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| Nomboniso Gasa |
THE harsh landscape of Mbewuleni carries in its crevices the secrets, hopes, tears and idealism of a young couple who moved there to make an independent existence in the 1940s.
Like so many other activists of
their time, MamoTseki, Nomaka Epainette Mbeki (nee Moerane) and her husband,
Govan Mbeki, knew that dependence on government salaries would render them
vulnerable.
They could easily lose their
positions and salaries.
Their move to Mbewuleni was
also inspired by their commitment to working with and understanding the
“peasants’ existence”, a subject close to both their hearts and captured in
Govan Mbeki’s book, The Peasant Revolt, a history of the Mpondoland resistance.
MaMbeki speaking from her
Dutywa home about the Rivonia Trial in which her husband, Govan Mbeki was an
accused in 1963. Picture: SINO MAJANGAZA
MaMbeki, as she was fondly
known, was born in Mount Fletcher in Transkei or South Eastern Cape. She went to Lovedale where she studied to be
a teacher.
Lovedale and Fort Hare were
premier institutions where Africa’s black leaders and intellectuals studied and
developed their political ideologies and passions.
Like Albert Luthuli, another
leader of the African National Congress, MaMbeki worked at Adams College,
among other places.
She was the second of two
African women who joined the Communist Party. The first was Josie Mpama (often
written as Palmer).
An independent thinker and
fearless activist, she did not follow Govan’s footsteps. MaMbeki joined the
Communist Party before Govan.
She carved her path and at
times their paths complemented each other, and at other times they took
different routes.
Being an independent woman and
thinker in a patriarchal society often meant that MaMbeki was read through the
lens of her husband, Govan, and her son, Thabo Mbeki.
Hers is a story that is all too
familiar to African women in South Africa.
To this day, her peer, Josie
Mpama, is less known for her own work than being the partner of Edward
Mofutsanyana.
In many ways, this
“invisibility” suited MaMbeki’s temperament.
She did not care about
newspaper headlines.
It was also not rubbing
shoulders with the kings and wealthy of the world that defined her. It was with
her neighbours in the village of Mbewuleni, and from 1974 in Ngcingwane, that
she fulfilled herself.
Long before women’s craft and
income-generating projects became “the thing to do”, MaMbeki, together with a
small group of women, ran beading and sewing projects.
To speak of her humility is to
attach a quality to a life lived naturally. She mingled with her neighbours as
they did with her.
The village people knew her as
she knew them, especially the women.
Together they struggled, raised their children while their husbands were
away.
Hers was on Robben Island.
Her children were in exile. There were times when it must have been a
hard and very lonely existence.
While others expected their
spouses at the end of the year, even if briefly, she knew that she could not
have such expectations.
Many stories have been written
about the humiliations that the families of the men on the Island experienced
at the hands of the authorities.
For example, one did not know
whether or not the visit would be allowed.
Former President: THABO MBEKI
Former President: THABO MBEKI
They did not know when
regulations and requirements would change. But they kept on going and using
that time to catch up, if that were possible.
The strength required to endure
such experiences may be partly driven, I think, by the attachment to one who is
imprisoned. But we know that it is also
driven by something larger than that.
In the case of MaMbeki, like
many of her sisters who crossed those cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, it was
also an act of defiance. “We are here. You cannot erase us.”
The independent spirit and
political commitment that MaMbeki showed in defying the apartheid government
did not stop with the inauguration of the post apartheid government.
Her quest for a just society
continued until the last days of her life. She spared no one. Not even her son,
former president Thabo Mbeki.
The clarity of her voice and
her razor sharp mind defied her age. She drew deeply from the long hard years
of her life and that of the people amongst whom she lived.
At times, she was their
counsel, when they needed her advice. Most of the time, she was their equal, a
fellow traveller in the journey towards full liberation and justice.
Many found her independent mind
and spirit unusual and disturbing. Ours
is a society that applauds conformism, after all. This did not discourage her.
She spoke her mind with grace,
dignity and authority. Her humanity shone in those statements. While she did not hesitate to speak her mind
when Mbeki was recalled, she was clear that she harboured no ill will.
She had a wicked sense of
humour.
HALE AND HEARTY: President
Thabo Mbeki’s mother Epainette shares a joke with her other son Moeletsi and
granddaughter Linda at her birthday party yesterday. Pic: ALAN EASON. 16/02/2005.
© Daily Dispatch.nn
HALE AND HEARTY: President
Thabo Mbeki’s mother Epainette shares a joke with her other son Moeletsi and
granddaughter Linda at her birthday party yesterday. Pic: ALAN EASON.
16/02/2005. © Daily Dispatch.nn
When then Eastern Cape premier
Arnold Stofile asked her to go to parliament, she replied: “That is not for me.
I want to live amongst people. I can’t go to parliament. I will be as dull as
you people there.”
It was this constant balance
between banter and serious personality that humanised her.
She spoke openly about her
years of hardship. “You want me to live another 100 years. What for? I have had
a long and hard life. You have not consulted me about this wish of yours ,” she
said at her 96th birthday.
And then she laughed, a deep
belly laugh that had a hauntingly sad edge to it.
She was a pioneer who cut
through unknown lands and explored new theories and ways of life. Yet she
remained deeply rooted in the land that holds the umbilical cords of her
children, her tears and triumphs.
Hers was a life well lived in
pursuit of freedom. She continues to
represent a voice that is often in dissonance with the trends of the day.
It is a voice that rejects the
universal trappings of money and power. It is a voice that defies boundaries of
geography, politics and time.
It echoes across the land, in
this time when we say Hamba Kahle, MaMofokeng.
