Parliament`s Living History Series Parliament`s Living History Series

Ahmed Kathrada
Parliament’s
Living History
Series
Dr Kathrada with Nelson Mandela former President, at an awards ceremony. Dr Kathrada served as Parliamentary Counsellor to Dr Mandela.
Parliament’s
Living History
Series
Ahmed Kathrada
Produced by the Parliamentary Communication Services
© Parliament of the Republic of South Africa 2012
ISBN 978-1-4850-0068-6
First published 2012
Editing by Oswald Gibson and Jane Henshall
Transcription by Lulekwa Nkunkuna and Luke Stoffels
Design by Lazola Zantsi
Photographs by Mlandeli Puzi, Bhekizizwe Radebe,
Kathrada Foundation and the Kathrada family
Published by the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa
Box 75, Cape Town, 8000
www.parliament.gov.za
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without prior permission from the publishers.
Contents
Foreword by Eddie Daniels .......................5
Interview by Kanyisa Ndyondya ..............6
Mr Kathrada’s speeches in Parliament ....30
From right to left: Dr Kathrada with Elias Motsoaledi, Walter Sisulu and Andrew Mlangeni after 1994 on Robben Island.
Foreword
By fellow Robben Island graduate Eddie Daniels
A generous man named Ahmed Kathrada
Ahmed Kathrada was a person of many facets
and a truly gentle man. His companions loved and
appreciated his courage, humility and firm integrity.
Not least, his generosity of spirit was exceptional.
After a few years on the prison island in Table Bay,
intense world pressure on the apartheid government
“persuaded” them to allow us some study facilities.
This was a tremendous boon as it created a window
through which we could reach out beyond our
narrow environment.
There were strict conditions to this study “privilege”.
For example, under pain of confiscation of study
materials, loss of study privileges, loss of food as
well as being sentenced to isolation, no prisoner was
allowed to share his study materials with any other
prisoner. This strict condition meant that, initially,
only a few of us prisoners could exercise this new
freedom. Among these few prisoners was Ahmed.
When I came to prison I was all alone. I was the
only member of my organisation, the Liberal Party
of South Africa, in prison on Robben Island. At this
stage we were still not allowed to speak to one
another and I was not a member of the ANC. But
after work one day I returned to my cell and when
I unrolled my bundle of blankets I found a scribbler
and a ball point pen. I was one of the lucky prisoners
who had benefited from Ahmed’s brave foresight
and I was deeply touched by his generous gesture.
I was a stranger to my fellow inmates, yet here
was someone who took me on trust and illegally
shared his study materials with me. Immediately
my morale soared and I now felt that I belonged to
this wonderful group of fellow prisoners.
News was our life’s blood and Ahmed was in
charge of the ANC’s communications. This job
carried a perpetual risk. In prison if anyone was
Eddie Daniels who was imprisoned with
Dr Kathrada and became a close confidant.
caught with unauthorised materials such as a radio,
newspaper, magazine, book or part thereof, or using
illegal channels to communicate with prisoners in
other sections of the prison as well as receiving
communications from them, or bartering with
common-law prisoners for newspapers stolen by
them from the warders’ homes, the culprit would be
severely punished.
Ahmed did this job for years. A few fellow prisoners
would help him to collect (smuggle) news of
any sort and would, after having obtained the
“contraband” by hook or by crook, pass it through
the invisible chain. A newspaper (any date was
acceptable) would be passed on to Ahmed at the
earliest opportunity, despite the risk of being caught
with contraband in one’s possession.
When I came to prison, I had just received a sentence
of 15 years’ incarceration on an island in the sea.
The only prisoner I recognised was Madiba. We were
held in single cells, we were not allowed to speak
to one another, and the lights in our cells were on
all night. Understandably, I was feeling lonely and
vulnerable. In this frightening and grim environment
Ahmed befriended me.
You were a generous and kind friend to me when I
most needed one.
Thank you prisoner 468/64 (Ahmed Kathrada),
from number 864/64 (Eddie Daniels).
5
KANYISA NDYONDYA
INTERVIEWS
AHMED KATHRADA:
KN: What memories did our walk through
Parliament evoke?
AK: Well, there was a host of memories. It took me
back to the first time we saw a ballot box, and the
first time we voted. Before that we didn’t even vote
for a town council of a small little dorp, so it was a
great experience. There was great excitement. The
first time that I saw what a ballot box looked like
was in America, not in my own country.
The first time I stood in a queue to vote there was a
bomb scare, but the people were so determined to
vote nobody left the queue. [Fortunately] the police
came and looked around, but there was nothing.
Of course, after we won the elections and we came
to Parliament the newspapers published the African
National Congress (ANC) list and I was quite high up
[at number seven]. The newspapers were certain I’d
be a member of the Cabinet. When I saw that, I sent
a message to President Madiba and to the Deputy
President that if my name came up for Cabinet, I
wasn’t interested.
They didn’t get my message, so when the President
appointed the first Cabinet, they appointed me
as Minister of Prisons. Fortunately, it didn’t create
any problems because at that time they had to
accommodate the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), and
they needed a Cabinet post that suited them, so my
place was taken by the IFP.
They then created this special position for me,
Parliamentary Counsellor in the President’s Office. I
was President Mandela’s counsellor, and of course
also a Member of Parliament.
KN: Many tourists requested that Mr Mandela
himself take them to Robben Island. In fact, it was
you who did the honours, wasn’t it?
AK: The whole world knew that President Mandela
had been in prison for 27 years – here’s a former
prisoner who spent 27 years in prison and he’s
now a president of a country. People came from
all over the world – heads of state, kings, queens,
presidents, prime ministers, all strata of society,
even Hollywood actors – and all of them wanted
to visit Robben Island. Not just that, they wanted
the President to go with them, which obviously he
could not do, so he used to send me. In those five
years that Madiba was President I accompanied
most of the world leaders who visited South Africa
to Robben Island.
KN: What experience of all those famous people
stands out the most?
AK: It was a great thing for me to meet my hero,
President Fidel Castro of Cuba, and I met President
Clinton, the President of India and the leaders of
China. But with all the hundreds of people that I
accompanied to the island, what made a big impact
on me was that they didn’t talk about their own
countries. They had all come to learn about it and
our stay there.
The person who made the greatest impact on me
was a little girl. One day when I was on the island
I was recognised by some elders and they sent this
little girl to me, very shy, and she said, “Can I have
your autograph please? Can I have my photograph
taken with you?” I joked with her and said, “No. You
must pay me” and we laughed.
As I was taking her around I learned that this little
child, an Afrikaner child (I’m specifically saying that)
called Michelle Britz, came from Secunda, which
was one of the hotbeds of right-wing Afrikaner
politics. I learnt that she was dying. In South Africa,
we have this organisation called Reach for a Dream
where children who are terminally ill can make their
last wishes and her wish was to go to Robben Island
and to meet President Mandela. Little children do
not know what death is, and she was just a normal
little child running around on the ferry.
During a parliamentary recess, when Madiba was in
7
Pretoria, I asked him whether I could bring her to his
house or to his office. He loved children so much that
he devoted a large part of his President’s salary to
the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Anyway, typical
of him, he says to me, “No. That is too much trouble
for the child. Let us rather go to her.”
So we phoned the family and said “One of the
problems is that wherever our President goes, the
media is there and we would like to have a nice
quiet visit”. But the family wanted the media there
and they spread the word that the President was
coming and hundreds of people from Secunda
turned up at the house. I didn’t accompany him on
that trip, but I saw all this on television.
KN: And how old was she?
AK: She must have been 10 or 12, something like
that. I can’t remember exactly although I have a
photograph of her. So Madiba had gifts for her and
she had gifts for him. It was all televised and at the
end of the meeting this child spontaneously got
up and praised Madiba, which was a dramatic and
emotional moment. That child made the biggest
impact on me. It was what I called “my most
special visit” of the hundreds of people that I’ve
accompanied to Robben Island.
KN: What is your view on the institution of
Parliament?
AK: In the beginning, everything was new to us.
There was an office for me in the President’s office
and when I got there, the desk was clean – no
computer, nothing, not even a ball-point pen. I
turned to the civil service, “Please, I want a pen. I
want paper, I want etcetera, etcetera.”
The top echelons in the civil service, especially in
Parliament and other places, were all white. There
were those who were not white at lower levels, but
in the President’s office, the senior civil servants were
all white. We had to turn to them for everything, but
I must immediately say that we got full cooperation.
We didn’t know what Parliament was like, we didn’t
8
know anything about procedure and we had to rely
on them for everything from stationery to assisting
us on how Parliament was run, how the President’s
office was run, and so forth. Later, of course, the
most senior person in our office was Professor Jakes
Gerwel, who was the Secretary of the Cabinet and
Head of the President’s office.
KN: That first Parliament, from 1994 to 1999, must
have been very busy...
AK: Well, one thing I must make clear, the title
counsellor to President Mandela didn’t mean I was
the only adviser. Madiba had his whole Cabinet and
he had the National Executive Council of the ANC, so
he had many advisers. I was just one among many,
but I was there, on the spot full-time, so occasionally
when he needed a rest, he used to speak to me
about various things.
During his term of five years, I also accompanied him
on overseas visits: America, India, Great Britain and
of course Canada. It was very interesting because
every trip we took he saw to it that he had a meal
with the crew of his plane. Now, that was something
they had never experienced before with other
presidents. Needless to say, the aeroplane crews
were always white because our people did not have
the opportunity, but even so, they had never been
treated as an equal by a president before. To me, it
showed the qualities of Madiba.
The other thing about Madiba is that he could never
forget prison food. One day I was travelling with him
from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and they offered
us food on the plane, but he told me not to eat as
we were going to eat at his home. So we go to his
house and the main dish was umngqusho (samp
and beans). Of course, there was a lot of other food
in prison, but we missed umngqusho as it should be
made. So we helped ourselves to that.
Even when we went to India and Mary Gadana, his
secretary, came with us, Madiba saw to it that we
took a bag of mealie meal, so that Mary could make
porridge. Of course, I knew him for over 60 years, so
I knew the man, but now he was the president of
the country. He remained a very simple man, a man
of the people.
KN: What keeps you so healthy? You look 20 years
younger than your age.
AK: Well, as I mentioned light-heartedly, my
prescription is go to jail! But there’s a serious part
to it. I have not talked to any doctors since leaving
prison about the food but there were two doctors
among the prisoners and the one of them cautioned
us: “When you complain about food, you can
complain about the monotony, that it’s the same
food day in and day out, you can complain that it is
cold, that you sometimes get cold porridge, you can
complain that it is not well-prepared, but be careful
not to complain about its nutritional value, because
it is a balanced diet.”
