It’s 21 years to the day that the MK unit in which I dabbled assembled to discuss what to do about Chris Hani’s assassination.
It was obvious that it was not a hit by the state. There was going to be groot kak raining down that did not suit the Nats. This left two options, rogue cops or the white right. The climate for Hani’s assassination was just right. With election talks stalled, the ANC needed a bad cop to whip up the spectre of insurrection again. Hani and Winnie were rumoured to have resuscitated some sort of military capacity across the border in Zim. Someone might just have believed that propaganda.
What I now know about our MK parent body, as a threat, a Zim brigade, even if it existed, would have been comical. However, if one person embodied the idea that the ANC might achieve greater socializing range in its nationalist leap forward, it was Hani. He symbolized the fantasy of ‘no surrender’. This was captured in the fond hope that heaving crowds of skinny youths, which the ANC switched on and off like taps during the struggle’s constitutionalisation at Codesa, might escape these cynical uses and let flood the cities in redistributive righteousness.
Fantasy, as I say, because I doubt very much the ANC as a whole, including Hani, were at any point really up for that.
On a Sunday, the Sunday Times reported that Clive Derby-Lewis was involved in Hani’s death. To cut a long story short, four of us chucked handgrenades at Derby-Lewis’ Conservative Party offices. A RGD5, alarmingly, bounced off a window. Despite this, the results were satisfying although not dramatic. The mission got a few minutes mention on CNN and, later, we all got a taste of the Internal Security Act. I was put in solitary in Magaliesburg, Tefo in Britz and an unpleasant lieutenant, called Duppie, set about trying to get us to confirm that we were part of the Zim thing. What a farce.
By the time we came out of detention, the ANC supremo, Oliver Tambo, was dead and so was the leader of the Conservative Party, Andries Treurnicht. Dead, not of each others’ supporters, but natural causes.
For Nelson Mandela got off a plane from Transkei, I think, and forbade retaliation. The nation was at a precipice.
At Derby-Lewis’ subsequent trial it emerged that his plan relied on actions exactly like ours. Mass, violent reaction by ANC supporters targeting the suburbs would lead the fence-sitting colonels in the security services to break with De Klerk. A decisive civil war for custody of the land would erupt. Our idea was related: let us show the white right that the fight would and could be taken directly to them, if that is what they wanted. No more killing our leaders.
Ah, those heady days when feelings lodged so impetuously in a boy’s heart and gave such powerful reasons for such heedless action.
I’ve been following a debate about whether Mandela was a communist and whether the white-dominated SACP called the armed struggle or not. My feelings about the importance of this issue have waxed and waned. For obvious reasons, I do not approach the issue as an anti-communist in murg en been. I became deracinated for twenty years and approach my race and ‘people’ as an essentialism sort of forced upon me. I embrace being a Boer in a fok jou dan gesture. For I am not prepared to go through life as a whinnying liberal, with no biopolitical claims to the land I inhabit.
I loathe the communists of the 1940s – 1970s as posers, adventurists and simpletons more than really effective Stalinists. What ennobled their quest to be famous was alone the oppression they attracted. They were often brave but I cannot escape the feeling that they took history for a ride. They wrote the ANC up as something that it was not. They did it to control. The Party was a white organization. Marxifying the ANC was a means to their end: a dictatorship by a Politburo of which white Communists were leading members. I cannot pinpoint exactly when they stopped cultivating useful idiots and became the cultivar. But I pity them their end as apologists for kleptocractic African capitalism. The survivors like Kasrils and Turok, (only the most mediocre made it), lack even the discipline to suffer through their mistakes quietly. They join liberals in empty moral gestures about government corruption.
Today, I spoke with an old comrade and he said something about the armed struggle that shocked me. I offer this idea about the function of the armed struggle, whether engineered by a coterie of white commies or not, not in opposition to the idea that the reds were under the ANC bed, although it might seem so, but because sometimes, something can be two things at once. Like Mbeki. He was right about how AIDS was about big-pharma marketing pills, fanned by white notions of hyper-sexual Blacks. But he was wrong that, notwithstanding all this, HIV did kill. Or Republicans kind of hate Obama unfairly because he’s black. But because he’s Black, Republican criticism of him is unfairly silenced. Contradictions, both holding true.
