiders watch from the thatch above. without a face There's a sauna in their yard. and the words lost from your tattered mouth The children speak accepting flies like raisins: no Afrikaans, no English, the realization you were tricked but Finnish and Kwanyama1. by a Humpty Dumpty parliament perched Sometimes they dance in the heat on the spattered walls of its army. round and round Everything's the same. round and round then squint at the sky It is too hot this summer and try to not fall over. to mourn long for the ruptured dead or the herd boy child you one day shot He leaves early in the morning, who stood in the way of your heavy gun. silently. His hands lead him as if by instinct to the new school I mourn instead the church is building further down the road. the contempt of our false rulers Else he travels over the factious countryside, for all the flesh they crucify: instructing the need to listen to your palms, you're a victim too, the use of wood and stone. you fool. When asked if he is ever scared,

46 STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 From the tail of their eyes (a blue set, and two brown) two teenagers watch each other surreptitiously the one Explanation: is under orders, 1. Ndonga, Kwanyama — dialects of the Ovambo language. hides from an ardent sun (Oshivambo) in the shadow of the dugout roof. 2. makakunyas — local slang for homeguards Scope girls strew the sweating floor — 3. cucimbas — shallow perennial pools in Ovamboland 4. blue, red & green — Swapo colours obsessed with them, he sighs and tilts his machinegun embarrassedly towards a distant road. , On the road I the other, laughing. I Her bike teeters with a load of milk and oshikundu the spokes wink bottletops and from her saddlebag three streamers wave behind a defiant blue, red and green* Kelwyn Sole A SWAPO rally to commemorate 20 years of PLAN — Courtesy Afrapix

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 1987 Johannesburg 100

The big city whose streets are lined with gold celebrates a hundred years Remember when Paul Kruger eat and be merry gave you the Bible forget the country bums Hot'omnyama celebrate nevermind that he stole your land in Moutse, Siyabuswa ululate and rejoice in the process forget Khayelitsha, Leandra forget Wilgespruit, Enkangala celebrate a hundred years Remember when Smuts forget Crossroads of subordination drew the human rights bill for the international community Remember you won't have to celebrate a hundred years certainly you don't need one too carry a big pass anymore of oppression just a card repression Remember when Verwoerd but you have to carry it and more oppression so unselfishly designed all the time an education system specially This is Reality celebrate a hundred years for you 12-year-old refused bail in injustice what's he doing in jail in the first place not to mention the exploitation Remember how well you were protected 12-year-old on a charge of intimidation: from the communists you thankless by J.B. Yes, you heard right ...intimidation agitator Jimmy Kruger This is Reality instigator and them intimidator Aag man celebrate Remember you can sleep peacefully forget polotiks you communist the trouble-makers are all you klipgooier on Robben I. pleasure resort Did you know in Pollsmoor Rau celebrates twenty years? Leave your Molotov cocktail Diepkloof Sun Ja the universiteit at home and not the tribal college join in the tikkie draai You still want cause to celebrate? the under-graduates spend celebrate, don't you realise Mkhulu came to Jo'burg in his youth one year in the townships baas likes you he gave his all to this glorious city practising marksmanship there's drinks and wors now he is finished then off to Angola but don't forget the curfew he exits with nothing in his pockets to protect you sorry! he doesn't have pockets celebrate Mnt'omnyama, celebrate You've got no worries the big city comes of age Celebrate mntanami celebrate celebrate forget your dark cold home what little you earn in Soweto from this city you have to return to it CELEBRATE OR ELSE ... you are lucky to have one anyway don't engage in consumer boycotts Mlungu will not be pleased Jabulani Jubilate Have more wyn en wors Mlungu loves you and wait for the third Rubic ... Chipane L. Kgaphola

STAFFRIDER, VOL. 6 NO. 4, 19# Factories, Townships, and Popular Culture on the Rand A People's History of South Africa Volume Two Luli Callinicos

The sequel to Gold and Workers (A People's History of South Africa, Vol. 1) covers the years which saw the rise of a working class on the Rand. It analyses 'the world that made the workers' — the development of manufacturing industry in the wake of the mining revolution, the satellite townships clustered around the cities, the working conditions of those in wage labour, the struggle of some people to avoid proletarianization and of others to stay alive on inadequate wages. If working life on the Rand was shaped by these underlying structures and processes, working people also 'made a world' in the course of their struggle to survive. This book also tells of that world — its lifestyles and occupations, its political life and working-class organizations, its art forms and enter­ tainments. SPECIAL PRICE FOR WORKERS

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