Dieticians and doctors will tell you one of the worst
things about civilian life is the quality of the food.
Those who can afford it, eat a lot of red meat and
other food that is not healthy. But in jail you don’t
get that, you don’t get sweets, you don’t get icecream, you don’t get red meat, all those other things
that aren’t healthy. You don’t get much sugar.
Of course, there’s less anxiety and you work hard.
We worked at the quarry with picks and shovels, and
it was certainly hard work but you get used to that.
Madiba himself used to encourage us to exercise, so
all of us used to exercise. All those factors kept us
healthy.
KN: Do you remember your feelings when you
were released from prison?
AK: The first day at home was a blank, because
our release came quite suddenly and it was so
Dr Kathrada takes former President of Cuba, Fidel Castro on a
tour to Robben Island. Mr Castro is flanked by his interpreters.
9
Dr Kathrada with Walter Sisulu whom he regarded as a close friend.
overwhelming. On the Tuesday night we were
visiting Madiba, who was now at Victor Verster
prison, and before we were taken back to Pollsmoor
we were told that we were going to eat there with
the prison officials. Here are prisoners eating with
prison officials, and at 8 pm they brought in the
television.
There was an announcement by President de Klerk
that eight people were going to be released. They
didn’t say where or when. Naturally, I looked for
my own name and it was number eight. That was
the Tuesday night and on the Friday they flew us
to Johannesburg prison. On the Saturday, fairly
late at night, the head of the prison told us they
had received a fax saying we would be released
tomorrow.
It came so suddenly, and the first question was,
what is a fax? We had heard of this (faxing) because,
as I’ve said, at that time we had television, and we
had newspapers, so we had read about this thing
called a fax but to conceptualise how you put in a
piece of paper [and it comes out somewhere else]!
Then we were released. At half past five in the
morning, they took us to our houses, and people
read about it. In no time, the word spread and
hundreds of people started coming in to see us. The
first day remains a blank in my mind because the
only thing I can remember is children. Because I was
a curiosity they just crowded around me and that
was a wonderful thing for me. It was only when I
saw a video a few weeks later that I remembered.
I thought on the day of the release I had only been
to Soweto to see Walter Sisulu’s house. But then I
10
realised that in fact I had been to see Eric Molobi’s
house too, in Soweto. What I’m saying is; the first
day was a complete blank, except for the children.
You know, when we were at Pollsmoor there were
only five political prisoners. We could smuggle in
things like food once in a while because it was more
relaxed. We could only smuggle with the cooperation
of the warders and they closed their eyes to it, so
we tasted quite a lot of different food while we
were at Pollsmoor. In my letters, I used to mention
that I’ve missed my favourite food so when we got
out the family and friends knew all about what my
favourite foods were, so when I visited them they
prepared them for me.
KN: Talking about letters, how did you stay
informed about politics when you were in prison?
AK: When we arrived on Robben Island, our leaders,
the four of our most senior leaders of the ANC,
Madiba, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Raymond
Mhlaba, they were members of the National
Executive Committee of the ANC. When we arrived,
they told us “You are no longer leaders, you are now
ordinary prisoners. You don’t make policy, you don’t
give instructions.” Our leaders were outside prison,
Chief Albert Luthuli and Oliver Tambo, they were our
leaders.
KN: Can you tell me how it felt working with the
opposition in Parliament? After all, this was the
regime you had been fighting against but now you
had to work closely together.
AK: You must remember that our first government
was a Government of National Unity, so we had
President de Klerk as one of the deputy presidents
and some of the ministers had been ministers in the
old apartheid regime.
Unlike other colonial countries where the rulers
were from foreign countries, like Mozambique and
Angola which were ruled by the Portuguese and
who went home when freedom came, South Africa
was different. The rulers were South Africans and it
was not a few thousand people, it was a few million.
And that is where this whole policy of a non-racial
South Africa was very important. We could not have
a few million people as permanent enemies. Apart
from that, we had no expertise, because in every
branch of government and elsewhere the expertise
was in the hands of the whites – the head of police,
the head of the defence force and the civil service,
industry, agriculture, mines, everything.
Madiba’s presidency had to put those people at
ease. His message was, “You are not our enemies.
You are part of South Africa.” For instance, when
he became President one of the first things he did
was invite Mrs Betsie Verwoerd, the widow of the
architect of apartheid, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, for
dinner. She said she could not come as she was
not well, so Madiba visited her, all in the interest
of reconciliation. We could not drown a few million
people in the sea. They are here, and we had to
have this reconciliation, so the first government was
the Government of National Unity.
The focus of Madiba’s five years as President had to
be on stimulating this country, because before we
came into government there were fears that when
a black leader comes there will be total disruption:
all the supermarkets will close down, the domestic
worker will come and demand, “This is my house”,
that type of belief. I even read in the papers that one
white family believed the propaganda that there
would not be any more food, so they emptied their
swimming pool and filled it with tinned food.
Unfortunately, President de Klerk, for reasons of his
own, withdrew his party from the Government of
National Unity, but that didn’t change our policy.
It would have been easier if he and his party had
remained for the full five years, but still, it was a
difficult task. We had to reach out to people and
convince them they had a role to play in South Africa.
That continued with the governance that came after
President Mandela: President Mbeki and President
Zuma have continued that policy.
They were the oppressors, of course, but they were
a permanent part of South Africa. They had no other
country to call home, this was their home.
Dr Kathrada, and Govan Mbeki share a joke with Toivo Ya Toivo of Namibia.
11
KN: What role do you think the media played in
spreading propaganda among white people about
how things would be after 1994?
AK: I don’t think there was any systematic campaign
to spread propaganda, but even now the media relies
a lot on the latest “scoop”. I’m not saying all the
media is like that, but generally the media wants a
scoop and in that sense things can get exaggerated.
I’m thinking of one example when a black kid and a
white kid had a fight a few years ago.
Children will fight and then they make up, but the
newspapers reported it as a racial conflagration at
the school which was a gross exaggeration. The
media does play quite a positive role but every now
and then they fall into this thing of wanting a scoop,
which does harm to the country. But I don’t for a
moment think the media is deliberately trying to
sabotage the whole thing.
KN: What role did the media play when you were
in prison?
AK: For 16 years we didn’t have newspapers. In the
first year, we wrote one letter every six months and
had one visit every six months. Also, we couldn’t
talk about anything that they thought of as politics.
We couldn’t talk about political people and we were
not allowed to write to anybody in politics.
During that one visit of half an hour every six
months we had to keep ourselves informed of
what was happening outside. That is where we had
to smuggle [news], we did everything possible to
keep ourselves informed. They developed a code
that would give us some information without the
warders knowing what we were talking about and
so every visit from Ma Albertina Sisulu we relied on
that type of information.
Dr Kathrada narrates his time spent at Robben Island to tourists visiting the island.
12
Political prisoners were not allowed newspapers,
but other prisoners worked in warders’ houses and
we were able to barter with them: newspapers for
cigarettes, toothpaste, soap. So they were a very
important source of news. But remember on Robben
Island about 25 or 30 of us were isolated from the
rest of the political prisoners, completely isolated.
For example, President Zuma and Deputy President
Motlanthe, were in jail for 10 years, but we never
saw them and they never saw us.
So we had to rely on the common-law prisoners:
they were our main source of information and we
relied on them to smuggle messages. We did our
own things too, to keep ourselves informed.
KN: Do you think the ANC as a party achieved a
non-racist, non-sexist society from 1994 to 1999?
AK: No, but I think we went a long way toward it.
Every university except for two or perhaps three,
have black directors and in quite a number of
universities the majority of the student population
is no longer white. That is progress. Many schools
see integration. In sports, it is happening. When
Cameron van der Burgh won a gold medal, black
and white South Africans didn’t say he was white,
he was simply a South African. Just as we united
with the 2010 Soccer World Cup, so the whole of
South Africa united behind our Olympic team.
Our policy of a non-racial South Africa is making
progress and we are making progress in other
fields, but we are only 18 years old. There are many
countries, old democracies that are a few hundred
years old such as America, and there is still racism
there, there is still poverty there. Black Americans
only got the vote for the first time in the 1960s, so
we are making progress. We don’t want to always
compare ourselves with other countries, but we
can’t help it because we have to realise that we are
a young democracy.
What we inherited in 1994 made our task much
more difficult: there was unemployment, there was
poverty, there was hunger and disease. They are still
there, but we have made progress. When you say
we have built two and a half million houses in 18
years, people are not interested. They say, “Where
is OUR house, where is OUR water, where is OUR
electricity?” They are not interested in other people
who have electricity and that is understandable.
It’s difficult to convince ordinary people that you
can’t achieve everything in 18 years. So the ANC
government has made a lot of progress materially,
but the most important thing we have achieved is
dignity.
Young people won’t know about these things, but
there was a sign that used to appear at post offices,
railways and other places that said “non-Europeans
and dogs not allowed”. Apartheid reduced people
who were not white to a level of lesser human
beings. So, come 1994, we won our dignity. There
was no longer this thing anymore of “Whites only,
non-whites not allowed”. That is now a crime, so
we can walk tall with complete equality, and it is
protected by our Constitution.
We can have all the money in the world, we can live
in palaces, but if we haven’t got dignity as human
beings, those other things are worthless. If we are
treated as lesser human beings, it is worthless.
We have won the fundamental right of equality
as human beings and that is the most important
thing. Of course there have been material gains,
but it will take a long time before we can say we
have now eradicated poverty, we have eradicated
unemployment.
KN: Events such as the World Cup create a spirit
of South Africa as one nation but after the event
we tend to go back to our familiar, racist corners.
How do you think we can keep the World Cup and
Olympic spirit going?
AK: That is the duty of everybody; all the citizens
of this country will have to remember that, but
most importantly the children have to be taught at
home, from the time they start school. The majority
13
AK: Well, I’m not in touch with Parliament much now,
but it was a priority to get rid of apartheid legislation.
However, legislation is one thing, attitudes are
another. We’ve got the best Constitution in the
world, everyone will admit that, but a Constitution
on its own means nothing until people learn about it
and play their own role in whatever they are doing
and whatever organisation they are in [to make it
work].
Kerishnie Naicker, Miss South
Africa 1997 with Dr Kathrada.
of the population in this country are young and
don’t know enough about what apartheid meant,
so we have to remind people all the time of what
their responsibilities are. We must remind people
that before (democracy) you couldn’t become an
engineer in South Africa. Most of the professions
were closed to us: people had to go overseas to
study. Now, everything is open to us. We have to
reach out to younger people, in particular, and tell
them about those opportunities; tell them about
every skill we are short of.