At his trial, on the reason for armed struggle, Mandela said:
Firstly, we believed that as a result of Government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable, and that unless responsible leadership was given to canalize and control the feelings of our people, there would be outbreaks of terrorism which would produce an intensity of bitterness and hostility between the various races of this country which is not produced even by war.
Amazing. This has managed to escape me. Armed struggle as control of popular insurrection and violence. I have my doubts about whether the masses of the African population in the 1950s and 1960s were widely confident enough or politicized enough, to start terrorizing. But the spontaneous upsurge against pass laws around 1960 of 30000 Black people made the Boers wet their pants. A panicked crackdown ensued. It was enough also to trigger containment strategies, of the same social forces, from white communists. This sort of containment from within a struggle, through organized displays of militance, works well. I’ve seen it happen many times in strikes and protests of which I have been a part. Indeed, the idea that ‘armed’ struggle demobilizes ‘the oppressed’ is almost a truism these days.
So, could it be that the commies did engineer a move to armed struggle in their cabals in 1961? But could it also be that this retarded ‘the struggle’ in objective, temporal terms? Did it not make it so much more difficult for the Nats to give in, now that Black, Green and Gold had a hammer and sickle and AK47 fluttering alongside it in tawdry camps in Zambia and Tanzania? Would Bantu and Boer not have come to terms far quicker without Bolshies in the mix? In addition, did the Red-Turn not guarantee the Nats decades of Cold War support from the West?
What are the consequences of this retardation of insurrection? And militarization of resistance? Was Luthuli right about the long-term dividends of non-violence?
Twenty years is a long time. The Party vociferously opposes parole for Derby-Lewis, in for 20 of his 25 year sentence. They do this less in spite than to protect custody of Hani’s legacy. Containment, as ever. Twenty years later, I am now more Boer than comrade myself, positioned thus by events, choices and temperament. Was ‘bombing’ the CP offices righteous or mad? Or just another armed adventure at the expense of peoples who, inevitably, had to arrive at a settlement? And what of that settlement? And what of Mandela’s terror of an impatient mass? And how, these days, are ‘our people’s’ attitudes towards terror, being canalized and controlled?
Themba
-the crude hypothetical, historical revisionism is ludicrous. The idea that in the 60s boer and bantu could have just sat around for some koeksisters and tea and just work it all out somehow, is a smack in the face of the facticity of white supremacy and Afrikaner nationalism. Hello! immorality Act, group areas et al. this was clearly a nation whose “sole contribution to humanity” was pursuit of the “perfection of hate”, to borrow from Ndebele’s ‘Fools and Other Stories’. I am sorry I don’t buy it.
In terms of the bombing of the CP offices together with the lack of revenge for Hani’s assination, I only find ‘cowardice’ to be the satisfactory answer here, if I were to make an honest assessment. I would of course never say this face-to-face to the people I love – who served in the Luthuli Detachment. Nonetheless, I am reminded by an anecdote by an old PAC cadre. In a blase, detached and very incurious fashion the elder commented on the sasol bombings and said, ” I wonder why the ANC/MK is always so quick to attack the sjambok the oppressor wields but never the person holding the sjambok – the oppressor. I mean, what can a sjambok do to you?!” Ja nee. Those Poqo’s are certainly one of a kind. More magnanimously, I should concede that the last time I attended a Poqo comemoration – post ’94 – I was so inspired after the talk, I approached one of the elders and told him that if I could jump back in time I would definitely to join Poqo. He said, ‘bring me a white man’s head and you won’t need to jump back in time, you’re in.’ I grinned sheepishly, put my tail between my legs and quietly rejoined BC comrades discussing the land question. Perhaps, an apple does not fall so far from a tree after all.
Heinrich Bohmke
-Dude, the ‘facticity’ is that Bantu and Boer did sit down for koeksisters. And this was during the time of the Immorality Act and white supremacy. Koeksisters started in 1986. I ask whether this might have happened earlier without Bolshie in the mix. Five years, ten years? The outcome could have been just as bad. Obviously 1960 was too early.
