Author's Notes
TALES OF THE GRINDSTONE is a collection of reflections on the latter years of my youth, my coming of age, specifically the years after completing school—a period of heightened political strife in South Africa in the early 1970s to the 1980s. It's a story about some of the people I got to know on that journey. With the passage of time and the fading of memory, some recollections of events and dates are hazy. Regrettably, back then, I was preoccupied with matters at hand and didn't invest enough time in keeping records and notes as events unfolded. Moreover, many of the files held by the Apartheid security apparatus went astray before the democratic dispensation. This work has suffered from a lack of access to crucial reference material, such as police files, witness statements, court records, and other information that would have added value to this story. In a sense, this remains a work in progress and an open invitation to those who possess relevant information to contribute and help fill in the gaps. But there is a silver lining. The paucity of historical records forced me to reset my approach to my narrative about those turbulent years. Rather than concentrating on digging up archival material and historical data, I opted to focus my attention on the impact some of the people I got to know had on my life. Some of these individuals are larger than life, towering above any monument one can hope to erect in their honour. The value of their contribution cannot be quantified in conventional terms. Only poetry comes close to unravelling the enigma and essence of some of the people who have profoundly influenced our lives. So, here and there, I consciously took liberties or poetic license with the images I presented. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy and reputation of both living individuals and those who have passed away. But Tales of the Grindstone is no fantasy. It's a story of real people who have traversed the difficult road of struggle.
Chapter 1
AFTER COMPLETING MATRIC in 1971 with a slew of unimpressive symbols — it didn't take me long to realise the 'utter hopelessness' of my qualifications. For months after leaving school, my friend Tobias and I would board the train from KwaMashu Township to Dalbridge, which was strategically situated close to Maydon Wharf and the cargo-handling facilities of the Durban port. The station was a gateway to the bustling Congella industrial basin with clusters of manufacturing plants flanking both sides of the railway tracks.
Alighting at Dalbridge, we were immediately swamped by the muggy breeze from the sea mingled with the piquant odours emanating from the oil refineries; the huge flour mills and sorghum breweries adding a sour tang to the air. The throngs of commuters spilt out of the train like a stirred colony of termites, scurrying towards the clanging shipyards and bustling container terminals.
Whenever we landed on the platform, we'd look around for Mr Nkabinde, Tobias's father, who, as it happened, worked as one of the managers at the station. He was always in black trousers, white shirt and black tie — the uniform of the ticket examiners and railway officials. Tobias had a striking resemblance to his father. Like Tobias, he was a short man, a bigger version of my friend. I noticed they also had the same mannerisms, the same contemplative posture: one arm across the chest, supporting the elbow of the other whose fist rested on the cheek. The old man greeted and briefly interrogated us about where we were headed today. He walked around the platform, keeping an eye on train movements, stepping in and out of the station office, and announcing incoming and departing trains through the loudspeaker. By now, he knew me. Even while at school, I used to collect Tobias at their house on weekends, and together we'd go to the Durban North suburbs looking for temporary gardening jobs. Now he was saying, 'I'm happy you boys are teaming up this way. Don't worry, something will surely come up.' He gave Tobias a few coins, and we left the station.
We walked down the dingy Dalton Road, heading for the recruitment offices of Dunlop Tyres, reputed to be one of the largest employers offering much-coveted shift work. En route, we passed the grimy, overcrowded Dalton men's hostel, where several off-shift workers sat in boxer shorts and vests around rickety tables outside playing cards and umlabalaba, the board game. At other tables, groups of men heartily shared dishes of meat, tripe, spinach, and maize pap, served by female food vendors, with cartons of iJuba sorghum beer sourced from the nearby municipal beerhall.