The worst thing that apartheid could have done was
this thing called Bantu education. The architect of
apartheid, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, said black South
Africans are in South Africa for their labour and only
for their labour. Once we are finished with their labour
they must go back to their homelands – Transkei,
KwaZulu-Natal and so on – and labourers don’t need
mathematics and labourers don’t need science. That
was one of the cruellest things apartheid could have
done. We are still short of teachers in the sciences
and mathematics.
KN: Moving back to Parliament: is there any
legislation that stands out for you?
14
The government alone can’t bring everything about
without the participation of the ordinary people,
so there again the question of education becomes
important and that, of course, must begin with
parents at home. In many instances, parents could
play a more positive role. I’m not going to criticise
parents because they may have good reasons [for
their actions] but it is their fundamental duty as
parents to teach their children and not leave it all
to the school.
KN: Things must have changed enormously in the
world when you came out of prison. Tell us about
that.
AK: For us who came out after 26 years, everything
had changed. For instance, when we went to jail
there was just one road, cars going this way and
that way, now there were two lanes and three lanes
and four lanes. I can’t get used to it, so I had to
give up driving all together. I tried it once, driving to
the city of Johannesburg and my friend told me to
stick to the left lane, it’s a slow lane. I did that, but
the taxis didn’t give me a chance. I gave up driving.
I have talked about the fax machine and there
were no ATMs, no microwave ovens. There were so
many new things we had to get used to. It was a
new world that we came into. We had never seen
computers in our lives.
KN: When did you first become aware of apartheid
and of injustice?
AK: My father arranged with the principal of the
African school, a Mr McNally who came to our home
a few times a week, to teach me my ABC. I owe a
lot to him because at the age of eight when I came
to Johannesburg to school the grounding I had from
him helped me a lot. In Johannesburg, some of
my classmates had parents who were in politics. I
went to their houses and that day you don’t really
understand what politics is, but as a child you start
asking why you can’t go to the white school or the
African school.
So you don’t think politically, but more practically.
But later on you start realising what apartheid is.
Through my friends at school, I joined a youth club,
a political youth club, which concentrated on picnics,
debates, lectures and films, and so forth. That’s how
I got into politics at the young age of 11 or 12. In
those years, apartheid laws applied differently
to different communities. There were laws that
applied to Indians that did not apply to Africans
or coloureds. In 1946 there was a law that applied
only to the Indians and the Indian Congress decided
that we must defy that law, which made it difficult
for Indians to own property. The Congress called for
volunteers to occupy a plot of land in Durban that
had been reserved for whites.
I was in my matric year but with the foolishness
of youth, aged 17, you think nothing will go on
without you, so I gave up my matric and joined
the movement and I went to jail at the age of 17,
only for a month. I only started studying when I left
Robben Island. In retrospect, of course, I was foolish.
One day, a young African lady recognised me and
asked if she could have her photograph taken with
Morgan Freeman, Hollywood actor listens intently whilst
Dr Kathrada takes him on a tour of Robben Island in 1999.
15
me. We got talking and I asked her what she did,
if she was at university. No, she says, I’m working
in the mines as a mineralogist. That type of thing
is a source of great satisfaction and pride for me.
Since then, I have met many people, previously
oppressed, who are taking full advantage of the
opportunities available.
In those days we couldn’t imagine a young person
like you sitting here and interviewing me. I never
miss an episode of Isidingo but in those days we
couldn’t have imagined such a thing – that our
people could be involved in that field [producing
television shows and acting in them]. In every field
you see our young people making progress, whether
it is sports or culture. In everything they are making
progress and that is a matter of great satisfaction
and pride to us.
KN: What memories stand out from your
experiences on Robben Island?
AK: There are a lot of memories but perhaps we
should start with the trial. In apartheid time different
laws applied to different communities, as I have said.
This gave rise to different congresses, the African
Congress, the Indian Congress and the Coloured
Congress [and the white Congress of Democrats].
After a number of years they worked in alliance
as one organisation. For years, these organisations
believed in a policy of resolutions, deputations and
petitions, but no action.
Then in 1946, when some doctors returned to South
Africa from overseas, they managed to overthrow
the leadership in the Indian Congress. These new
leaders came with a policy of unity between all
oppressed people, which the others didn’t support,
Former prison warder Christo Brand and his wife Estelle with
Dr Kathrada. Mr Brand presently works on Robben Island.
16
[and they advocated] passive resistance to laws,
boycotts and civil disobedience. In the ANC, they
passed a similar resolution in 1949 and that again
changed the leadership. Walter Sisulu became
Secretary General and Dr [Arthur Elias] Letele and
others took over the leadership of the ANC. They
believed in non-violent civil disobedience. In 1952,
the ANC and the Indian Congress jointly decided on a
campaign of defiance against the segregation laws.
During that campaign 9 000 volunteers went to
prison. During the campaign in 1946, which involved
Indians only, 2 000 went to prison. The important
thing about both these campaigns is that these were
volunteers, who were not paid. In certain cases they
were given welfare assistance, food and so forth for
their families, but there was a spirit of volunteerism,
which is not there anymore. But these people went
to prison for that defiance campaign.
The government answered the campaign with
even stricter laws, which provided for more serious
penalties. In 1960 both the ANC and the PAC [Pan
Africanist Congress] were banned. This left no room
for non-violent protest: you could go to jail for
simply mentioning the name Mandela. That was
when the ANC decided on an armed struggle led
by Umkhonto we Sizwe, or MK for short. Volunteers
were called upon and they were trained in the
manufacturing and planting of bombs. The targets
were buildings, to blow them up, but the policy was
that these bombs should not hurt human life, so
these bombs were placed at night when there was
nobody around.
It was because of this campaign that we were
arrested. By that time, most of us were living
underground, meaning we had left our homes, our
families and our jobs – Madiba was the first to do this
– and we disguised ourselves. Madiba, Goven Mbeki,
Walter Sisulu and others, all disguised themselves. I
had been an Indian and suddenly I was disguised as
a Portuguese!
On 11 July 1963, we were having a meeting at
Liliesleaf Farm. We thought the farm was a secret
but somehow the police knew about it (we’ve got
our own theories about how they found out) and
we were arrested. In those years there was a law
called the 90-day Detention Act, which meant the
police could hold you for 90 days without providing
any reason for your detention. You were not allowed
to speak to the people you were arrested with, no
books or lawyers were allowed and no visitors were
allowed. You were alone.
The only visitors you had were the police and they
came regularly for information about yourself, your
colleges, about your organisation and its activities.
They came with one message and one message only:
“You are going to die. Just give us this information
and you won’t die.”
Under the 90-day detention law many people were
tortured to death. Others were tortured but survived:
they were charged and went to prison. Steve Biko
was one example of those who were killed. So, when
we were under that 90-day thing we thought we
would die. We had sleepless nights worrying about
our comrades, and thinking about death. When we
learnt that one of our colleagues had been tortured
to death we worried even more, wondering if the
same would happen to us.
There is a common belief that under a lot of stress
one’s hair turns white. Goven Mbeki’s hair turned
white during that 90 days and we worried that he
was being tortured, that he had broken down. One
day I got a little opportunity and I asked him if he
had been tortured and his response was, no, his
black hair dye, which had been part of his disguise,
had worn off! That was a relief and we survived 90
days without giving any information.
After three months we saw our lawyers and they
told us to prepare for the worst. They didn’t use
the words. They just said prepare for the worst, but
we knew they meant that we were going to die.
Our four senior leaders took a joint decision that in
the witness box we would not apologise, ask for
mercy or appeal if we got the death sentence. In
17
the witness box you must proudly say this is what I
believe in, this is what I struggled for, regardless of
what’s going to happen. That was the attitude. So
that’s how the whole case was conducted.
hatred. They were doing their job and we were
doing ours. It is not nice to live permanently in an
atmosphere of hatred. So that day at Liliesleaf farm
was a very relaxed few hours together.
There is a famous speech that Madiba made in
court, he ended off his speech by saying: “During
my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle
of the African people. I have fought against
white domination, and I have fought against
black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a
democratic and free society in which all persons live
together in harmony and with equal opportunities.
It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.
But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared
to die.”
KN: After the trial, you were moved to Robben
Island?
When the judge sentenced us to life in prison and
we realised we were not going to die, there was a
collective sigh of relief.
KN: Can you tell us more about who betrayed you
to the police?
AK: There are various theories. Of the 16 policemen
who raided us that day, only one is alive today. A
few months ago he and I went to Liliesleaf Farm
and we did an hour or two of interviews on video.
We discussed everything and his version of it is that
one of our own comrades broke down under the 90day detention and gave information. There are other
theories, but from what he said, it is most believable
that it was one of our chaps, not staying at Rivonia
but in Durban, who stayed with us for one night and
gave evidence against us.
KN: Is he still alive?
AK: No, he is dead. His name was Bruno Mtolo. He
gave evidence against us.
KN: How did you feel during the interview with
this former policeman?
AK: People are surprised that we can get on well
with these chaps, boers, but there is no permanent
18
AK: There were eight of us on trial, including Denis
Goldberg who is white. Under apartheid, from
the time you were born until you died, you were
separated. So he was not taken to Robben Island,
as there were no white prisoners on Robben Island.
He was kept elsewhere among other white political
prisoners.
The night of our sentencing was the first time we
slept in one cell. They told us they were putting us
in one cell because we had food from outside – our
families had brought food. They said this would be
our last chance to eat food from outside, from then
on we would be eating prison food. Later on they
woke us up, it must have been about midnight. I
was shackled to Goven Mbeki. We were taken to
the military airport, put on the plane and the next
morning we landed on Robben Island. It was very
cold, raining, and we were the only prisoners that
were brought there by air.
There were seven of us. I was 34 and the youngest,
not the youngest on Robben Island because there
we had 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds. In fact, a very
famous person today was 16 at that time. Deputy
Judge President of the Constitutional Court, Judge
Dikgang Moseneke, was 16 when he studied on
Robben Island and got his matric? He got his BA
there and completed his law degree there too. We
were very proud of him and today he is the Deputy
Judge President of the highest court of the land.
But of the seven of us, I was the youngest and
Govan Mbeki was 20 years my senior, Walter Sisulu
18 years my senior, Madiba 11 years my senior. And
I was the only Indian.
I’m saying so deliberately because different laws
applied to different people, different communities.
The first thing we had to do on that cold winter’s day
was to change into prison clothes. My colleagues,
all older than me and my leaders, they had to wear
short trousers because they were Africans. I was
given long trousers and socks. They were not given
socks. It’s a humiliating thing. These are old people
and seniors but they had to wear short trousers,
because they are Africans. All Africans, regardless
of age or sex, were treated as children. That was
the thinking behind the short trousers. All Africans
were considered children, so you had white children
talking about “boys”, even now you still have people
talking about my kitchen girl. It is dying out, but it’s
still there to some extent.
