Conversations with Myself (4 page)

Nelson Mandela once played the part of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, in a play performed at Fort Hare. He played the tyrant Creon when the prisoners put on
Antigone
on Robben Island. Ahmed Kathrada had ordered a whole lot of Greek plays ostensibly for his studies – these did not evoke any curiosity among the warders, so were allowed to come in without any problems. Playing the villain no doubt appealed to Mandela’s wicked sense of humour. He sometimes quotes from Shakespeare and has a taste for Greek tragedy, which he first read on the Island. He joked at one time about being an actor and, during the years of his political apprenticeship, he learned the power of the dramatic gesture.

Indeed, his life from 1941 until his incarceration in 1962 was one of great public drama. From the late 1940s he began to assume leadership positions in the African National Congress (ANC), and through the 1950s and into the 1960s he participated prominently in every national campaign and event in the struggle against apartheid. By the time of his capture in August 1962, he was the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) – the armed wing of the ANC – and arguably the most popular and well-known figure in the anti-apartheid struggle. He had become ‘The Black Pimpernel’, South Africa’s most wanted man.

Not surprisingly, in the 1963–64 Rivonia Trial, the most dramatic and significant political trial in South Africa’s history, Mandela stole the show.

His personal drama heightened when, after a couple of passing affairs, he married a young relative of Walter Sisulu, Evelyn Mase, in 1944. They had four children: a daughter, Makaziwe (Maki); two sons, Madiba Thembekile (Thembi) and Makgatho (Kgatho); and another daughter – their first, also named Makaziwe – who died aged just nine months. After a dozen years of marriage they separated with bitterness and acrimony, which caused considerable unhappiness in the family down the years.

In 1958, he married the radiantly beautiful Winnie Madikizela. Mandela always admired strong women, like Ruth Mompati, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Ruth First, but he did not, perhaps, appreciate how strong Winnie would turn out to be. They had two daughters: Zenani (Zeni) and Zindziswa (Zindzi). Mandela often called Winnie ‘Zami’, an abbreviation of her Xhosa name ‘Nomzamo’. This second family was to feel as acutely as the first the impact of Mandela’s public life. His drama was their pain.

1. FROM HIS UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MANUSCRIPT WRITTEN IN PRISON

Only armchair politicians are immune from committing mistakes. Errors are inherent in political action. Those who are in the centre of political struggle, who have to deal with practical and pressing problems, are afforded little time for reflection and no precedents to guide them and are bound to slip up many times. But in due course, and provided they are flexible and prepared to examine their work self critically, they will acquire the necessary experience and foresight that will enable them to avoid the ordinary pitfalls and pick out their way ahead amidst the throb of events.

2. FROM HIS UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MANUSCRIPT WRITTEN IN PRISON

In Alexandra, life was exciting and, although the racial policies of the present government have destroyed its social fabric and reduced it to a ghost town, thinking of it always evokes in me fond memories.
¹
Here I learnt to adjust myself to urban life and came into physical contact with all the evils of white supremacy. Although the township had some beautiful buildings, it was a typical slum area – overcrowded and dirty, with undernourished children running about naked or in filthy rags. It teamed with all kinds of religious sects, gangsters and shebeens. Life was cheap and the gun and the knife ruled at night. Very often the police would raid for passes, poll tax and liquor and arrest large numbers. In spite of this, Alexandra was more than a home for its fifty thousand residents. As one of the few areas of the country where Africans could acquire freehold property, and run their own affairs free from the tyranny of municipal regulations, it was both a symbol and a challenge. Its establishment was an acknowledgement that a section of our people had broken their ties with the rural areas and become permanent town dwellers. Drawn from all the African language groups, its population was politically conscious, more articulate and with a sense of solidarity which was causing increasing concern among the whites. It became clear to me that the leadership of my people would come from the urban areas where militant workers and an emergent class of prosperous and ambitious traders were suffering all the frustrations of racial prejudice. These are the straps that bind one tightly to Alex. Up to the actual moment of my arrest fourteen years ago, I regarded the township as a home in which I had no specific house, and Orlando, where my wife and children still live, as a place where I had a house but no home.

