Umkhonto weSizwe memoir

Since the end of apartheid in South Africa, soldiers of the ANC’s armed wing Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) have published memoirs that reflect some of the diversity of backgrounds and political convictions that existed within the army, and which together provide an idea of the foundations both of solidarity and of tension within the ranks. Further memories of MK soldiers are preserved in the interviews from the Oral Histories of Exile Project, held in the Mayibuye Centre at the University of the Western Cape. A theme that runs through all of them is the centrality of politics in MK, summed up in the adage that ‘a soldier without politics is a mercenary’ (Manong 2015: xxiv). The extreme hardship of camp life is justified by the moral certainty of the ANC’s struggle against apartheid, reinforced by real experience of racism and oppression in South Africa.

This dedication to politics, in the soldiers’ accounts, becomes a way of rationalising the profound disappointment and frustration that almost all MK recruits felt as they waited in camps for year upon year, superfluous to the needs of the ANC’s strategy. Black recruits, by far the majority within MK, were taken aback by the presence of white officers in the ranks of the liberation army. Memoirists of all racial and class backgrounds agree that conquering this preconception was possible thanks to MK’s prioritisation of politics – but more specifically of a socialist politics that was given substance by time spent in socialist countries. As Ronnie Kasrils put it: ‘I sensed I was accepted not only because I was living among [the recruits] but because the views I projected were views they could relate to’ (Kasrils 1998: 117).

While authors who went on to occupy senior positions in the ANC have an interest in always defending the actions of the movement, those with a more distant relationship with the ANC are more at liberty to reflect upon the complications of life in the camps. Wonga Welile Bottoman’s memoir deals directly with the moral grey areas as he confronts directly what other writers hint at or sidestep: that not all MK recruits shared the high ideals that the ANC professed, and that often there was a thin line between the township gangster and the MK soldier (Bottoman 2010). Mwezi Twala’s reflections on events go a step further: while he professes loyalty to the ideals of the ANC as expressed by Albert Luthuli, Twala understands his own experience of brutal repression while in exile as a manifestation of the influence of communism on the ANC leadership and he eventually loses all faith in the ANC as it had become by the 1980s (Twala and Benard 1994).

Even if the memoirists vary in their frankness about the motivations of MK recruits, many of these books and interviews imply a tension between a romantic, impulsive attitude towards the struggle for freedom, and the discipline demanded by the military life. Yet ‘discipline’ itself meant two different things. On the one hand it was the politically driven self-discipline and self-sacrifice that was necessary to preserve the unity of the struggle against apartheid, and which everyone saw as a necessity even if not everyone adhered rigorously to the principle. This was manifested sometimes in the concerns expressed by writers such as James Ngculu around the use of alcohol and dagga (cannabis) in the camps. On the other hand, it was the ‘discipline’ imposed from above, by officials of a security section that became notorious, nicknamed ‘Mbokodo’ – the grinding stone. In later years, as successive ‘mutinies’ challenged the authority of the leadership, the behaviour of the ‘Security’ served only to engender sympathy for the so-called mutineers in some of the accounts – even if senior officers play down the extent of the repression and try to justify the use of force as an unfortunate necessity amid war. In the accounts of how the conflicts between mutineers and Security were resolved, some of the memorialists remember figures such as Chris Hani – the preeminent idealists, the defenders of a Marxist-inspired politics against brute force –  as the worthy leaders. But for writers such as Dyasop and Twala the supposed idealism of the leadership counts for nothing when faced with the realities of the abuses in the camps. Twala paints an ambivalent picture of Hani, who goes around surrounded by his own security men, sometimes traducing cadres for daring to claim their rights, at other times placating them by saying that their complaints were the result of a misunderstanding (Twala and Benard 1994: 68-9).

At a time in history when national struggles intersected with the politics of the Cold War, the writers’ impressions of other countries and other peoples are always revealing. They expressed surprise that cities such as Dar es Salaam that had been icons of liberation turned out to be shabby and less sophisticated than Johannesburg. On the other hand, soldiers’ experience of foreign cities whether in Africa or Europe was conditioned by the reality that they could enjoy the benefits of urban modernity as part of the freedom of movement that was denied to them by apartheid. The Cuban trainers are remembered for an almost romantic enthusiasm for revolution, which appealed to South Africans frustrated by the restrictions of ANC strategy. A persistent stereotype attached itself to ZAPU too: as if to illuminate by contrast the considered and politically driven approach of MK, the South Africans allude to their Zimbabwean counterparts as battle hardened and unthinking. 

Justin Pearce

Bibliography

Bottoman, Wonga Welile. The Making of an MK Cadre. Pretoria: LiNc Publishers, 2010.

Dingake, Michael. Better to Die on One’s Feet: One Man’s Journey from Robben Island to Freedom. South African History Online Lives of Courage Series. Cape Town: South African History Online, 2015.

Gilder, Barry. Songs and Secrets: South Africa from Liberation to Governance. London: Hurst & Company, 2012.

Dyasop, Luthando. Out of Quatro: From Exile to Exoneration. Johannesburg: Kwela, 2021.

Kasrils, Ronnie. Armed and Dangerous: From Undercover Struggle to Freedom. Rev. and Updated. Mayibuye History and Literature Series, no. 88. Johannesburg: Mayibuye Books ; J. Ball, 1998.

Manong, Stanley. If We Must Die: An Autobiography of a Former Commander of UMkhonto We Sizwe. Johannesburg: Nkululeko Publishers, 2015.

Mbali, Fanele. In Transit: Autobiography of a South African Freedom Fighter. South African History Online Lives of Courage Series. Cape Town: South African History Online, 2012.

Mfenyana, Sindiso. Walking with Giants. South African History Online Lives of Courage Series. Cape Town, South Africa: South African History Online, 2017.

Ngculu, James. The Honour to Serve: Recollections of an Umkhonto Soldier. Claremont [South Africa]: David Philip, 2009.

Twala, Mwezi, and Ed Benard. Mbokodo: Inside MK: Mwezi Twala – A Soldier’s Story. Johannesburg: J. Ball Publishers, 1994.

Mayibuye Centre: Oral Histories of Exile Project, University of the Western Cape

http://repository.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/10566/2042