HERITAGE and drawers of water. To achieve this subjection, institutions like Lesseyton Protect and Promote had to be dealt with harshly. Institutions like Lovedale and © Shutterstock.com Lesseyton, though this was never encouraged by the missionaries, our Heritage were in many ways cockpits of black radicalism. Students found it necessary to rise above the notion of being black English gentlemen and ladies. For example class boycotts and other forms of resistance at missionary institutions certainly worried the regime. Such activities had to be nipped in the bud before they could spill over to the world outside where the struggle against apartheid by the ANC and other left leaning organisations was growing in intensity. There has always been a close relationship between religious and socio-political matters. If we go back further in time, we can recall how the Smuts government used force to suppress Enoch Mgijima’s sect, the Israelites. 163 of Mgijima’s followers were mowed down in Bulhoek on At SOMAFCO, the ANC school in Tanzania, a May 24, 1921 for refusing to vacate microcosm of liberated South Africa, students the land they occupied in Ntabelanga, in Queenstown. Indeed, land remains were encouraged to partake in cultural activities a burning issue in South Africa and its reform and transformation can no so as to know and understand themselves and longer be avoided. By destroying institutions like their history. Healdtown, the regime took with it our history, heritage, culture, identity and dignity. In exile, under the leadership By Thabang Makwetla of Oliver Tambo, we began to restore these important pillars of our lives, in preparation for a liberated South Africa. t the start of this heritage month, This was following the Bantu Education At the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom I addressed congregants at the Act in 1953 and the so-called Extension College (SOMAFCO) for instance, the Lesseyton Methodist seminary of University Education Act of 1959, A ANC school in Tanzania, a microcosm in Queenstown. We gathered there bringing about inferior, racially divided of liberated South Africa, students not only to celebrate the Seminary and tribalised black education in were encouraged to partake in cultural and the lives of its people over the South Africa. activities so as to know and understand years but its rejuvenation and revival. Deprived of resources, institutions themselves and their history. But it saddened me, and I am sure, like Healdtown where Govan Mbeki The establishment of the Arts and all the people present, that this great and Nleson Mandela had their Culture desk in exile, promoted by missionary institution is in a state of formative educational experience Oliver Tambo, himself a former choir dereliction. However, considering our eventually closed down. Though master at St Peter’s in Johannesburg oppressive apartheid past, this comes Lovedale continued to operate under in the mid-1940s, encouraged exiles as no surprise. the puppet Ciskei Bantustan, like to understand the importance of Over the years precious institutions Lesseyton it became a shadow of its arts, culture, history and heritage as such as the Lesseyton Methodist former illustrious past. an integral part of our identity and Seminary, Lovedale in Alice, The apartheid regime had its own to realise that these were not an Healdtown just outside Fort Beaufort sinister vision of the black child’s after-thought. and even the University of Fort Hare, future. The mental enslavement of In 1991 the Commission for were intentionally and systematically blacks was fundamental to the regime, Museums, Monuments and Heraldry destroyed by the apartheid regime. reducing them to hewers of wood 42 THE THINKER HERITAGE (CMMH) was established by the and found guilty of capital crimes, cases, families should consider spiritual ANC, chaired by Wally Serote. It was mostly black, were executed under repatriation of their loved ones to a now clear that the days of apartheid apartheid. The gallows where over final resting place of their choice. oppression and subjugation were 130 prisoners were hanged at the then Government calls on the interfaith over, and that the transformation Pretoria Central Prison at the height of community, including that of Lessyton of the heritage sector in a apartheid, included political activists to give spiritual guidance, ensuring liberated South Africa was firmly on such as Solomon Mahlangu, Vuyisile that the bodies of exhumed cadres are the agenda. Mini and fighters from POQO, has now buried with dignity and that assistance Since 1994, the Department of Arts been transformed and incorporated is given where necessary with spiritual and Culture and its entities such as into a museum. repatriation. the National Heritage