3. FROM HIS UNPUBLISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MANUSCRIPT WRITTEN IN PRISON

A warm friendship developed between me and Lazar Sidelsky and the numerous acts of kindness and assistance he gave me on all sorts of problems would fill a whole chapter.
²
A very special friend was John Mngoma, an orator and well versed in Zulu history. I would listen to him for hours relating interesting episodes from our past…As a result of these and other contacts I made during my early days in Johannesburg, I developed some inner strength and soon forgot about my difficulties and my poverty and suffering, my loneliness and frustrations. These connections gave me the confidence that I could stand on my own feet, enjoy the goodwill and support of worthy men and women I had not previously known and to whom I could turn in case of need. And now I had a home of my own choice far away from my birthplace and had made progress, however little, mainly through my own initiative and resources. I have a special attachment to the people who befriended me during times of distress. A feature of many of these friendships is that they were built around families rather than individuals, and they have scarcely been affected by the death of those members through whom they were founded.

4. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL

MANDELA: But there is a fellow I became friendly with at Healdtown, and that friendship bore fruit when I reached Johannesburg. A chap called Zachariah Molete. He was in charge of sour milk in Healdtown, and if you are friendly to him, he would give you very thick sour milk…When I arrived in Johannesburg in the early forties, I stayed in…Alexandra township, and I became a close friend of his, because his father had…a grocery shop, and he was the chief steward of the Wesleyan Church and he looked after me, because I was struggling, made sure I got some groceries. [On] one particular occasion he came to me and said, ‘Look, you must be very careful at night because there is a gang which they call the Thutha Ranch.’ Now ‘
thutha
’ means collecting and taking away. They were such gangsters, such thieves, that when they raided your house they would remove everything – they got the name from there. And he says, ‘They are operating in your area here.’ Now I was staying…in a single room, and one night I woke up because there [was] noise of people walking outside, and I listened to this and I remembered what Zachariah had told me. And
then
there was an argument and the argument was clear. One chap says, ‘No, let’s get in, let’s go in’ and another one says, ‘No, man, this chap has no money, he has nothing, he’s a student.’ Then they argued…but the other chap was tough. He said, ‘Leave the student alone, man, leave him alone’…But apparently the chap who was insisting got so frustrated, so annoyed, that he
kicked
the door – it was a poor door you see and the bolt, you know, just snapped. But they didn’t enter; they passed.

STENGEL: That was your door that he kicked?

MANDELA: My door, yes. And I got such a
shock
, such a
shock
, but they passed; they didn’t enter…I changed my bed and I put it across the door there, you know, because it was the only way of closing the door and keeping it in place. That’s how I slept. And I was very grateful because…whoever it was…who saved me from being robbed, one of them was kind enough, you know, to say, ‘No, don’t do that.’

5. FROM A LETTER TO ZINDZI MANDELA, DATED 9 DECEMBER 1979, WHICH WAS CONFISCATED BY PRISON CENSORS BECAUSE HE DIDN’T ‘HAVE PERMISSION’ TO INCLUDE IT IN HER CHRISTMAS CARD THAT YEAR

I sometimes wonder what happened to our boxing gym at what used to be called St Joseph’s in Orlando East. The walls of that school and of the DOCC [Donaldson Orlando Community Centre] are drenched with sweet memories that will delight me for yrs [years]. When we trained at the DOCC in the early [19]50s the club included amateur and professional boxers as well as wrestlers. The club was managed by Johannes (Skip Adonis) Molosi, a former champ and a capable trainer who knew the history, theory and practical side of the game.
³

Unfortunately, in the mid-50s he began neglecting his duties and would stay away from the gym for long periods.

.....................................................................................

From a letter to Zindzi Mandela, dated 9 December 1979
. The letter was discovered in 2010 in the South African National Archives with a handwritten note in Afrikaans by a prison censor which read: ‘The attached piece that prisoner Mandela included with his Christmas card will not be sent. The card will be sent. The prisoner has not been informed that this piece has been rejected. He does not have permission to include it with the card. I discussed this on 20 December 1979 with Brigadier du Plesssis and he agrees with the decision. Keep it in his file.’