Then you come to food. In the morning we had the
same food, porridge, soup, coffee. I got more sugar
than Madiba, but less than Denis Goldberg, who was
in Pretoria, because he was white. I got a quarter
loaf of bread every day, Madiba got no bread. For 10
years, African prisoners did not get bread. They are
Africans, they are used to pap, they should not get
bread – that was the simple apartheid explanation.
It was humiliating. Walter Sisulu was like my father
before jail, in jail, after jail. The relationship between
me and the entire Sisulu family was very close. You
see this humiliation, but you were not allowed to
give him your bread. After three years, we had the
same clothing but the food took much longer. Later
things became more relaxed and we could pool our
food.
KN: What went through your mind when you
discovered you were being served different food?
AK: Instinctively one wants to reject that but Madiba,
in particular, said it would be wrong to give up what
we had. His idea was that you fight for equality
on a higher level, but you don’t give up anything
and he was proved right. In our section there was
a coloured political prisoner who complained about
this discrimination. In reply, he was told that if he
was so concerned about discrimination they would
reclassify him from coloured to Bantu and he would
receive the same food as them.
Dr Kathrada with his partner, Barbara Hogan.
19
That is what Madiba warned us about – don’t give up
what you’ve got, because they’ll make you equal at
a lower level. In other words, you’ll eat mealie pap
and get no bread. Struggle for equality on a higher
level, but don’t give up what you’ve got. So, as
humiliating as it was, that was what we had to do.
Fortunately, in our section at least, we could after
some time pool our food, and be more equal.
KN: Can you tell us a bit about how the information
you received from outside was censored?
AK: The main office on Robben Island was the
censors’ office: they controlled our letters, they
controlled our visits, they controlled our lives. They
could decide what we could and couldn’t write in
our letters. At times they would black out bits that
were on topics we could not write about, even
on incoming mail, or they would cut it out. They
deliberately made our lives very difficult, because
you want to be in contact with the outside world
Left, Ms Barbara Hogan, Minister in the Presidency
Mr Trevor Manuel, Ms Maria Ramos and Dr Kathrada at
Mr Manuel and Ms Ramos’s wedding ceremony.
20
and we only got one letter every six months. If they
have cut a letter or refused to give you a letter, you
have to wait another six months and [officially] we
had no newspapers for six to 10 years.
The common law prisoners were our main source of
news. We were not allowed to work in the houses
of the warders but the criminals were, and the
warders turned a blind eye when these chaps took a
newspaper. They then used to sell the newspaper to
our people using a barter system: tobacco, cigarettes,
soap, toothpaste for newspapers. That went very
well because we didn’t have cash to give them,
but they also became clever and started dividing
the newspapers, selling pages. We were hungry for
news so our comrades in the communal cells used to
give them whatever they wanted. In turn, they used
to write out important articles and smuggle them in
to us. Once they smuggled a radio to us, but when
the batteries ran flat we had to bury the radio at the
quarry where we were working.
KN: Can you tell us a bit more about the quarries?
AK: For the first six months, we sat on a block of
concrete with a heavy hammer making big stones
into small stones. Then we started working at the
quarry with picks and shovels. It was difficult work,
because none of us had done pick and shovel work
before, so every day we had bleeding hands and
blisters and so forth. But after a while we got used
to the work, the blisters went and we could handle
the pick and shovel.
One thing we decided was that we would not allow
them to humiliate us. We decided we would not
allow them to push us into meeting a quota and
forcing us to work too hard. We said, “No, we will
work as much as we can, we are not going to be
pushed into working harder.” Many of our people
got punished for that, but there we had to stand
firm. They had to concede to us and we only worked
as much as we could. There was an advantage in
working in the quarry [as it allowed us to meet]. In
our section we were in single cells, so from Friday to
Monday you were locked up, except for an hour on
Saturday and an hour on Sunday. Even there, they
used to cheat us (by setting their watches forward).
So it was an advantage to work at the quarry where
we could work in groups and we could study. Among
us there were many educated people and they could
teach people who needed tuition. For instance, there
were three older men from the Transkei who were
completely illiterate in our section. Govan Mbeki was
a teacher and there were some others who made it
their task to teach people in need. By the time they
left Robben Island, they could read and write. There
were also two doctors and a lawyer, two lawyers in
fact.
They taught one semi-literate man to write and after
some time he could help himself, but his family was
still illiterate so they had to have help. He spent 15
years on Robben Island without a visit because his
family could not afford it. The government would
not allow the churches to help, nor would they allow
the Red Cross to assist so the poor man had no visits
for 15 years, but at least he became literate.
Take President Zuma, he came to prison for 10
years. He was literate, although he didn’t complete
primary school. At least he could read and write, and
there was a rule: in order to study on Robben Island
you could register with the college or university but
you had to have your own money. If the churches or
the lawyers sent money, they would send it back as
they didn’t want us to study. There was a students’
organisation called the National Union of South
African Students (Nusas), which sent money, but
they sent it back. Mr Zuma’s family were poor, they
couldn’t send money, so during the 10 years that
he spent on the island he couldn’t register to study.
After 10 years, he left prison without a certificate
but an educated man, and let me say at once that
you do not need certificates to be educated. No
matter what people say or think, he is our President
and he can handle himself in any situation. He got
his education on Robben Island.
Our leaders insisted that we didn’t waste our time in
prison and that we use the resources available to us.
We had problems with the post-1976 young people
but one could understand, as 600 kids were killed.
They came there very angry, full of vengeance and
reacted as victims. Their attitude (some, not all of
them) was that they hadn’t come to jail to study.
They had a point, but we also had a point in telling
them to study, even with Bantu education you got
books, paper and pens. Otherwise you would have
got nothing to keep yourself busy.
Fortunately with our older people living with these
chaps, they listened and some came out with degrees
but the younger generation had to be convinced.
The other thing this little group did in jail was to
stab one of the officers in the arm with a sharpened
tool. He didn’t die. He was the very best officer
we ever had on the line, but again they had to be
convinced. They got caught and their sentence was
increased because of this but they also learned and
21
afterwards our leaders told them, “You can’t escape
from Robben Island, so use your time positively.
Educate yourself when you get the opportunity. If
you haven’t got the funds the Congress will help
you, but spend your time fruitfully.” Most of them
listened after a while and they were not sorry that
they listened.
he was a spy, so they took him away.
KN: Were there any successful escapes from
Robben Island?
If you study the programmes of all the organisations
now, the DA, the IFP, even the Freedom Front, they
are more or less the same as the ANC’s. This is my
own point of view – I am not an ANC leader, but I am
an ANC member. I’m saying our greatest challenge
outside prison is no longer apartheid, our greatest
challenge is poverty, hunger, education and disease.
So that is your enemy, not apartheid. In jail, our
common enemy was apartheid, so we didn’t think
as different organisations. Why not unite? We were
not saying you must close down your organisations.
AK: There was one successful escape in 1659, and
that was by the man history books called Harry,
the cattle thief. His proper name was Autshumato
and he was an indigenous Khoikhoi. We called him
the first political prisoner because he was sent to
Robben Island, not because he was a cattle thief but
for protecting his own people and his land. We were
under guard 24 hours a day, you couldn’t escape.
KN: Which of your fellow prisoners did you know
from outside?
AK: Tata Madiba and Tata Sisulu I knew from outside.
Those of us who came from Johannesburg knew
each other. It was quite an experience to meet
completely new people from different backgrounds,
with different customs. You could put your own
individuality into the background and adjust to this
wider society.
Apartheid took away our independence, but you
grow up a certain way with individual habits,
customs and so forth, and you can’t impose those
on a tiny community. You have to surrender part of
your customs to adjust. We didn’t find it difficult to
adjust, to make life less difficult. That in itself was an
education, there’s always something to learn even
from people who may not be literate. So apart from
anything else, prison was a learning experience.
In a situation like prison where the temptations are
so great, it is easy to succumb and start working
with the enemy but it didn’t happen, certainly not
in our section. There was one chap planted there to
inform on us but they soon found out that we knew
22
We came from different organisations: of course, the
majority were the ANC people, but we were equal
no matter that we were in the majority. We were
equal because we had a common enemy and that
was apartheid.
But where you can put up a united front in the
fight against poverty, where your programme is the
same, can you get together to achieve certain goals
in unison, instead of wasting time and energy on
fighting each other? There is a democratic process:
let democracy prevail, let the people decide. Don’t
try to impose your policy as the right one and
everybody else must listen to you. Take the example
of what we did in prison: our different organisations
had their own policies, but we fought a common
enemy. Why not do the [same on the] outside?
Unite on common issues instead of scoring little
points here and there.
KN: Talking about working together, you were
from different organisations, but what was your
relationship like with the late Tata Sobukwe?
AK: We never met him. Robert Sobukwe was
sentenced to three years on Robben Island.
During his time in jail, a new law, the General Law
Amendment Act, was enacted allowing the Minister
of Justice to renew his imprisonment each year at
his discretion and the so called Sobukwe Clause was
used for a further six years.
He was isolated on Robben Island in a small house.
He had certain privileges such as being allowed to
wear civilian clothes, he could get newspapers, his
food came from the warders’ kitchen, his family
could stay over now and then. We never met him,
we never saw him, he was completely isolated.
Today if you go to Robben Island you can see that
house from the street. At the time you couldn’t,
because there were trees blocking the view of the
house.
But Madiba [had been] sentenced to five years on
another charge and he was with them for a short
while in Pretoria prison. The leadership of the PAC
were there – Zeph Mothopeng, Sobukwe and others
– and they got on very well with Madiba.
We have been talking about the 90-day detention
without trial clause. Zeph Mothopeng, the second
highest leader of the PAC, was so severely tortured,
electric shocks and all that, that he lost his mind.
At weekends the warders would be changed,
and sometimes they brought in warders from the
hospitals or the ships and so forth. These warders
were not aware of what was going on inside
and they made the mistake of allowing us to get
together with Zeph Mothopeng, which allowed me
to see the electric shock marks on his fingers.
When he was sent to Pretoria on his way to being
released (his first sentence was short), he sued the
government for torture. It was necessary to get
witnesses who had seen this. We didn’t see the
US singers sisters, Beyonce and Solange Knowles with their manager listens
attentively whilst Dr Kathrada tells them the history of South Africa.
23
not enemies. So that’s the way I try to live my life.
I don’t want enemies, I want allies, friends. I try to
continue that idea, when I come here to Cape Town,
with my friends.
KN: What was the thinking behind forming the
Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, which also deals
with non-racialism and non-sexism?
Speaker of the National Assembly, Max Sisulu with Dr Kathrada.
torture itself, but we did see the torture marks.