Part of the hostel served as an informal abattoir; a line of carcasses dangled on hooks behind a burly figure clad in a denim pinafore. Cheerfully wielding a panga, he chopped chunks of meat on the counter, occasionally swatting away clouds of pesky flies. An assortment of cowhides hung on washing lines, to be fashioned later into drums, shields, imvunulo, the traditional Zulu attire, and other items. An array of 'traditional weapons' – sticks, spears, machetes, and knobkerries, was on display against the wall. Later, during the period of political violence that engulfed the province from the mid-seventies up to the early nineties, Dalton and other hostels became a source of weapons that were used in the killing that ensued.
In the early seventies, a big number of hostel residents were members of trade unions, with organisers and shop stewards of the Metal and Allied Workers Union (MAWU) actively involved.
Come weekend, these men spruced themselves up in the fashionable umblaselo — a set of trousers and waistcoat decorated in bright Zulu colours and designs, often donning stylish haircuts, including the iconic one sported by Mandela. The men crammed the musty hostel hall to partake in various entertainment activities — indhlamu dance, isicathamiya and maskandi music, and stick-fighting contests. All this was fascinating, opening a whole new world to us greenhorns, still fresh from school.
Adjacent to the hostel was a bustling herb market with traditional healers and herbalists displaying their wares — heaps of roots, dried snake skins, and bones — offering remedies for various ailments and problems. From potions to boost virility to charms promising good fortune in job hunting or legal matters, the market boasted solutions for all conceivable troubles. A pebble stone under your tongue could help you sail through a job interview or befuddle prosecutors trying your case. Coming from a strict Christian background — my father was a founder of the Christian Assemblies Church — I stayed clear of the bone-throwing sangomas, who proffered various solutions for cleansing of isinyama (bad luck). I just had to rely on my parents, who always included my quest for a job in their prayers.
Turning left at the junction of Dalton and Sydney Road, we headed towards the imposing Dunlop Tyres compound. I remember us spending hours at the main gate among a crowd of other hopefuls, the scrolled Matric certificate digging into my ribs, hoping to get the attention of the surly recruitment officer. With his long beard and bushy sideburns, he looked like Jesus, but wasn't as compassionate. Always gruff and snappy with people, he was unmoved by our plight. Just looking through the grill gate, one could tell that the work at Dunlop was pretty rough. While waiting, we observed some workers coming out of the stolid grey buildings for a smoke or lunch. They resembled coal miners surfacing for air after arduous shifts underground. I remembered then what my friend Ceasar, a former Dunlop employee himself, once said when we told him we were seeking work there. He gazed at us bemused, like we were little lambs heading for the slaughter. 'You know, for months you stand at the Dunlop main gate, vying for employment. But I tell you, the day they take you ... throw those blue overalls at you, usher you into the smouldering shop floor crammed with labourers drenched in sweat, their faces black with soot, you start regretting why you ever tried so hard.'
Usually after drawing a blank at Dunlop, we'd trek back, crossing the railway line via the station bridge, and venture towards Maydon Wharf to try our luck at Lever Brothers, the chemical and pharmaceutical giant. But, without the requisite science qualifications, our prospects remained dim. Some days, we'd catch a bus from the Indian market on Warwick Avenue to Prospecton, home to the expansive South African Breweries. The outcome was invariably the same. By then, we'd stopped flaunting our Matric certificates.
Chapter 2
SATURDAY AFTERNOON I checked on my friend Tobias at his home, which was close to the tennis court at F-section. I had not seen him for over a week. He grimly told me that he'd decided to take a job as a labourer at a construction site on Umgeni Road.
Seeing that I was looking at his hands, he quickly dropped them to his side.
'I cannot just sit at home. I need to do something in the meantime, until something better comes up.'
'Of course, of course, I understand.' I didn't want him to think I was disapproving of his decision. The vein on his forehead was jutting. I could tell he was stressed, 'Hey, let's go get some air.'
We'd spent the afternoon playing LP records on the Blaupunkt radiogram. We got up and walked down to the tennis court, which was a stone's throw from Tobias's place. I'd brought with me two old tennis racquets with worn netting that my brother Ben, who was a serious tennis player, had discarded.