Because of this, the boxers revolted. Twice I settled the matter, but when Skip failed to pay heed to repeated protests from the boxers, things reached breaking point. This time I was totally unable to reconcile the parties. The boxers left the DOCC and opened their own gym at St Joseph’s. Thembi and I went along with them. Simon Tshabalala, who is now abroad, became the manager, and the star boxer was, of course, still Jerry (Uyinja) Moloi who later became the Tvl [Transvaal] lightweight champ and leading contender for the national title. Apart from Jerry we produced 3 other champs: Eric (Black Material) Ntsele who won the national bantamweight from Leslie Tangee, Freddie (Tomahawk) Ngidi who became Tvl flyweight champ, a title which was later held by one of our gym mates, Johannes Mokotedi. There were other good prospects like Peter, the flyweight, who built our garage at home. He hailed from Bloemfontein and was a student at the Vacation School in Dube. Thembi himself was a good boxer and on occasions I sat until very late at night waiting for him to return from a tournament in Randfontein, Vereeniging or other centres. I and my gym mates were a closely knit family and when Mum [Winnie] came into the picture that family became even more intimate. Jerry and Eric even drove Mum around when I could not do so and the entire gym turned up at our engagement party.

By the way, Freddie worked for our firm as a clerk. He was quiet and reliable and the entire staff was fond of him. But on one Xmas eve I returned to the office and who did I find lying flat and helpless in the passage just outside the general office? Freddie. His appearance so shocked me that I rushed him to a doctor. The quack gave him one quick look and assured me that the champ was OK but that he needed more sleep. He had succumbed to the usual Xmas sprees and over-indulged himself. I drove him to his home at OE [Orlando East] quite relieved. Incidentally, I should have told you that during the dispute at the DOCC Skip accused Jerry of stabbing him in the back just as Mark Antony betrayed his friend Caesar. Thembi asked who Antony and Caesar were. At the time Thembi was only 9. Skip explained, ‘Don’t tell us about people who are dead.’ If I had not been there Skip would have pulled out the child’s bowels, so furious he was. He bitterly complained to me about what he considered to be discourtesy on the part of the boy. I reminded him that in my house I was the patriarch and ruled over the household. But that I had no such powers in the gym; that Thembi had paid membership fees, we were perfect equals and I could give him no instructions.

We would spend about 11/2 hrs in the gym and I was at home about 9 pm. Tired with hardly a drop of water in my body. Mum would give me a glass of fresh and cold orange juice, supper served with well-prepared sour milk. Mum was glow[ing] with good health and happiness those dys [days]. The house was like a beehive with the family, old school friends, fellow workers from Bara [Baragwanath Hospital],
⁴
members of the gym and even clients calling at the house to chat with her. For more than 2 yrs she and I literally lived on honeymoon. I quietly resisted my activity that kept me away from home after office hrs [hours]. Yet she and I kept warning each other that we were living on borrowed time, that hard times would soon knock at the door. But we were having a great time with good friends and we did not have much time for self-pity. It is more than 2 decades since then, yet I recall those dys so clearly as if everything happened yesterday.

6. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL

STENGEL: During this time there was quite a lot of socializing, wasn’t there? You mentioned before, when you first came to Johannesburg, you were taken to parties, Communist Party parties, and you met Michael Harmel,
⁵
and there’s been a lot written about the mixing, in a social way, that was going on with Joe Slovo and Ruth First…
⁶

MANDELA: No actually, it was not something extraordinary; just like anything that was happening in this country both amongst whites and blacks. The only difference is that here you had blacks and whites together.

STENGEL: But that was extraordinary, wasn’t it?

MANDELA:…That mixing was extraordinary, but the parties themselves were something that were very frequent in the country. Yes, it was not something novel. And it didn’t happen with such regularity. The point was that these groups were also used, certainly by the [Communist] Party, for the purpose of recruiting new members.

STENGEL: I see…at least among whites, didn’t they feel that they were doing something that was very daring and exciting by having mixed parties like that?

MANDELA: No, no, no, I don’t think so. Here were whites who were bred in the democratic tradition, in the proper sense of the word, who had committed themselves to the struggle by the oppressed people and therefore they wanted moments of relaxation and invited Africans, blacks.

STENGEL: And you would go to these parties?

MANDELA: Oh yes, yes. I was not a frequent [party goer]. In fact, at one time Joe complained to Walter [Sisulu] that ‘Man, Nelson doesn’t like parties.’

7. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL

MANDELA: I was being introduced to various strands of thought in Johannesburg.

STENGEL: And when you went to the meetings you would just sit and listen?

MANDELA:…I never spoke. The only thing I took part in was debates – not in political meetings but just academic debates. For example, there would be a team from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg; I would be invited to lead a discussion from Johannesburg.
That
I participated in, but in meetings I never did, until I joined the [ANC] Youth League. Even then I was very nervous. I was really very nervous.

STENGEL: Nervous why? Because it was a big step, or it was dangerous?