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| Phyllis Naidoo |
Phyllis Naidoo
was born in Estcourt, Natal (now kwaZulu-Natal) on the 5th of January
1928. She was the daughter of Simon David, a teacher and principal.
His occupation prevented him from being politically active but he was
a ‘Methodist agnostic.’ As a result there were many interesting
debates in the house and Phyllis developed a questioning attitude.
From her early years her experiences did not allow her to simply take
things for granted. When she was ten years old, her father took her
to an Institute of Race Relations Conference in Pietermaritzburg at
which she was to serve tea. At the meeting someone asked her to go
and call the boy. She went outside and when she asked for the boy a
very dignified, traditional Zulu woman confronted her. “The boy you
want is my husband.” The woman’s regal presence made Phyllis
realise that she had given tremendous offence and she was mortified.
She was so upset that she sobbed hysterically for a long while
afterwards. This incident awakened her, more than any event or speech
at the meeting, to the evils of racism.
In
1944, when she was in Standard Nine (Grade Eleven) at Woodlands High
School in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, Mr H.W. Stead a teacher at the
school, called Tsetse Fly by the pupils because he was always falling
asleep, was actually the person who helped develop in Phyllis a
strong sense of community service. He got the students interested in
the Friends of the Sick Association (FOSA) that had established a
care centre and home for TB patients. Mr Stead asked the students to
make clothes for the children of these sick people. During that time
Phyllis working with a Women’s Association was also involved in
making her contribution to the war effort – knitting socks for
soldiers. After she matriculated from High School in 1945, the family
moved to Tongaat. Phyllis astounded her family when she went to work
at FOSA. She was sent to King George V Hospital to train as a TB
nurse aid. At FOSA, she spent her days observing the following
routine – prayer, scrubbing and cleaning. She was inspired in her
work by Rev. Paul Sykes and his wife, Nel Sykes, who lived and worked
at FOSA in Newlands. One day a patient named Govindasamy whose
leaking TB gland had dried up, was discharged. Within two weeks he
was back again and died. Surrounded constantly by such suffering,
Phyllis desperately wanted to do something more to counteract the
evil of TB. This is when Rev Sykes made her aware of conditions in
South Africa that gave rise to this disease. 1946 was also the time
of Passive
Resistance in
Durban and Phyllis saw people like Pat Poovalingam, Nadas and Athie
Pillay who had committed themselves to change going to prison. Nadas
and Athie had just married and had given up any thought of a
honeymoon. Phyllis was filled with admiration for the passive
resisters. She realised then that she had a choice to make, a choice
between prayer and politics. She had seen the effectiveness of prayer
at FOSA and now chose politics. She became involved with the NEUM
(Non-European Unity Movement) and
in the debates and study groups where people like Abdool
Karim Essack,
Zulie Christopher and Enver
Hassim,
discussed and debated issues, she learned ‘the mechanics of
politics.’
The
NEUM was not a party, it did not believe in party politics and the
kind of action undertaken by the African
National Congress (ANC), Communist
Party of South Africa (SACP) and
other parties. But it condemned the arrests in 1956 of a hundred and
fifty-six people for treason.When Phyllis read in the Natal Mercury
report of the arrests of Dorothy
Shanley and Errol
Shanley,
members of the SACP, parents of three young children Nigel, Di and
Roz, she decided she had to take an active part in bringing about
change. Phyllis, a teacher and a student at Natal University
(Non-European section) organised a Human Rights Committee at
University and helped to raise fund for the Treason
Trialists and
their families. Teaching and studying at the university, she could
not be overtly political. So she helped to raise funds and assisted
MN Pather who organised dinner-dances and other activities to raise
money for the support of the people on trail and their families. She
was also involved in attending to the banished persons in Natal with
Eleanor Kasrils, Theo Kloppenberg and others.
Phyllis
decided to join the Natal
Indian Congress (NIC)
where she met Nandha (Steve) Naidoo, George
Sewpersadh,
Dr Randeree and MD Naidoo and became involved in writing speeches for
comrades. In 1958, she married MD Naidoo, a committed member of
the South
African Communist Party (SACP),
and in 1961 she joined the SACP. She also began working with Dorothy
Nyembe, Florence
Mkhize and Moses
Kotane who
were challenging the Bantu
Education Act that
had effectively lowered the standard of education for African people:
the matriculation (Std Ten) was reduced to Std 6 level. It was in
this cause that she made her first political speech at the YMCA in
Beatrice Street. In 1958, she also began working with her husband, MD
andGovan
Mbeki in
aiding people underground. They made deliveries and helped those in
danger to get out of the country. She herself took Moses Mabhida and
two other comrades to Newcastle when they were making their way out
of South Africa. In 1961, after the banning of political
organisations, Umkhonto
weSizwe (MK) came
into being and this kind of work intensified and it was then
that Billy
Nair was
on the run and she helped him to escape. Though she had tried to
remain behind the scenes, Phyllis’ association with political
leaders had exposed her. She was banned in March 1966.
