Ahmed Kathrada on non-racialism

Despite what politicians, opinion polls or media reports sometimes indicate, non-racialism in South Africa is alive and well at grassroots level. Every day, ordinary people are integrating, quietly getting to know each other and making friendships across the colour line.

This is the message from Ahmed Kathrada, veteran anti-apartheid activist, political prisoner and long-time confidant of the likes of Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu.

Kathrada, now a sprightly 80-year old and still active in public life, is confident that notable inroads are being made through mediums such as sport, music and even television.

“I look at Soweto hosting the Blue Bulls rugby team, I look at the World Cup spirit, I see a PSL [Premier Soccer League] where most of the coaches are white – but nobody complains,” he observes.

“Just tune into anything on TV; some of it’s rubbish, but it involves both black and white people. I watched one particular soapie – and it’s all mixed.

“You can’t change everything in 16 years, but we’re making good progress towards non-racialism. I see integrated schools, I see universities with a large percentage of mixed students. I look at all of these factors… and I’m confident about the future (of non-racialism),” he adds.

Now retired from active party politics, Kathrada spoke to Leadership at the unveiling of an exhibition entitled “Kathy: The Man Behind the Public Figure”, which coincides with the 21st anniversary of his release from prison in 1989.

The exhibition remains on public display until 6 September at Liliesleaf Museum in Rivonia, Johannesburg. Poignantly, it was the police raid at the Liliesleaf ‘safe house’ for activists in July 1963 that led to the Rivonia Trial and the eventual jailing of Kathrada, Mandela and Sisulu, among others.

They subsequently spent 26 years behind bars – 18 on Robben Island and a further seven at Pollsmoor prison in Cape Town.

After his release, Kathrada worked in ANC executive positions and was also a Member of Parliament for five years.

These days, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, founded in 2008, occupies much of his time. Based in the former Indian suburb of Lenasia, near Johannesburg, it is active in propagating non-racialism among black and Indian school learners in the area.

Earlier this year, the Foundation published a book entitled Men of Dynamite, which recounts the story of the mainly Indian group of young men who took up arms against the National Party government in the early 1960s. They lived, worked and socialised in the Fordsburg, Vrededorp and Ferreirastown areas west of the Johannesburg CBD which, at the time, were designated as “non-white” in terms of the infamous Group Areas Act.

They were eventually arrested and nicknamed the “Dynamite Coolies” by warders at Leeuwkop Prison, where they were held before being transferred to Robben Island.

Speaking at the book’s launch, Kathrada acknowledged its importance in recognising the contribution of members of the Indian population to the struggle, and said he hoped it would lead to other similar works.

Robben Island

His other big interest is his former prison ‘home’ of Robben Island. Kathrada was for many years chairperson of the Robben Island Museum Council and still devotes much time to the project, being steadfast in the belief that it is a “continuous message that needs to be conveyed”.

He admits his first return to the island as a free man, accompanying a French television crew, was traumatic. “By that time, I was used to bigger spaces and could not conceive of how you can spend so many years in such a little cell,” Kathrada recalls.

But subsequent visits have become routine and he tries to accompany as many special visitors as possible to the island. “People are interested in what happened there, and I find it amazing that visitor numbers never go down,” he says.

The 18-year veteran of South Africa’s most infamous prison believes one of the most important lessons is how it was a microcosm of the way in which the apartheid system was applied at the time. “I came into the prison with Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela – of whom were between 11 and 20 years my senior. But the first thing that happened was that my seniors had to wear short pants because all Africans were regarded as ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ – and ‘boys’ wore short trousers!” Kathrada says.

“When it came to food, I got more meat, fish and sugar than Mandela because he was African. But I got less than Dennis Goldberg because he was white. I got bread, but not Mandela. He got porridge.

“That’s how you personalise things; that’s how we use Robben Island to explain the apartheid system,” he adds.

Kathrada says one of his rules when accompanying visitors to the island is that politics must stop as the boat leaves the shores of Cape Town. “We’ve had many people with conflicting political views come; from Yasser Arafat of the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] to the World Jewish Congress, from Fidel Castro to Bill Clinton. So we are neutral when we talk about the island.”

In prison

Kathrada’s own time in prison was undoubtedly difficult. He recalls longing to be able to hold a child and to hear a child’s cry – something which was impossible in the austere prison environment.

The 1960s were the toughest years. The prisoners had almost no access to the outside world and felt the government was close to succeeding in crushing the liberation movement.

“But, despite that, the confidence never left us,” he remembers. “As time went by, new information started to trickle in and we began to realise that, far from being lost, the struggle was growing. It was happening in South Africa, and international solidarity and support from civil society all over the world was also developing.”

One of the ways to free his mind from the daily drudgery of prison life was to collect quotations he liked, garnered from the few books in the prison library, study textbooks, and the occasional newspaper smuggled in from the outside world. These quotations eventually numbered several thousand – ranging in origin from Daniel Defoe and Oliver Schreiner through to Reader’s Digest magazine and the Rapport Afrikaans newspaper.

They were kept in hidden exercise books and eventually became the basis for a book entitled: A Free Mind: Ahmed Kathrada’s Notebook From Robben Island.

Kathrada is on record as saying these were probably a continuation of his pre-incarceration debating activities, when he frequently used relevant quotations in his speeches.

But he seems to have become an almost unofficial historian of life on the island, using his well-developed literary skills to pen more than 900 letters – 103 of which later became the basis of another book, entitled Letters from Robben Island, a selection of Ahmed Kathrada’s private correspondence, 1964–1889.

He also wrote his own memoirs (published in 2004), in which he recalls that, prior to being imprisoned, he was an occasional slogan painter and graffiti artist with a group called the Picasso Club. One of their ‘raids’ was on the segregated Johannesburg Public Library, where they painted the slogan “Let us black folk read”.

When the authorities cleaned it off, the Club responded with the slogan: “We black folk ain’t reading yet”.

With Mandela

Kathrada’s story is closely entwined with that of Nelson Mandela. On three occasions, he was tried with Mandela and ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment with him after the Rivonia Trial.

Prior to that, however, he had been involved in semi-clandestine activities and was among a few activists responsible for the security and contacts of Mandela while he operated underground.

Later, when Mandela was arrested, Kathrada came out into the open to launch the “Free Mandela” campaign.

He still sees Madiba from time to time, but says it is always informal and without an agenda. “Often, if he (Mandela) has read the newspapers already, we’ll talk about that. Otherwise, we chat about the past, or people we know,” Kathrada explains.

Does he have a favourite Mandela story?

Kathrada says there is one that Madiba himself related at a meeting, not long after his release from prison.

A little girl, aged six or seven, confronted him and asked, “How old are you?”, to which the great man patiently replied. She then wanted to know why he had been in jail – to which he again responded. Several more questions and answers followed, before the young girl delivered her verdict: “You’re just a silly old man!”.

“Mandela related this at a public meeting,” says Kathrada. “It says so much about him that he’s able to laugh at himself.”

Satisfied

So, is he satisfied with South Africa’s post-democracy progress? Kathrada pauses for thought. “No. Although it may be a long time in the lifespan of a human being, 16 years is too short in the life of a nation.

“What we have achieved – apart from material gains like houses, water, schools and electricity – is still not enough.

“Don’t tell the person in Standerton about statistics. His question is: ‘Where’s my house?’,” he says. But he does not believe that is cause for despair.

“I was talking to a very knowledgeable man a month ago, and he said: ‘Take all the post-colonial countries which achieved their independence long before us – and show me one that has achieved in 16 years what we have achieved’.” ▲

Mike Simpson