I particularly saw his fingers, so we went to give
evidence. We didn’t think this is PAC or we are ANC.
Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba and I were called by
his lawyers to give evidence. To us he was a fellow
struggle person.
While we are talking about Zeph Mothopeng, for our
67 minutes to mark Mandela Day this year Barbara
[Hogan] and my other colleagues, we placed wreaths
on the graves of struggle heroes, starting with Helen
Joseph and Lillian Ngoyi. Lillian died first but Helen
had said she wanted to be buried in the same grave.
In the struggle in life they were together and in
death they also wanted to be together, so we laid a
wreath at that grave. We also laid a wreath at Hector
Pietersen’s [resting place] and another at the grave
of Zeph Mothopeng –11 graves in all, including Dr
Neil Aggett who was tortured to death in prison,
and Professor David Webster, who was assassinated.
We also laid a wreath at Tsietsi Mashinini’s grave [a
leader of the Soweto student uprising in 1976].
We learnt that they were not our enemies. They
belong to different organisations, but they are rivals,
24
AK: I want to reach out to young people to remind
them that with freedom comes responsibility;
freedom did not fall from heaven, freedom was
fought for, people went to prison, people were
hanged, some were assassinated, others were
tortured to death. Freedom came with great
sacrifices. It did not come because the apartheid
regime changed their attitudes. They were forced to
do so through the struggles in which six hundred
youngsters were killed in the Soweto uprising.
So with freedom comes responsibility. We try
to reach out to them, to remind them of what
apartheid was like, how today the doors of learning
are open and you can become what you want to
become. Naturally there are shortcomings. Even if
there is not much money, there is enough money for
people to develop their skills, to study and take the
opportunities, take advantage of them because our
country needs skills in every direction. Accountants,
doctors, lawyers, land surveyors, engineers, in any
field – we need them and we haven’t got them. We
tell young people to take full advantage of this.
The Foundation focuses on non-racialism. There is
a shortage of teachers even now in mathematics
and science because of Bantu education. Although
coloured and Indian education was not like the
system for whites, the syllabus did provide for
mathematics and science. We do have people who
have qualified in mathematics and sciences and
so forth, but they are not being used sufficiently
and they should be. A lot of them left the country
because they believed there was no opportunity.
A lot of whites have left the country because they
believe there is no opportunity for them whereas
we could rope them in, because we need them
now. We are asking for people to come back as
we haven’t got the expertise yet. We are 18 years
old, no country can achieve much in 18 years. This
is what we are trying to do: reaching out to young
people, reminding them of where we come from
and what their responsibilities are. It’s a gradual
process, but we are succeeding.
KN: I’ve read a number of compliments from people
you’ve taken on the tours, but what feedback did
you receive from them?
AK: Whenever I take the group, I try to be neutral
because Robben Island is a national and international
heritage site, so we can’t talk about politics. We
talk about Robben Island because that is what they
came to learn about, not politics. We talk about
our experiences and that’s the way we conduct
ourselves. It is not always successful; some people
still want to talk about politics and I try to avoid that.
KN: Can you tell us about being a Muslim in prison
on the Island?
AK: There were priests from all the religions who
would come there, and we used to go to all services
Christians, Hindu, Muslims, all of us, Madiba as well.
We also had atheists among us, like Govan Mbeki, he
didn’t come. But he and I were sentenced to solitary
confinement on Robben Island. He was sentenced
to three months and I was sentenced to six. One
day he says to me, “We are allowed to go to these
church services in the sun.” I asked the warders to
allow us to go to the services and they agreed, even
though we were in solitary confinement.
First of all, the clergy were kind and gentle people,
so we went out of respect to them. Sometimes
the sea was rough and they still came. They were
a window to the outside world. We could not talk
politics to them because the warders were there
most of the time but sometimes they were not and
Dr Kathrada poses with Mac Maharaj who is now
spokesperson of the President
25
we took advantage of that, we were also naughty.
KN: Tell us more about Eddie Daniels.
Our favourite Anglican priest was Brother September,
who used to hold very long services (the longer
the better out in the sun). One day, a friend died
in an accident and one of the prisoners, a young
but eloquent chap, Hanny Feres, asked Brother
September to allow him to lead a prayer. Hanny led
the prayer and asked us all to close our eyes which
we did, Brother September included. While our eyes
were closed, Eddy Daniels opened the Brother’s
suitcase and retrieved the Sunday Times, then he
closed it again. Brother September never brought
the newspaper again, we used to say! Next time
Brother September came we apologised. “We get
naughty because we are so hungry for news,” we
said. We bribed the warders and blackmailed a few,
just to keep ourselves informed.
AK: When Eddie Daniels landed on Robben Island we
didn’t know what to think: what was this mlungu
doing on Robben Island? There were no whites there
and we all thought he was white. During apartheid
quite a few coloured folk with fair complexions
played white. We did not blame them but Eddie
refused all of his life to be white. He worked in
Namibia, he worked on fishing trawlers and in the
diamond mine. He came to prison with a standard
six and he completed two degrees on Robben Island
by the time he left 15 years later.
Along with some others, he belonged to an
organisation called the African Resistance
Movement [ARM]. [Some of] his colleagues who
were sentenced with him were released after their
Nieces and nephews of Dr Kathrada at a family gathering.
26
parents made representations to the authorities.
Eddie was sentenced to the longest term in his
group. The judges used to visit us from time to
time and almost halfway through his sentence one
judge (without Eddie’s knowledge) who had some
friend in the cabinet asked about the possibility of
his release. When the judge told him the authorities
were prepared to release him, Eddie refused
[because] they had some conditions he had to agree
to. He served his full 15 years when he could have
been released. We became like brothers to him and
we are still like brothers. That is what jail does: it
cements certain relationships that are unbreakable.
My relationship with another prisoner is closer than
with my own brother, much closer.
KN: Your mother died while you were in prison and
you couldn’t go to the funeral.
AK: Madiba had the same experience when his son
died and then his mother. The authorities wouldn’t
allow him to attend the funerals but we used to put
in the applications to attend anyway. We knew they
wouldn’t allow it, but it gave some comfort just to
put in the applications.
KN: In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Mr
Mandela alludes to the fact that you came up with
the idea to write the book. What did you want the
nation to understand about him?
AK: We thought people outside had no idea of what
it was like in prison and they didn’t know the spirit
of our people. This was in 1975-76: we wanted to
make a political statement and boost the morale
of the people. So we decided on his 60th birthday
to publish this book. The information that he was
writing it was only conveyed to the leadership of the
ANC. On the practical side, we knew about it because
he used to write anything he could overnight and
give it to me for my comments, then on to Walter
Sisulu for his comments. We would give it back to
him to decide on the final version, with or without
our observations.
The final version of his six hundred pages was
reduced by Mac Maharaj (who was serving a 12year sentence) in tiny handwriting to less than 50
pages. Two books, Madiba’s book and another book
of essays that eight of us wrote, he reduced to less
than 50 pages and that was the manuscript that
was sent to London. The arrangement was that as
soon as it had reached London Mac Marahaj should
signal to me in an innocuous greeting card that
everything had reached London or had failed. The
originals (with Madiba’s writing, my writing, Walter
Sisulu’s writing) we buried in the garden in plastic
containers, five or six containers. The idea was that
as soon as we knew things were safe, we would
destroy it.
We thought the garden was safe but then they started
building a wall so before it reached the garden we
quickly retrieved one or two of those containers and
destroyed them. The rest were discovered: Madiba’s
writing, my writing, Walter Sisulu’s writing. We were
punished for that. The three of us were deprived of
our study privileges for four years but it reached
England safely. For some reason it wasn’t published
on his 60th birthday, but it was the basis of Long
Walk to Freedom.
KN: Can you notice any change between the first
Parliament and the fourth Parliament?
AK: There has been a big change from the 1994
Parliament. I think 90% of it would not be familiar.
What I do remember from the first Parliament is that
Madiba was put forward as a candidate for President
but at first he refused. “I am going to be 76 and this
is not a job for an old man. This job must go to a
younger person, male or female.”
But the ANC decided he was going to be the ANC
candidate, so he agreed to serve for one term only
but the ANC said that is not for you to decide. But
then he went and told the media that he was only
going to serve for one term and that was what he
did. His name was proposed in Parliament by Ma
Albertina Sisulu, a member of Parliament at that
time, and the seconder was Cyril Ramaphosa,
who was largely responsible for piloting the new
27
Constitution. There was no opposition to him: that
was the most dramatic thing. Madiba was elected
unopposed, with acclaim, by all political parties as
the first President of a democratic South Africa.
KN: What advice would you give to the next
generation of MPs?
AK: They should know their responsibilities are
great: to themselves and to the country. They are
in a position to pass or reject laws because that
responsibility falls upon Parliament and it is one of
the most important institutions in the country.
First of all, we don’t have a constituency system
where they have to report to their voters, we have
proportional representation; that does not mean that
they don’t have responsibilities, though. In the five
years that I was a Member of Parliament, the ANC
(and I suppose the other organisations did the same)
allocated constituencies to us. My constituency was
Lenasia. With my colleagues from that area, MPs, we
had to have regular contact with people, meetings
and door-to-door reports on what was happening
in Parliament, so we could take people’s views into
consideration. Wherever we could, we had to go
back to the portfolio committees and so forth. I don’t
know if that is still happening.
If there is a constituency system where the
constituency appoints you and not the party, then
you have responsibilities to that constituency. There
was still direct contact between Parliament and the
people who appointed us, a lot of that, in the five
years that we were there.
KN: What legacy do you hope to leave behind?
AK: I haven’t got any individual legacy. I belong to
a collective of people and their legacy has been
expressed quite well, over and over again. We leave
a little bit of what we could do towards the struggle
for a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic South Africa,
which is enshrined in the Constitution of our country,
and is enshrined in the Freedom Charter. We hope
28
that as the most important things that brought the
ANC into power, they continue to abide by that and
promote that legacy because it is fundamental in
uniting all the people of South Africa towards the
goals we want to achieve.
As I’ve said earlier: do not regard other parties as
enemies, they are not enemies, they are your rivals.
The voter can decide, if they want to, to put the DA
into power. Let’s hope that they all work together to
carry on the legacy of Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki and all
the Robben Island prisoners, and remain committed
to this non-racial, democratic South Africa. To get rid
of the common enemy, as I said, your priority should
be fighting poverty, hunger, disease, and bringing
education: those are the priorities we hope to leave
as the legacy of Madiba and that leadership.
