The Big Read: How they killed 'Mandela'

19 December 2013 - 02:04 By S'thembiso Msomi
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FOR POSTERITY: The Nelson Mandela capture site in Howick, KwaZulu-Natal, a day after Madiba's funeral in Qunu in the Eastern Cape
FOR POSTERITY: The Nelson Mandela capture site in Howick, KwaZulu-Natal, a day after Madiba's funeral in Qunu in the Eastern Cape
Image: SYDNEY SESHIBEDI

His was a very dangerous face. There was a time when merely being in possession of a pamphlet, a drawing or T-shirt with an image that was a likeness of his face could get you detained for months without trial.

Even long after FW de Klerk, the last apartheid president, had set Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners free, there were still places where being seen in a Mandela T-shirt would get you killed.

I remember a pupil from one of the high schools in my home town who died because he happened to board a wrong mini-bus taxi while wearing a Mandela T-shirt.

"Asishayi wena, sishaya lo omgqokile (we are not hitting you but the man you are wearing)," his attackers are said to have told the teenager as they brutally assaulted him with sticks.

They repeatedly beat him until he lost consciousness and then, the story went, they stood around waiting for him to bleed to death.

This was in the early 1990s, at the height of the multiparty negotiations that eventually gave us what is now fashionably described as a "bloodless transition" to democracy.

There was so much blood in the townships and some rural areas at that time that, whenever I hear people talking about a "bloodless transition", I wonder if we are talking about the same country.

As we stood in long queues last week, patiently waiting our turn to pay our last respects to Mandela, I thought about the many young men and women who had their lives brutally cut short.

Many of their names I have forgotten and most of the faces are now blurred in my mind.

But one name I still remember vividly is that of Bongani Cedric "Matatane" Dlamini, a fellow pupil who was detained so many times by the security police that some began calling him "Mandela".

He hated the nickname, viewing it as sacrilegious to liken him to a man who was serving a life sentence on Robben Island while he, Bongani, only spent a few months at a time as a detainee at the notorious CR Swart police station in Durban.

That Mandela was Bongani's greatest inspiration was clear to all.

I remember, after one particularly difficult stint in jail, he related to us the story of how Mandela's courage had kept him going.

He had been severely tortured by the police and spent the last two months of his incarceration on a hunger strike along with other detainees, demanding that they be charged or released.

A month before South Africa's first non-racial elections in April 1994, Bongani's neighbourhood erupted into violence. Lives were lost and houses were set ablaze as township residents and hostel dwellers fought for political turf.

The sound of high-calibre weapons became so familiar that even a 10-year-old could tell - just by listening - if it was a G3 rifle, an R4 or an AK-47 being fired at one point or another.

In keeping with Mandela's call for peace and reconciliation, Bongani - who was 24 years old at the time - convinced his comrades about the need for a truce.

During one community meeting where he argued passionately for peace, he pointed out that many of the people who were now butchering each other over political differences were old-time friends and even blood relatives.

With the support of his community, Bongani and his close comrades initiated talks with leaders of the rival hostel community.

The situation looked promising as the two sides spent an entire afternoon locked in negotiations - first at a school hall in the township and later at a room within the hostel.

But then the night came and the forces of darkness arrived to shatter peace.

Bongani and all but one of his comrades were murdered in the very room in which they were negotiating for an end to the killings.

He missed Freedom Day by a few weeks and never got to see the man whose leadership had inspired him being sworn in as the country's first democratically elected president.

As we queued to pay our respects to Mandela for the last time, I thought about the many faces that had to perish for us to enjoy the freedoms we have today.

As I watched scores of people still standing outside Mandela's Houghton home a day after his burial in Qunu - each quietly thinking about how this great man had touched their lives - I knew that his spirit will live on.

The celebration of his life over the past two weeks was also a celebration of the sacrifices made by Bongani and thousands of other unsung heroes of our nation.

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