The real point is that, since democracy, the ANC government has not once gestured beyond social democracy. Not in policy, rhetoric and action. So, from the point of view of African nationalism, what was gained by playing Lenin-Lenin with revolutionary, white communists? Strategic clarity, Soviet funding, a proud and capable military wing, mass support?
I think it is a legitimate question to start asking from the point of view of present day outcomes. What did the SACP bring to the nationalist struggle and what did they take from it?
History will not cover the Afrikaner in glory, but you and Ndebele certainly give us too much by the way of wanting to ‘perfect a system of hate’. The hate was quite inefficient actually and very imperfect in world historical terms. (Think Adolf, Leopold or Andrew Jackson before you rank Verwoerd in the ‘wanting to perfect’ stakes). It may make a person whose identity is based on his race feel more significant if his people suffered under people trying to ‘perfect a system of hate’. But that’s psychologically useful not politically.
Granted, a member of a group who was subject to an incomparable attempt to perfectly hate would also be an incomparable, perfect victim too. This is a seductive and emotionally powerfully place from which to mau-mau liberals and develop a Facebook or twitter persona but no more than that.
I think, in fifty years, history will take a slightly more benign view of the Afrikaner when viewed against what else has happened on this continent where Boere were not.
Thank you for the POQO insights. They’re precious. Those chaps were indeed in a league of their own. The decapitating subjectivity you seem to admire, and it was nothing if not Pure, was crushed not only by the state. It was crushed by the insistence of non-racialism in the ANC, to accommodate white communists. The Charterists crushed the Zim-zims not only in ideological battle, as I am sure you are aware. A horrible example I know about was when white ANC cadres set up bases in Lobatse in 1963 and found PAC camps too, with remnants of the POQO uprisings, they foamed at the mouth, ‘issuing hysterical denunciations, particularly of the PAC’s leader who was said to be corrupt and opportunistic, a midget alongside true revolutionary giants like themselves’.
The stuff happening in Zeerust, Sekhukuneland, Pondoland in the 1960s was ‘counter-revolutionary’ according to ANC.
I missed the reference about apples and trees. Perhaps you’re a son of the struggle. That’s really kak for you. Knowing Moses was full of shit, but also aware that he took greater risks than any cheeseboy would today (except on Playstation), and through those risks, somehow, he brought you into the promised land, imperfect as it is.
One of the many good things about coming from an Afrikaner background, is the knowledge that our forefathers were thugs who dressed up their will to power in the language of volk en vaderland and stories of how close our oppressors came to achieving our genocide. And then set about administering the colony for empire.
Themba
-Heinrich, I am not entirely convinced with your ‘benefit of hindsight’ story. The war was cold. Friends were few and friends with resources even fewer. The struggle had decidedly moved into a phase were one needed to warm up to the reds; guerilla warfare an all. I mean, one ended up in Odessa for appropriate training. So warming upto Moscow was, given the circumstances, a sine qua non. Shubin of course would argue that Moscow long problematised the white nature of the Communist Party of South Africa and were at pains to ameliorate the situation. Moreover, I am not sure how you can look past the KZN boys Baba’Mabhida, Harry Gwala et al who by this stage had long been ‘indoctrinated’, held influence and would have fraternised with the Bolsheviks one way or another. Leaving very little in the way of imagination for the kind of hypothetical modus vivendi with the boere, you tend to figure.
Maybe I just can’t stand your Volk – this is possible. Apro pro, I will concede that my adage to Ndebele and the perfection of hate is probably, as you suggested, a ‘Vergangenheitsüberwältigung’ mechanism on my part. It must be psychological. After all I arrived in Pretoria post ’94 and found Hitler alive and well, just like Biko said I would. I think I just got spat at one too many times. That is simply too much for a child of the struggle to deal with in the way of an intro to his motherland.