In 1977, 13 years after we went to prison, Madiba
was offered his release provided he stayed in
Transkei. He refused, saying the whole country is
my country. They offered him the same food as us,
he refused. They offered him exemption from work,
he refused. You would find Madiba on the floor
polishing because he was strong. He was a boxer,
he was a gymnast, he could get on the floor and
work. When we had hunger strikes and we said our
elders (strictly those who were not well) should be
exempted from the hunger strike, they refused.
That was the example of our leaders. If they had not
provided that example, we don’t know what would
have happened to the morale of the rest. If they
had accepted preferential treatment, what would
happen to the morale of the rest? But they didn’t
accept preferential treatment. I think that is very
important, the leadership that was provided.
KN: Looking at South Africa today, was it worth the
sacrifices that the collective made?
AK: Oh yes. You must bear in mind, prison is very
hard, nobody can say prison is a picnic, but there
must always be a realisation among us that while
we may be having it hard our comrades outside of
prison were at the coalface of the struggle. They
were tortured, they were killed with bullets, we
were safe. No policeman could come to Robben
Island and start shooting at us. We were protected,
our comrades were not.
The brunt of the struggle was not in prison. We played
our part, but the main action was outside prison: the
six hundred kids who died in the Soweto uprising,
others who were tortured, threatened with death, or
assassinated. They fought the political battle outside
prison. I am not minimising the hardship of prison,
it was very hard, and the prisoners played a role,
but the main struggle was outside, we’ll always
remember that.
Dr Kathrada with the late Professor Kader Asmal.
KN: Is there anything about our country of which
you are particularly proud or that disappoints you?
KN: Have you considered how to make the nation
remember the trials you endured?
AK: I’m proud of the fact that we are 18 years
into democracy and a friend of mine who is
knowledgeable in economics and politics pointed
out to me that compared to any other former
colonial country, in 18 years much more has been
achieved. We have weaknesses. There’s a lot that
should have been done that we could not do, but we
have achieved quite a bit in 18 years.
AK: No. there is nothing special that we have done.
We were part of a struggle and we have done our
little bit, always remembering that others have done
so much more. We have at least survived to see
democracy. The people who were killed and tortured
to death did not survive, so we are fortunate. All we
wish for is to see that democracy is respected.
But never forget that Madiba said we can only
be satisfied if we are sure that every child
will go to bed with a full stomach, will get up
smiling, with a full breakfast, better clothing and
go to a proper school. If we can get to that goal
sooner rather than later and put back the smile
into children, that is our greatest responsibility.
AK: There is a great responsibility on members of
Parliament, all the organisations, the leaderships
of all the organisations, but particularly the ruling
party, the ANC. It’s a greater responsibility on them
because they are the ruling party, they are the
government and they should set the lead. They
must see to it that what we fought for, what all the
people of South Africa fought for, is realised.
KN: And disappointments?
AK: There is disappointment when we find comrades
who give in to corruption, which has become a major
thing now. Every few days, you open the paper and
there is something about corruption. That is a great
disappointment, particularly if it involves people
who should know better, who come from struggle
backgrounds. That is not what we fought for.
KN: Are there any risks for our democracy?
We were just part of a larger group and we stood for
the same thing, so it doesn’t matter if individuals
are acknowledged or not. The people who really
sacrificed were the ones who didn’t survive to see
our democracy. As a collective, the people of South
Africa sacrificed and they should be remembered
collectively.
29
MR KATHRADA’S
SPEECHES IN
PARLIAMENT
Monday, 22 AUGUST 1994
Mr A M KATHRADA: Madam Speaker,
honourable members of Parliament,
comrades and friends, I would like
to share the President’s vision about
the Reconstruction and Development
Plan (RDP) playing a pivotal role in the
unfolding of the new South Africa. No one
can deny the crying need for economic
growth, jobs, houses, health, food, water
and education. Many speakers have
spoken about these necessities and we
agree that they should enjoy top priority
in rolling out the RDP.
However, to move away from the old
South Africa to the new requires more than
correcting only the material imbalances.
We need a revolution in our thinking and
in our knowledge. Several speakers said
that we should bury the past. We agree, as
long as burying the past does not translate
into forgetting the past. When one buries
a human being or a pet animal or even a
historical relic, one does not forget. One is
expected to remember that.
Every South African needs to know
the past. We need to know our real
history, after having it cleansed of the
grave distortions, the omissions and the
falsifications. We need to know about the
mind-set of the men and women who
could spend their lifetimes conjuring up
evil designs to prove that people of one
colour were superior to people of another
colour. We need to convince ourselves
that these people have undergone a
genuine metamorphosis from racism to
non-racialism. Without evidence of this, I
am afraid the success of the RDP can be
severely hampered. After all, its success
requires total commitment.
32
I am tempted to refer here to what the press has
reported about the second Deputy President, Mr
de Klerk, but he has not had a chance to explain
himself to this Parliament and I will therefore refrain
from doing so.
We need to know about the men and women
portrayed in our history books as heroes, and we
need to know about the men and women who have
been portrayed as villains, about the good boys of
history and about the bad boys of history. We need to
know the whole truth about Jan van Riebeeck, about
Simon van der Stel and about Paul Kruger, many of
whom have been almost canonised by sections of
our community; just as we need to know about
what history books call “Harry, die Strandloper” or
“Harry, the cattle thief”. In our liberation history we
regard Harry or Autshomato – his Khoi-Khoi name –
as the first political prisoner in liberation history to
be sent to Robben Island. We need to know about
Shaka, Dingaan, Sikhukhuni, Bambata, Makana,
Moshweshwe and many others.
Nearer to our time, we need to know and to have
our children know about Luthuli, about Dadoo, about
Tambo and Chris Hani and about our President,
Nelson Mandela, only recently described in our
history books and by other writers as a bloodthirsty
terrorist.
Since April of this year academics and politicians,
businessmen and media persons have been bending
over backwards to emphasise the President’s
greatness and affirm how widely admired and
respected he is across the political and racial
spectrum.
However, all South Africans, and especially members
of this House, need to know how he was regarded
by apartheid’s ideologues and practitioners only a
few short years ago. They need to know that he had
to carry a pass and that he was not allowed to be
on the streets of Johannesburg after 22:00 without
a pass, because he was a black man. They need to
know that a few short years ago he could not go to
a hotel, a restaurant, a park, a library or a cinema
because he was black.
They need to know that on Robben Island the prison
regulations stipulated that he and Walter Sisulu
and Govan Mbeki and other African comrades be
accorded inferior treatment simply because they
were black, while on the other hand Indian and
coloured prisoners were given superior treatment
because they were Indian and coloured. This meant
that President Mandela and Mbeki and Sisulu had to
be given less sugar than Indians and coloureds, and
less meat and less fish, because they were black and
they were not allowed to eat bread because they
were black.
The regulations stipulated that they should not eat
bread. Some time later, in an act of magnanimity
and compassion, the prison authorities decided
that Mandela and fellow African prisoners would
be allowed to purchase one loaf of bread a year at
Christmas time. In the cold, rainy, wintry months
on Robben Island these men, who are our seniors
in age and political position, were forced to wear
short trousers, while we, the coloured and Indian
prisoners were given long trousers.
Needless to say, everything the white prisoners
got was better than what we got, but they were
not on Robben Island. It was after many years of
representations, of resistance and of hunger strikes
that this position was changed. If burying this past
means that we should bury any ideas of revenge,
regret or bitterness, that advice is not necessary,
because our President has never ever harboured any
feelings of revenge or bitterness.
We do not want to continually harp on the past or
indulge in self-pity, but we can never be expected to
forget these experiences.
33
TUESDAY, 18 OCTOBER 1994
Mr A M KATHRADA: Madam Speaker,
honourable members of Parliament, I
would like to speak on the question of
national heroes. This question came up
once again with the recent Kruger Day
celebrations. I believe the Honourable
the Deputy President has also expressed
himself strongly on this issue.
Of course, this has been linked with the
question of national symbols, such as
flags, the question of Afrikaans, etc.
These debates invariably whip up strong
emotions and tend to depart from the
generally accepted priorities of national
unity and reconciliation, reducing matters
to a divisive we-and-they situation.
Given the historical baggage that we have
inherited from the past, and especially
given the content of the history that
is taught in educational institutions, in
schools and in homes, I do not suppose
we could have expected any dramatic
changes so soon after 27 April.
However, all responsible South Africans
will have to learn to accept that in
the past history, together with several
other disciplines, has been harnessed to
systematically perpetuate the ideology of
racial differentiation and race superiority.
Accordingly, generations of students
have been indoctrinated to revere certain
personalities as heroes and, at the same
time, to demonise other as treacherous
tyrants, thieves, murderers, saboteurs and
terrorists.
Sections of white South Africans will have
to learn to accept that as long as they
remain bent on maintaining, promoting
34
and even imposing their own brand of heroes
and their own history on others, their action will
surely have a negative impact on the process of
reconciliation. They will have to learn to accept that
while they may have strong emotions about their
heroes, the vast majority of South Africans do not
share their feelings.
Moreover, they will have to learn to acknowledge
that the formerly oppressed people, as well as many
whites, also have their heroes. However, there are
no statues, no airports, no town and street names,
and in at least one instance, not even a grave in
their memory. I refer here to one of South Africa’s
greatest son’s, Bram Fischer, whose ashes are still
in the hands of the prison authorities, 20 years after
his death.
Are we not entitled to ask: where is the statue of
Chief Luthuli? Where are the statues of Oliver Tambo,
Yusuf Dadoo, Chris Hani, Helen Joseph, Lillian Ngoyi,
Ruth First, Moses Kotane, Monty Naicker, Robert
Sobukwe and Steve Biko? I could name many others.
They were not Members of Parliament.
Jan van Riebeeck was not a Member of Parliament,
either. Walking along the corridors of Parliament
or Tuynhuys, we see huge pictures of former
government leaders and cabinet members hanging
on the walls. At this stage I wish to make it clear
that I am not entering into the debate as to whether
these should be allowed to remain or whether
they should be taken down. However, it would be
interesting to know whether fellow members ever
stop to think how these men are remembered by
the majority of South Africans.
We remember Jan van Riebeeck, whose portrait is
hanging in Tuynhuys, not as a great founder of the
Cape, but as an employee of the Dutch East India
Company who, because of dishonest practices, was
exiled to the Cape as punishment, though he still
retained his position.
An HON MEMBER: That is new history!
Mr A M KATHRADA: That honourable member is
ignorant. I cannot help him, I am sorry.
We remember Jan van Riebeeck as the man who
described the indigenous Khoisan people as “de
zwarte stinkende honde”. Hon member had better
read his journal. As the real originator of apartheid,
he planted a hedge around his settlement to keep
the Khoisan out of his white domain.
We remember General Louis Botha as the architect
of the racialist Union of South Africa and for his Black
Land Act of 1913.