Ben and his friends were already at the court playing in mixed doubles. They looked impressive in their white shorts, shirts, and sneakers; especially the females in short skirts and tight sweaters. But they were much older than us, Ben's age mates, at least eight years older. Tobias and I, as usual, fooled around in the empty court next to the one where they were playing, watching the game, having fun imitating the umpiring — 'thirty-forty, deuce …' — and helping to fetch stray balls for the players. We were amused by the prim and proper tennis lexicon and culture; you constantly heard 'So sorry!' — none of the spitting and swearing and public scratching of testicles and snot-shooting that you see with soccer players.
One of Ben's friends Jabu, an articled clerk, a son of a school principal and renowned choirmaster, was particularly bombastic and could turn any conversation into an erudite discussion. Between play he'd share titbits about the history of the game. Tobias and I never forgot one incidence where he missed a return on a serve, the ball dangerously whizzing past his bespectacled face. He stood there breathless; arms akimbo. 'That was an astounding smash!' he said. 'I was stunned, mesmerised, FLABBERGASTED!'
Ben's interests extended beyond tennis. I remember when we were growing up in the early sixties in Chesterville, Ben occasionally introduced us to new games and sports in the backyard where we played. He taught us cricket and baseball, improvising stumps and bats from sticks. In the family, he was the one who became quite involved with politics early on—spending hours scouring the airwaves for the banned Radio Freedom broadcasts. He practically used our small transistor radio as a pillow. This, despite the widely held belief at the time that the Special Branch patrolled the townships in unmarked cars equipped with antennae to detect signals of people listening to illegal broadcasts. My parents eventually gave up warning him about this.
Chapter 3
SOME OF THE days a few of us joined scores of other school-leavers at the C-section soccer grounds, where the Municipality's Social Work Department had set up an office cum soup kitchen to help job seekers. We registered our names in their database, hoping something would come out of it. Most of the day, we lounged around in the grass playing soccer. At lunchtime, we lined up for the soup.
It was no Wembley Stadium, but we relished playing on the soccer field. It had real goalposts — albeit without nets — and the grass was lush. We'd all grown up playing soccer barefoot on our streets with balls fashioned out of scrunched newspaper, wrapped with layers of plastic bags, and tied with twine and rubber bands. Occasionally, one of us would bring a plastic ball, received as a treat from parents. A few of these ended up punctured or sliced up by the cantankerous Mr Zwane with his sharp shears and contemptuously thrown back to us whenever the ball went over his perfectly manicured box-hedge and landed on his immaculate lawn.
Later, support for our soccer ambitions came from the most unlikely source. One day, the rather reserved and quiet-spoken Mr. Mthembu, our next-door neighbour, brought a real leather soccer ball and herded us to the nearby Number Two soccer grounds, located near the old KwaMashu cemetery. He stood silently on the sidelines watching us play. From playing with rag tag balls, we grew into a serious soccer club with smart orange jerseys. National Park, he called us.
Mr. Mthembu's coaching skills amounted to pacing up and down the touchlines, shouting, 'Hey boys! Kick that ball! What are you waiting for? Are you afraid of them or what? Just KICK that ball!'
National Park did well for some time and even stood up to the notorious Durban City All Blacks, who were full of unsavoury characters. Their captain, Mkhuthuzi — so named in the township because he was a known pickpocket — was rumoured to carry a switchblade in his trunks, daring anyone who tried to mark him when he was dribbling. 'Voetsek!' he would hiss when approached. But National Park had a formidable side and was not easily intimidated. Our centre-forward, Ceasar Ndlovu, and fullback Ernest Khwela, who were the stars of our team, were also advanced in karate. The two were also members of a pop group called Purple Haze. In those days, they mostly sang covers of groups like The Hollies. When Cliff Richard visited South Africa on a Christian mission in 1971 and performed at the KwaMashu Stadium, the group Purple Haze performed as curtain-raisers. In later years, Ceasar formally studied music and became a Professor of Music at the University of Zululand. He was a flamboyant character, with a penchant for colourful shirts. At one time, he conked his hair. Although some of the guys would make fun of his idiosyncrasies behind his back, they wouldn't dare openly mess with him.