Growing up i never really understood this disdainful and sometimes contemptuous manner, ideally reserved for the enemy, in which my folks dealt with comrades from a sister organisation. they seemed to, as you say, really abhor apla/pac peeps and equated them with the scum of the earth; usually accosted by remarks about how they are not real soldiers and just shoot the innocent in churches and bars (myself a teenager at the time, self-fed on a healthy diet of Khalid Muhammed and Malcolm X, of course thought “exactly they have got the right idea, Ma”). I must look into the Zeerust disturbances I can’t recall. I do remember though the stories of how cadres who had survived Zeerust were particularly tortured souls.
I can honestly extend a vote of thanx as well. I am referring to the moses analogy. Now a firm Bikoist personally, my charterist heritage has always set a little uneasy with me. Don’t get me wrong I am not an idiot. I can differentiate between simple guerillas following command and the compromised political follow through, its just nice to have the certainty of standing before posterity with your heart on the right side – uncompromised. Like bra Don Mattera says, “Ek werk nie vir Varke nie”. Strini encourages us, BC still offers us a possibility.
Heinrich Bohmke
-Howzit Themba
I struggle more to make sense of the present than the past. So, where, twirled up into the DNA of peoples’ struggle, is the propensity to so enthusiastically become the system on assuming state power?
Let’s call it the Mineworker Killer gene that flared up in Smuts and Zuma alike.
On the present and the past of Volk, would the Germans have Hitlered up without Versailles anyway? Would the Afrikaners have Natted without the experiences of the Boer War? So many Jews Zionised without Auschwitz? What will become of Blacks in SA after apartheid? We’re about to find out.
On my Volk, I cannot relate to actually-exisiting Afrikaners, certainly the swaggering rich kids. Screw them. They’re increasingly just a linguistic group, certainly white, but I am not sure how many of them identify themselves, ethnically. I’m also not thinking of the Nats. I’m thinking about Boers before state power, no less problematic from the point of view of Blacks they came across, but possessed still of a purity of purpose, the POQO’s of Afrikanerdom if you will, wanting nothing more than to be left alone to farm a piece of valley. Or else. There is a historical record of these creatures, they lasted for about a century.
But, since land is their defining desire, there is still a point of compromise possible with Blacks, certainly now under rule of law, it just depends on sharing.
And crucially there are points of alliance too, such as against banks and speculators, but that is a different story. A different pipe-dream.
If you’re ever in Durbs and lus, give me a shout at bohmke@gmail.com.
Peter van Heusden
-Ah Hein… I also grew up in Afrikaner culture, and for a period tried to find some form, some, as you say, Poqos of Afrikanerdom. I don’t believe in that anymore: all things point to the Afrikaner being born through blood and iron, irrevocably a child of this bloody history. After all, the social order of South Africa was built, since 1659 at latest, on the theft of first grazing, water and cattle, and then, increasingly, unfree labour. And as to the Nazis and their Weimar, the Afrikaners and their Brits: the Germans were practising genocide and death camps in Namibia in 1904, and espousing a set of policies and practices that Apartheid-era ideologues would have recognised (about racial purity, and the danger of diluting settler blood, for instance). Within this history in mind, Weimar seems somewhat of an excuse, and the innovation lay more in practising in Europe (and on a more industrial scale) what had already been deployed in the colonies.
Leaving aside that, I see that SADET’s “The Road to Democracy in South Africa: 1960-1970” Volume 1 has chapters on Poqo. Have you read it? Sadly those chapters are not available as PDFs online.
And finally, looking forward rather than backward, on the question of “becoming the system”, is the secret not so much in the administration? When I was researching the history of the prepaid electricity in South Africa, the role of engineers (of various stripes) stood out prominently, as (relatively) silent ideologues whose “feasible solutions” were taken on by a new generation of political rulers. I recall reading that Lenin faced something similar on taking power in Russia: despite rhetoric to the contrary, he found it hard to run infrastructure without professional expertise. As a result early restrictions on pay-scales (to “compress” income differentials) were eased. Like the faux-“revolutionaries” of the South African transition, Lenin had imbibed “world best practice”. Of course, part of the radicalism of Poqo was the rejection of exactly such definitions.