We remember General Jan Smuts as perhaps the
most hypocritical and cruellest of them all, whose
shameful record ranged from imprisoning Mahatma
Gandhi in 1913 to the shooting of white miners in
1922 and the shooting of black miners in 1946.
We remember Dr Malan, who came into power
in 1948 under the slogan of “die kaffers en
boesmans op hulle plek, en die koelies uit die
land”. We cannot forget his Group Areas Act, his
Suppression of Communism Amendment Act, his
Population Registration Act, his Black Education
Act, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and the
Immorality Act. Dr Malan was the man who claimed
that he “felt sick” when Seretse Khama married the
English lady, Ruth Williams. In 1950 his Minister of
Justice, and later the President of the RSA, CR Swart,
banned the SA Communist Party. He instructed his
police to “shoot first and ask questions later”. On
1 May 1950 the police did just that and killed 18
people.
Prime Minister JG Strijdom’s reign saw the arrest
and imprisonment of 156 members of the Congress
Movement on charges of treason, because they
advocated the Freedom Charter.
Dr Verwoerd is remembered for his Sharpeville
massacre and for the Bantustans. His Minister of
35
Justice, and later President of the RSA, BJ
Vorster, is remembered for the infamous
detention without trial legislation under
which almost 100 people were killed
while in police custody. Of course, we also
remember him for the Rivonia Trial which
sent our President to jail for 27 years.
The SPEAKER: Order! The honourable
member’s time has expired.
Mr A M KATHRADA: We remember former
President PW Botha for the Soweto massacre
of 1976 . . . Oh, I am sorry Madam Speaker.
Tuesday, 25 OCTOBER 1994
Mr A M KATHRADA: Mr Chairman and
honourable members, I too am going to speak
a little about our experiences in prison. I do not
do so to point fingers or to embarrass anybody,
such as the former rulers who are today
sitting with us in the Government of National
Unity, and especially not the personnel of the
Department of Correctional Services, who
were carrying out instructions – sometimes
against their will.
Neither do I wish to dig up the past
unnecessarily. I wish we could leave the past
behind us, but unfortunately it is still very
much with us. I definitely do not speak out of
any sense of bitterness, as was pointed out
previously, or out of regret, hatred or revenge.
We speak about our experiences primarily as
an information exercise.
One of the problems in this country is caused
by the vast areas of ignorance that exist
among the privileged people about the lives
of the under-privileged. This applies to a great
36
extent to the conditions in prison, about which there is
so much ignorance. I was absolutely amazed, after I had
made a few remarks about Robben Island recently, at the
number of people from all political parties who confessed
that they did not know what happened in prison. I might
add that among them were members of the ANC.
We believe that by highlighting some of the experiences
we had, members of this House will be better placed to
deal with prison matters in a more informed manner. By
the way, when I look around me today I almost feel as
if I am on Robben Island, seeing the number of Robben
Islanders here.
The major part of our problem has been the wrong
approach by the Department of Correctional Services – I
should really say the former Prisons Department – to the
treatment of offenders.
We need to go beyond the ostensibly enlightened Prisons
Act and prison regulations, and to examine the reality as
it exists in South African prisons. Contrary to enlightened
trends in modern penology, in our prisons the emphasis
is unfortunately still on punishment and retribution. This
goes hand in hand with the attitude of many of the prison
staff.
We must acknowledge that there has, to some extent,
been a shift away from the olden days, when prison
staff were recruited for their size, and possibly their lack
of intelligence. We must further acknowledge that the
prison authorities have over the years sifted out these
types of warders, and brought in younger persons, many
of whom were straight from school, who were prepared
to learn and to execute what they had learnt in colleges.
Unfortunately, the spectre of racism was very much in
evidence. We still pay lip service to the approach that
from the first day that a prisoner enters prison he or she
must be prepared for the day of his or her release and
reintegration into society. This means that we have to
start doing away with the practice of lumping all prisoners
together into one huge impersonal mass, regardless of
background and type of offence, because this has often
meant that the offences of one or two prisoners were
held against an entire prison community with regard to
punishment.
For purposes of rehabilitation, it is absolutely essential
that prisoners are not deprived of their individuality. It is
absolutely essential that the potential of each prisoner be
taken into account, so that training in skills and education
can be properly dispensed.
I should tell honourable members a little bit about
our own personal experiences regarding education.
Although the regulations stipulate that prisoners shall be
encouraged to study, this was far from being the case. In
fact, everything possible was done to obstruct our studies.
I am afraid things do not seem to have changed. I was
recently told that at Pollsmoor Prison only one person had
passed matric, and only 10 had passed their vocational
training examinations.
There was provision on Robben Island, to a very limited
extent, to train plumbers, carpenters and builders.
However, the rest of the prisoners, who constituted the
overwhelming majority, were subjected to hard labour
due to the attitude of vindictiveness and punishment on
the part of the authorities.
For example, in January 1965 the then Commissioner of
Prisons visited Robben Island, where he addressed our
group of prisoners. He promised that the quarry work,
where we used picks and shovels, would last six months:
after which prisoners would be given light labour. Those
six months of pick-and-shovel work carried on for 13
years!
Our President, comrade Mandela, was among those.
The president of the Pan African Congress, Mr Makwetu,
was among us during the first part of his sentence. They
experienced this. They experienced coming to their cells
after a hard day’s work with bleeding and blistered
hands, to be met by provocative and insulting remarks
by warders who said: “Julle wil mos regeer, ne. Dit sal die
dag wees!”
37
I also want to cite an extreme example of the
type of punishment that was meted out. This
has appeared in several books, but I wonder
how many honourable members have read it.
I refer to the case of Mr Johnson Mlambo, the
deputy president of the PAC. He was working
in the quarry, and for some infringement or
some argument with the warder, the warder
decided to bury him up to his neck on a hot
day. When Mr Mlambo complained of thirst,
this warder urinated on him.
(Interjections)
Mr A M KATHRADA: We shall call him Piet K,
one of the K brothers who were the most
notorious warders on Robben Island. I hope
that they are no longer in the service. This
very Piet K also severely assaulted Mr Andrew
Masondo who is today a general in the South
African army.
In the absence of special education
programmes, the greatest single factor
obstructing and undermining rehabilitation is
that of the mass of prison regulations and their
rigid application. We were, of course, denied
access to prison regulations, although the Act
stipulates that prisoners should be given the
regulations. I think it was Leo Tolstoy who said
that prison staff have regulations, instead of
hearts.
FRIDAY, 9 JUNE 1995
Mr A M KATHRADA: Madam Chair, the
honourable the Minister, the Commissioner,
members of the NGOs in the gallery,
colleagues and comrades, in some ways
this is a unique occasion, for it is not often
that an ex-prisoner starts off by expressing
his congratulations to the Minister for a
very outstanding contribution. Also, it is
38
not very often that an ex-prisoner has to convey
his good wishes to a Commissioner of Prisons who
happened to have looked after him on Robben
Island. I congratulate the Commissioner.
I think I should apologise to honourable members.
I feel like a warder detaining them for longer than
they should be here and also for detaining the many
children in Parliament today.
My task today is to speak on prison administration.
Fortunately, being the last speaker, many speakers
have already touched on some of the things I was
going to speak on. However, I will try to touch on
some aspects with regard to which we have had
some personal experience. Unfortunately, during
some of the Select Committee’s visits to prisons, we
found that some of the grievance and problems that
we experienced as prisoners were still prevalent. I
will, therefore, have to mention some of them today.
I want to point out that while we shall be criticising
some of the things we saw, we do not do so
negatively. I think all of us are now moving away
from the “us and them” syndrome. We are all
Members of Parliament and we are all responsible,
hopefully, for what goes on in our prisons.
Now, there are two aspects of prison administration
which are very important. Firstly, there are prison
regulations, the legislation relating to prisons and
the service orders. These need to be replaced or
drastically revised. Secondly, there is the aspect
of the implementation of these various laws,
regulations and service orders. Implementation is
one of the most serious problems in prisons. One
can have the best of laws, the best of regulations,
but if they are not implemented properly, they are
useless.
Our experience was and unfortunately still
remains that prisons are hamstrung by the mass
of regulations, Acts and service orders. From the
most important to the least important, warders and
prison officials do not have the right or opportunity
to be flexible and they are bound by service orders.
I do not know if it is still the position, but during
the years we spent in prison we had to fight to get
access to legislation relating to prisons and prison
regulations. Although the Correctional Services Act
stated it was our right, it was denied us. As far as
service orders are concerned, these were never
given to us. These are the service orders that control
every minute and every hour of one’s stay in prison.
These are the service orders that are applied very
rigidly.
I shall give honourable members one example. It
may sound ridiculous, but this is how service orders
were applied. When we were studying on Robben
Island, service orders stipulated that, because of the
fact that we were security prisoners, the lights had
to remain on for 24 hours. However, prison service
orders stipulated that if one was studying Std 8, one
had to be asleep at 20:00, whether the lights were
on or not. If one was doing matric one would go
to sleep at 20:00 and if one was doing a university
degree one had to be asleep by 23:00. If anyone
was found outside of these hours studying, or with
a book, he was punished.
I shall give the honourable member another
ridiculous example. A fellow prisoner, a Dr Bathad,
was serving a relatively short sentence and did
not register for formal studies. He was allowed
access to his medical books, just to keep abreast
of developments. One night, a warder found him
with his books and asked him what he was doing.
Unfortunately, Dr Bathad could not speak English
very well, so there was a communication problem.
The doctor tried to explain that he was revising his
medical work, but the warder could not understand
him. He simply could not get through to the warder.
Eventually, in frustration, service orders were
consulted: “Goed, standerd agt. Slaap!” This man
was a doctor!
Now, Tolstoy said that prison warders had
39
regulations instead of hearts. This was
probably a harsh thing to say, but when
one examines the conditions in prisons,
the poor warders and the staff are so
bound by these prison service orders that
they simply could not move. To my mind,
the basic problem is the militarised way
in which the prisons are organised. It is a
system of military ranks, uniforms, drills,
shooting and polishing boots, buttons
and buckles. This prison system demands
a certain discipline. It is a system that
demands top-down orders. There is no
consultation. It crushes any initiative. It is
entirely dependent on rules. One simply
obeys orders, no questions asked.
In this system a prisoner cannot speak
directly to a colonel. Firstly, he has to
speak to a sergeant, the sergeant has to
speak to a warrant-officer, the warrantofficer has to speak to a lieutenant, the
lieutenant has to speak to a captain, the
captain has to speak to a major and the
major has to speak to a colonel. To my
mind, this is one of the main causes of
the problem. There is no communication.
There is no opportunity for prisoners to
express themselves or to communicate
their problems to those higher up in
hierarchy. This system deprives people
of their individuality. They are treated as
a mass of human beings, as numbers.