Among our group of school leavers, there were a couple of guys who made it a hobby to poke fun at people, especially when they were out of earshot. Bradford was the main culprit. For him everybody was fair game; no holy cows. Some of the jibes were, as it turned out, in very bad taste, and extremely hurtful. Unfortunately, there was always a cohort of sycophants who would laugh at all his crass jokes. I picked up at some point that he had been going around for days making fun of Tobias's decision to take a job at a construction site. To a group of guffawing idiots, he held court asking if they'd heard that Tobias had fallen from a scaffolding and died. I was FLABBERGASTED.
Chapter 4
DISILLUSIONED AFTER MONTHS of fruitless job hunting, some of us, mostly friends from my alma mater, found ourselves increasingly discussing our situation. It didn't take long for us to conclude that something was fundamentally wrong in our country. We started meeting regularly, exchanging books on the political situation. Already, while at school, we were exchanging books and LP records, fascinated by life abroad. But now, faced with our grim reality, we abandoned the escapist James Hadley Chase novels, which were popular in the townships then, and embraced writings by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Franz Fanon, that spoke to our condition in the country. Our informal reading club also included books on the liberation movements in Latin America and their armed resistance against dictatorial regimes. The experience of the Cuban Revolution convinced us that the Apartheid regime could also be brought down through armed struggle.
Themba Kubheka and John Sibisi were our main source of banned literature — most of which they 'repossessed' from the bookshops and libraries in town. Themba, known for his sometimes-maddening equanimity, was a wellspring of knowledge for our group on the history of resistance in South Africa. He frequently discussed the ANC Youth League led by Mandela in the late forties and early fifties, particularly inspired by the legendary Anton Lembede, the first President of the ANC Youth League. Themba and I developed a strong bond of friendship, and together with John Sibisi, Mandla Dlamini, and Mandla Ncayiyana, we began having regular meetings. The heavily built John Sibisi could not contain his loathing for 'the system' and was known to openly discuss the struggle on trains and everywhere else. He had this deep, stentorian voice that could not be modulated. We all feared that he would be picked up by the omnipresent security police at any time, but thankfully, that didn't happen. Although, with his ox-like physique, he looked like he could single-handedly take down a bunch of Special Branch types anytime.
The more we met the more intentional our discussions became. We all shared a conviction that change will only come about in South Africa with an armed overthrow of the government. But we were only too aware that liberating the country was a mammoth task that would require colossal human and material resources which we didn't have. We resolved to first organise ourselves locally with a view to reach out to other parts of South Africa. We were certain there were other young people elsewhere in the country who shared the same vision and would be receptive to the idea once contact was established with them.
The banning of the old political organisations and the enactment of laws criminalising 'furtherance of the aims and objectives of banned organisations' meant that the space for overt and above-board political mobilisation was virtually closed. The regime only allowed leaders of the so-called Bantustans — puppet regimes serving the Apartheid separate development policies — to engage in political activity. We decided the best strategy would be to establish a youth club ostensibly to promote African cultural values as a cover for these activities. This, we hoped, would give us a platform to establish contact with other youth formations in our province and nationally.
In May 1972, we got together at Enkanyisweni Hall in F Section of the township and formed the KwaMashu Youth Organisation (KWAYO), which was to play a pivotal role in the political mobilisation of the youth in the struggle. During the political ferment that swept the country in the late seventies and eighties, an inordinately large number of youths from KwaMashu swelled the ranks of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Several fairly young boys and girls from the township were brutally killed in pitched battles with the security forces. Sadly, their heroism has not been fully acknowledged or properly documented. So far, no monument has been erected to honour their memory. There are no commemorative plaques on the walls of the houses they grew up in or schools where they went. The graves in which their bullet-torn bodies are buried are bare and forlorn, with no tombstones and fitting epitaphs.