kagablog

The protesting pupils had brought 111 Arcade in Commissioner Street Johannesburg to a standstill. The two adjoining streets of Joubert and Eloff had also been cordoned off by the police as the chanting and toyi toying kids taunted them. The toyi toyi, the struggle dance, the dance of death. Flashbacks from the eighties crossed my mind as I stood watching the dancing kids from my window on third floor. I shook my head cynically. Compared to the toyi toyi of the eighties; this was a Sunday school picnic. I had flashbacks of youths dancing over charred corpses, the smell of teargas, burning flesh and tyres. I saw running battles between youths in stones and petrol bombs with the police and soldiers in casspirs and kwela kwelas. No this could never compare to the eighties, these copycats paled in significance when compared to yesteryear revolutionaries.

But what I found very strange was that they still sang struggle songs after thirteen years of freedom. They had on t-shirts of the ANC, Cosatu, Cosas and the SACP. I went out of my office to go to the bathroom. As I walked in the corridor I thought there was a colour conspicuous by its absence, the dominant yellow colours of the United Democratic Front. That organization had been such a dominant factor of the eighties. And today it was not part of that struggle. As I entered the bathroom I was surprised to see a middle aged man trying to nurse himself in the mirror. He was trying to remove an egg yolk planted on his face by the protesting pupils. There was also a large map which had been created on his white silk shirt by a rotten tomato. I offered him some tissue paper and he thanked me without removing his face from the mirror.

“They called me a government fat cat” he said as he stared on the mirror. “Who? I asked trying to roll out some more tissue paper for him. “Those kids, I was trying to address them and accept their petition, can you believe…” he turned around to me and stopped mid sentence “Meneer! He exclaimed. I was taken aback by surprise; it had been more than twenty years since someone had addressed me like that. I looked at his face closely trying to recall him. He extended his hand to shake mine “Patrick Mngadi, I was in your standard nine class, don’t you remember me? Did I remember him? He had grown old of course with some fat on his cheeks and belly, he now wore glasses which gave him an intellectual look but did I remember him? How could I forget him, he was Comrade Commissar, the boy who had effectively put an end to my teaching career.

*********************

The year was 1987 and South Africa was burning. I was a teacher at Tholimfundo High School at Osizweni in Newcastle. Patrick had been a rather intelligent but insolent teenager who had a passion for reading newspapers in class during lessons. I was an Afrikaans teacher and since the language was not the most popular among black students my confidence levels were not very high. Afrikaans was regarded as the language of the oppressor aimed at reminding Africans they were a defeated people. The learners claimed it was difficult but my observation had been that they felt it was difficult simply because they resented it.

We were busy in one lesson trying to analyse with some difficulty a poem in Afrikaans about a flower called the protea when Patrick suddenly burst out reciting another poem I was to learn later belonged to Don Mattera.:

“The Protea is not a flower
It is a dome of fluttering white flags
Tombs of Afrikaner relics
And monument of ox-wagon
Dipped in blood

And so the protea
Can never be a flower
Not while the Soul of South Africa
Struggles to be set free

To my dismay, the whole class erupted into wide applause. Unbeknown to me and other teachers, Patrick was running political classes after school disguised as a cultural group. In this class they also recited poems by famous figures like Don Mattera and Ingoapele Madingoane. In these political classes he and his comrades distributed banned political material like literature and other pamphlets. Because of his sharp and incisive mind he had earned a nickname of Comrade Commissar pronounced with a K. Through some other clandestine workshops provided by MK operatives, Commissar had quickly graduated into a seasoned political activist with an uncanny ability to sway the mass of pupils.

Though his voice was full of anger and passion, surprisingly, he spoke with an alarming clarity of thought. And despite the many books he read, he strongly felt education was delaying the revolution. His statements were heavily peppered with political rhetoric and he always spoke as if he was addressing a mass rally. He walked with purpose and urgency as if he was already marching on the battlefield. His strong emphasis of words and slow ay of speaking made him very articulate. He said one day addressing a meeting to cries of “viva:

“Comrades and compatriots, this Verwoerdian, inferior Bantu Education system was designed so that we would not rise above certain levels of labour. It was designed so that we can see the green pastures but we would never reach and graze in them. Through this Bantu Education system, the African people are condemned to be being perpetual hewers of wood and drawers of water, forward to people’s education forward!

He seemed hell bent on putting a stop to our very lives. He once stopped a soccer practice where I was the head coach by claiming there could never be a normal sport in an abnormal society. Besides, he said, there was no time, just no time, for a black man to fool around with a soccer ball. He spray painted a wall at school with the slogan “Tell the people no lies, claim no easy victories” by Amilcar Cabral

As a person who had been entrusted with the future of these children I was left impotent. I was faced with a dilemma, whether to continue teaching or join the marauding pupils. I loved their anger. But it was too rushed and too misdirected. I felt it could be better channeled towards construction rather than destruction. All the buildings and bridges the young people had burnt would need to be rebuilt one day by the new government I tried to reason with the youth leaders. And it would be difficult then, because it is easier to start a fire than to stop it, it is easier to destroy than to build. Commissar tried to argue with me not to collaborate in our own oppression. He said the first step would be to stop teaching useless languages like Afrikaans. “Every time you speak that language, you spit and trample on the graves of the seventy six movement” he said angrily to me.

“I wish you were in my shoes” I argued with him lamely.
“I will never wear the shoes of a collaborator” he resolved vehemently “your shoes are too small, ugly and they stink of cowardice”
“Patrick, you may have read big books and we may differ politically but I am still your teacher and elder” I shouted back at him.
But he felt strongly I had surrendered my right to be respected if I sat on the fence. Disrespect for order and elders was my biggest gripe against the struggle. I felt struggle leaders had started something that would come back to haunt them for generations. The children who had been taught to disrespect everyone who differed with them would come back to disrespect them one day.

Shortly after that there had been a class boycott and the school was burnt down. Comrade Commissar was detained without trial for more than six months and when he came out he soon skipped the border. I had heard later he had gone on to join Umkhonto weSizwe. I had resigned later as a teacher that year when I felt my services were no longer appreciated to join the private sector. About two years ago I had come back to work for the new government in the department of education where I felt like a useless bureaucrat.

*********************

And now Comrade Commissar stood before me like a condemned man. In exile he had furthered his education after undergoing military training and had earned quite a number of degrees. He was now a member of some important portfolio committee that advised the minister on education. And now when I looked at him I felt a sense of delayed victory. It was more than twenty years late but I felt victorious nevertheless. He stood looking at me like a man ready to hang himself. I might as well go ahead and give him the rope. I passed on another tissue and smiled. Comrade Commissar had finally worn my ugly shoes.