Someone once wrote that military-type
organisations are resistant to change, that
they are extremely hierarchical, that they
are secretive, and that they do not permit
either creativity or criticism.
This militates against rehabilitation. The
Minister has already spoken about this
and I do not intend to repeat what he
and other speakers have said. Not for a
moment am I advocating the overnight
40
abolition of this system, because that would cause
more problems than it would solve. However, I
believe the correctional services authorities and the
government should immediately start investigating
the need for abolishing the system that exists in our
prisons.
This also raises the question of where the prison
system should be located. Should there be a
Department or a Ministry of Correctional Services,
or, as has been suggested by a leading academic,
should prisons not fall under the Department of
Justice?
THURSDAY, 20 JUNE 1996
Mr A M KATHRADA: Madam Speaker, comrades
President, colleagues, much has been said recently,
both inside and outside Parliament, about minorities.
We have just heard about them again. Much has
been said about minority fears, minority concerns,
minority demands and minority representation.
Some of these are genuine feelings; others arise
largely from ignorance and false perceptions.
What is alarming, however, is the hypocritical and
opportunistic manner in which minority concerns are
being irresponsibly used for narrow, selfish political
ends. This is done by elements that, throughout their
political lives, have thrived not only on callously
crushing the material well-being of minority groups,
but also on trampling on their very humanity and
dignity.
Now overnight, they have suddenly emerged as
champions of minority aspirations. In their overriding
lust for the power which they have lost, they exploit
some genuine concerns of minorities and turn them
into undisguised naked racism. They do not care
about the dire consequences of what they do or
say. They know very well what they are doing. They
are the ones who came to power in 1948 under the
slogan: “Die kaffers en boesmans op hulle plek, die
koelies uit die land”. Little wonder, then, that a few
months after they came into power, South Africa
witnessed the worst riots in its history – the antiIndian riots in Durban.
Was it any wonder, then, that the “swartgevaar”
tactics in the recent Western Cape elections led
to the President being called a kaffir? And it is no
thanks to them that things did not turn ugly. Apart
from some muted, half-hearted responses in the
face of pressure, they merrily went ahead with their
swartgevaar campaign.
We have lived through the litany of apartheid and
we will not repeat them today. Let us talk about the
role of minority groups in South Africa. Of course
there are minority groups, and many of us belong
to them – minority religions, minority linguistic
groups, and minority culture and customs. This
diversity is part of the rich historical development of
our country. The question is: to what extent do we
allow this reality to cloud our existence as part of the
greater whole, as part of a greater nation, as part of
the majority? When do we wrench ourselves away
from this minority syndrome and accept the warm
and outstretched embrace of our President and of
the ANC, which speaks and acts on behalf of the
majority of the people of this country?
The ANC has never asked people to stop being
Indians, coloureds, Afrikaners or Portuguese. We have
never asked people to stop being Muslims, Hindus,
Christians or Jews. On the question of nonracialism,
of the protection of minority and individual rights,
the ANC has the proudest unblemished record. It is
not a record on paper, or in public pronouncements.
It is a record that has stood the rest of time. It is to
be seen in its meetings, membership, its leadership,
its members of Parliament and its Cabinet.
In 1947, the then President of the ANC, Dr Xuma,
signed the famous Doctors’ pact with Dr Dadoo and
Dr Naicker, thus sealing the Congress Alliance. In
1955, in the face of demands in its own ranks for an
41
exclusivist Africanism, the ANC stood firm
and entrenched the non-racial Freedom
Charter as part of its fundamental policy.
This later led to the breakaway of a
significant group of its membership. The
ANC refused to bow to narrowness and
bigotry. In exile, it boldly expelled eight of
its leading figures who advocated similar
exclusivism.
But more important than that, in its
military camps, in its armed skirmishes
and in the ranks of its martyrs who died in
combat or who were tortured to death by
apartheid police, one found the names of
the Timols, of the Basil Februarys, of the
Ruth Firsts and of the Jeanette Schoons.
On Robben Island and in other apartheid
prisons, one found the same non-racial
ANC.
After his release from prison, and before
and after he formally became the first
citizen of South Africa, President Mandela
carried the same message of nonracialism, unity and reconciliation to every
community in every corner of the country.
He met the wives and the widows of
the most hated apartheid engineers. He
donned the No 6 jersey of (1995 World
Cup rugby captain) Francois Pienaar.
The erstwhile oppressed and victims of
apartheid responded enthusiastically
in their millions. They internalised the
President’s message of forgiveness and
momentarily forgot the atrocities of the
past.
What has been the response of sections
of the minorities to the President’s
outstretched arms? A section of the
whites – I repeat, a section of the whites
– gave reply in Potgietersrus. A section of
the Indians and coloureds lost their self-
42
respect and forgot the humiliations, the indignities
and the inhumanity of the past and voted for the
very father and perpetrators of apartheid. Yes, they
lost their self-respect.
I want to believe that these are temporary
aberrations, without serious thought and regard
for history and present-day realities. Indeed, I am
confident that it will not be long before the minority
groups move away from the purely emotional
responses and come to accept that their future,
and the future of the generations to come, lies in
the only organisation and the only leadership that
is capable of leading our country along the path of
peace, racial harmony and prosperity, ie the ANC.
Friday, 29 MAY 1998
Mr A M KATHRADA: Madam Speaker, Comrade Deputy
President, honourable Members of Parliament, this
debate takes place while parties and political leaders
are gearing up for the elections. There will be a lot
of point-scoring, and even character assassination
will be an unfortunate part of this period. There
will be extravagant language. Some have already
exceeded or gone beyond the bounds of fact, reason
and objectivity.
But all of us will have to remember that when
the dust of elections has settled, South Africa and
all the people of this country will still have to face
the fundamental task of reconciliation and nationbuilding. Without this task of reconciliation there will
be no nation-building in this country. It is not going
to be an easy task, as our Deputy President has said.
If we take the history of Europe, we see that even
after hundreds of years there is still violence in the
former Yugoslavia and in Ireland. Many of the Asian
countries are still in turmoil.
Our democracy is only four years old, and we come
from a very polarised past. As the Deputy President
has said, on the one hand there is white privilege and
on the other black deprivation, white affluence and
black poverty, white “haves” and black “have-nots”.
On the one hand we have people dying because of
too much food, and on the other we have people
dying of hunger. All these are the realities of our
history from which we cannot escape.
We cannot forget our past, not to perpetuate our
past, but to learn from it so that future generations
will not repeat our mistakes. We empathise with
those Afrikaners who keep on reminding us of the
Anglo-Boer War, albeit in a non-violent way.
Forgive me, Madam Speaker, but I want to speak a
bit about my own past. I was born in a little dorp
called Schweizer Reneke, the stronghold of the
white right wing. It had already achieved notoriety
in 1947 when its name came up in the UN. It again
achieved notoriety when a few years ago it became
the first dorp in South Africa to confer the freedom
of the town on one Eugene Terre’Blanche.
Like most rural children, I grew up with African and
Afrikaner kids. Our immediate neighbours were
Afrikaners. Then I had to experience my first racism.
When I reached school-going age I could not go to
the African schools, because of the laws, and I could
not go to the white schools, because of the laws.
I had to go to school in Johannesburg, 200 miles
away.
In 1946 we had another bout of racism, not under Dr
Malan and the Nationalist Party, but under the socalled international statesman, General Smuts, the
arch-hypocrite of history. He and his United Party
– some of his disciples, many of them, sit on my
left-hand side – passed the Asiatic Land Tenure Act
in 1946 and the Indian Congress defied it in their
passive resistance campaign. That is when, at the
age of 17, I tasted my first imprisonment under
Smuts.
In 1947, still under Smuts, the same Schweizer
43
Reneke had a boycott of Indian shops,
again led jointly by the United Party and
the Nationalist Party, supported by the
churches. Then came the Nationalist
victory of 1948, 50 years ago. I have
already mentioned before one of the
slogans under which they came to
power: “Die kaffirs en boesmans op
hul plek. Die koelies uit die land” (“The
kaffirs and bushmen in their place. The
coolies out of the country”).
Then came the litany of apartheid
legislation, some of which could easily
have been taken from Hitler’s Third
Reich: the pass laws, influx control,
job reservation, the Group Areas Act,
race classification, Bantu education
and the banning of political parties. In
Schweizer Reneke, where my siblings
and I were born, we were forcibly
removed under the Group Areas Act.
The houses were razed to the ground.
Three million South Africans suffered
under the Group Areas Act.
Much has already been said about
these laws. I will not go into it, but I
want to talk a bit about the violence
that black people suffered over the
years. Just two days ago I was reading
a book which identified, from 1917 to
1976, hundreds of cases of shooting
of black people by police. I will not go
into all of those. I will name just a few.
In 1917 in Grahamstown, two Africans
were killed. In 1920 in Port Elizabeth,
20 were killed. In 1921 in Queenstown,
163 were killed. In 1942 in Pretoria,
16 black policemen and black soldiers
44
were killed. In 1960 came Sharpeville
when scores and scores of people were
killed.
I have spoken previously of the
humiliation and indignity of Robben
Island. I will not repeat it. I have
spoken of the discrimination when
our President, during the bitter cold
of winter, had to wear short trousers
and no socks. I have spoken about less
sugar, and less meat and no bread for
him and the African people. I will not
repeat that.
But I am reminded of Robben Island,
because yesterday was 28 May, and
28 May 1971 will never be forgotten
by people who were on Robben
Island. On that night, drunken, white
warders invaded our cells, stripped us
naked and made us stand against the
wall with our hands and our arms up,
while they conducted a search. It was
only when Mr Govan Mbeki collapsed
that the search came to an end. Now,
against this background, I want to
talk a bit about the record of the ANC.
Referring to the ANC in 1912, when it
was founded, a non-ANC writer said:
The vision was one of common
humanity and a South African state
encouraging the absorption of its racial
groups into a single economy and
body politic. The central ideological
commitment was to non-racialism.
That was in reference to the ANC’s
founding in 1912. This was reaffirmed
over and over again.
45
The veterans of our struggle for democracy in South Africa
leave the younger generations their legacy as a guide to
build the society that former president Nelson Mandela
described from the dock, before he was imprisoned for
27 years: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and
free society in which all persons live together in harmony
and equal opportunities.”
In this publication, the first in Parliament’s Living History
Series, Dr Ahmed Kathrada, through his anecdotes and
memories, tell his story to remind us that “the majority of
the population in this country are young and don’t know
enough about what apartheid meant, so we have to
remind people all the time of what their responsibilities
are. I want to reach out to young people and remind them
that with freedom comes responsibility.”