In
1967, MD was charged and sent to prison on Robben
Island.
His detention together with her banning left her destitute. She could
not work and had to depend on friends and family for welfare
assistance. George Singh, Jay Singh and Dhanpal Naidoo helped
regularly. Mrs Konar, a relative of MD’s, went round to factories
collecting pieces of material for sewing and she was able to earn a
little from this. When she received a message from Jack Govender’s
wife that she should leave the country, she realised that Govender
had cracked under torture in detention. A senior Security Officer
observed that ‘MD was one coolie they could never crack.’ Phyllis
could not leave the country by ordinary means; she had never been
able to obtain a passport because of her political involvement. So
she went to Johannesburg where she sought advice from Bram
Fischer.
She continued her work in the underground assisting comrades to flee
to asylum and providing support for their families and those of
detainees. Her banning orders were renewed with house arrest and she
was banned until 1976. During the ten-year period of her banning, her
home was raided fourteen times. When she was placed under house
arrest, she began to study law. She qualified as a lawyer in 1973 but
could not practice, as she was not allowed in court. Finally her
banning order was lifted in 1976 and she set up her practice. One of
the people she defended was Harry
Gwala of
the SACP who was tried for treason and sentenced to life
imprisonment. People who had been released from Robben Island
gathered around Phyllis, who tried to find employment for them
following their return home. Many could not find work because people
were afraid to employ ex-politcal prisoners.
At
one stage, she had five ex-Robben Island detainees as messengers at
her law firm. Among these was Jacob
Zuma,
now President of South Africa. The only option for these men was to
flee the country. With the help of Joseph
Nduli,
she established a new escape route to Swaziland and her
comrade,Shadrack
Maphumulo was
able to take many out of the country safely. On 23 July 1977, Phyllis
escaped to Lesotho as her underground comrades were detained, along a
new route established byOmar
Badsha, Rick
Turner and
others. Here she joined the African
National Congress (ANC)
and was involved in welfare work: providing for children who had left
South Africa, assisting members of the SACP and ANC to escape from
South Africa and providing them with support in Lesotho. She was
working with the Rev John Osmers. In 1979, a parcel-bomb was sent to
Rev Osmers and when he opened it, his hand was blown off and Phyllis
and four others were seriously injured. While in Lesotho, Phyllis was
the Chief Legal Aid Counsel for the Lesotho Government. But she was
forced to leave Lesotho in 1983, when South African air strikes
against Lesotho began and all its twelve borders were closed. South
Africa wanted her out of Lesotho and warned the Lesotho government
she would be killed. She had twenty-four hours to make her escape and
on 9 September 1983 she fled and months later arrived in Zimbabwe.
Despite
more air strikes, she remained in Harare for seven years where she
continued her political activities for MK, wrote speeches for
comrades, taught at the Law Department of the University of Zimbabwe
and helped people from South Africa find solutions to problems. She
was actively involved in campaigning against the abuse of power by
the apartheid government. She was particularly concerned with the
prisoners, both political and criminal, on death row. She wrote
Waiting to Die in Pretoria, which decried the inhumanity of capital
punishment. She also put out a publication Le
Rona Re Batho: An Account of the 1982 Maseru Massacre.
In 1990, she
returned to South Africa and immediately went to visit prisoners on
death row and Robben Island. Phyllis continued to write and was
engaged in recording the history of the struggle as she experienced
it during her time in the country and in exile.
Phyllis
Naidoo passed away on 13 February 2013 in Durban, kwaZulu-Natal. She
is survived by her daughter, Sukthie. Her two sons, Sadhan (was
assassinated by a South African agent in Tanzania where he was in
exile) and Sha are late.
Books by
Phyllis Naidoo:
1990.
Waiting to Die in Pretoria. Durban: P. Naidoo.
1992.
Izinyanya: A Millenium Diary in the Year of Older Persons. Durban: P.
Naidoo.
1992.
Le rona re batho. Durban: P. Naidoo.
2002.
Footprints in Grey Street. Durban: P. Naidoo.
2006.
156 Hands that built South Africa. Durban: P. Naidoo.
2007.
Footprints beyond Grey Street. Durban: P. Naidoo.
2009.
Enduring Footprints. Durban: P. Naidoo