Council under The Department of Justice and Similarly, members of the Lessyton the tutelage of Advocate Sonwabile Correctional Services is engaged in congregation should, for example, Mancotywa, has made serious strides identifying the graves of all those take a lead in cleansing Nonzwakazi in transforming our heritage sector. who went to the gallows. This process Methodist Church at Mlungisi Offensive busts and statues of enables the families of the deceased to Township, which has historical colonial and apartheid leaders have have closure and give dignified funerals attachments to Lesseyton Mission. This been and continue to be removed to their loved ones. This process is now is where eleven apartheid activists were from the public space, street names more than half-way complete. Thanks brutally killed by apartheid forces on are being changed to reflect our true to the sterling work of the Missing November 17, 1985. This will enable identity and new monuments including Persons Task Team at the National all those killed during the massacre to the Hector Pieterson Museum, the Prosecuting Authority (NPA) which find spiritual rest and peace. Apartheid Museum and the District Six has uncovered more than 140 burial We should also all strive to restore Museum have been established. sites of political activists from the ANC institutions like Lesseyton and Lovedale Busts and statues of our leaders to their former glory, enabling us to such as Mandela, Tambo, Walter and give our children the finest education, Albertina Sisulu are now distributed By destroying pivotal for the development of our through our landscape. The Lesseyton institutions like country, educating both the hand heritage landscape also ought to be and the mind as was the slogan of transformed and the church gathering Healdtown, the mission stations throughout Africa from on the 1st of September was testimony regime took with it Lesseyton to Mbereshi in Zambia and to that. as was the case at SOMAFCO. Not only should our nation our history, heritage, The alumni of Lessyton should celebrate Lessyton as a heritage site, culture, identity take the lead in upholding its legacy. but also write the mission station’s and dignity. They should draw inspiration from the history, remembering and celebrating likes of Reverend Z R Mahabane, the the life and times of its founders such as institution’s late alumnus, a man of Joseph Warnera and the first Wesleyan and PAC around the country, killed conviction, commitment, selflessness African Minister, Reverend Johannes and buried in shallow graves during and compassion. When 437 miners Mahonga. apartheid times. died at Coalbrook on January 21, The Department of Justice and Exhumations by the Missing Persons 1961, in South Africa’s deadliest ever Correctional Services as well as the Task Team have also uncovered mine disaster, following a rockfall, Police Ministry, working with other artefacts such as bullets, coins and Mahabane, together with the likes arms of government, are also making a sometimes uniforms worn by guerrillas of Rev James Calata, another of our significant contribution to transforming at the time of their deaths. Remarkably struggle icons, stepped forward. our heritage landscape. We have, in one case, the team uncovered an During the memorial service for for example, renamed the notorious East German compass around the neck these miners at Coalbrook in February John Vorster Square, nicknamed the of a deceased Umkhonto we Sizwe 1960, Mahabane played a great role Blue Hotel during apartheid times, as (MK) combatant, still working at the in comforting those gathered on the Johannesburg Central Police Station. time of exhumation. Such items have scene who had lost their loved ones. This is where a number of activists were been handed to Freedom Park for It did not matter to Mahabane that the detained, tortured and sometimes preservation as they form part of our entombed 437 men were largely from killed by the apartheid police, as was heritage. Lesotho and Mozambique. These were the case with Ahmed Timol. However in some cases government his African brothers who contributed We have also transformed Robben is unable to recover the remains of significantly in building our country. In Island from a notorious prison to cadres horribly killed by apartheid Mahabane we had a Pan-Africanist and an acclaimed world heritage site. forces. This is the case with those a visionary. We owe it to him and other Government has renamed the Pretoria whose bodies were reduced to ashes great forebears of Lesseyton to revive Central Prison as Kgoshi Mampuru by apartheid death squads such as the fortunes and history of this once Prison. This is where those held the notorious Vlakplaas unit. In such great mission station. ■ Volume 78 / 2018 43.