‘The South African sets of laws is a cursed bible of oppression full of pages with barbaric and most degrading laws ever written,’ spoke Elisabeth Sibeko (PAC1) in 1975 at the UN World Conference in Mexico City during the International Women’s Year2. Apartheid implied for black women too that a pseudo-culture was imposed upon them consisting of a mix of elements from the African tradition and white prejudice3.

Racism, sexism and exploitation dominated the lives of black women. They remained minors their entire life. Oshadi Mangena (BCM4): ‘..African women who were in their traditional systems producers and owners in their own right were in capitalism turned into perpetual minors through the law.  As minors they lost the right to own the basic resources for making a living. They became dependents of their male folk. In this way women were relative to men more dehumanized and their labour was more devalued. This created a condition for super-exploitation of women as women in the production system.’5

Suffering multiple oppression black women joined the liberation struggle. Their names and contributions to that struggle are underexposed. The Azania Komitee came into contact and worked with a number of these inspiring women in the period from 1974 to 1996. Their experiences, convictions and struggle are the focus in this article.

Black women mainly worked in agriculture, the services sector and industry. In factories they had the lowest-paid jobs, paid less than their black male colleagues. Women worked in the food, clothing and leather industry. The more highly skilled women had a greater chance of getting a job in education or healthcare. Their specific interests and needs such as maternity leave were not taken into consideration. Sexual harassment, sexual abuse and getting a job in exchange for sex were commonplace.

Female farm workers (often seasonal work) and domestic staff were not protected by the law. Minimum pay, fixed working hours or holidays were not regulated. Some farmers paid their female workers in kind. ‘It happens that a woman works the entire day for a bucket of tomatoes. At the end of the day she has to work again to earn some money by selling the tomatoes.’6

‘It is the tragic story of thousands of young women’

In the ‘homelands or Bantustans’8 the female factory workers were even worse off. The laws that provided protection, however minimal, for workers did not apply in the homelands. Trade unions were forbidden. During Apartheid women in the Bantustans were considered ‘useless appendices’, as a Minister of Bantu Administration and Development had put it. Elisabeth Sibeko (PAC) came from such a region and underlined9 what researcher Landis describes: that in order to survive women spend almost the entire day collecting firewood and carrying water from the nearest river. Often they are widows. As a woman they were not entitled to land. Sometimes they managed to rent a patch of land. The yields of the mainly barren soil were poor. All this resulted in poverty with inevitable illnesses and mortalities by starvation. People suffered from kwashiorkor (insufficient protein consumption), pellagra (vitamin deficiency) and beriberi (vitamin B1 deficiency).

White women benefitted from the poverty of black women and used the propagated pseudo-culture as a fig leaf for their exploitation. The Apartheid system forced black women (and men) to leave their children behind in the so-called homelands and work in the urban areas. After all, in the barren ‘homelands’ you could not earn a living. They could be hired by white women as cheap maids and nannies. White women turned a blind eye to the fact how traumatic it was to leave your children behind for a longer period of time. They preferred to believe it was ‘tradition’ and so ‘normal’ that black children grew up in poverty without their parents and that black mothers did not really care11.

In Apartheid South Africa white women were included in the economic and political power related to a white male dominated culture of superiority. That position impacted their perspective and struggle and dominated public debate12 .

Black women trapped in multiple legal systems, traditions and religions

In 1993 UMTAPO organized a nationwide seminar on the position of black women in South Africa. It was the first time this was organized independently of white women. In her contribution Sexual Politics and Legal Rights Navi Pillay discusses the implications of white legislation on the lives of women.

One of the first laws to be adopted in South Africa (in 1686 by Baron Von Imhoff) was banning sex between different ‘races’ under penalty of death for the black man who had a sexual relation with a white woman. For white men the reverse did not apply. The myth of the promiscuous black woman came in very useful for the white man. Navi Pillay: ‘By perpetuating the myth that black women were incapable of fidelity, white men hoped to so devalue them that it freed them from moral scruple in their relationship with black women.’ The law was the forerunner of the later Immorality Act and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act. In 1985 these Acts were repealed.

Navi Pillay at Umtapo Conf. 1996 Towards-the-21st Century-Rebuilding-a-Nation

In South Africa the man had as head of the family full legal powers. Under African common law the woman is under permanent guardianship of her father, husband and after his death under guardianship of a brother or adult son. The South Africans of Indian descent had to deal with the Indian social system with similar patriarchal relations within the family. South African legislation intensified these different beliefs, religion and the male dominated family. Domestic violence and abuse were considered private matters.

Since 1988 women could marry in community of property. The vast majority of women in earlier marriages still remained subject to the man who had conjugal power.

‘My story is an exemplary and painful story of cultural and political oppression’

With her personal story Shumakazi Jako (PAC) illustrates how the Apartheid regime ruined her life and how she survived.

‘Every South African woman in exile reveals the great tragedy of being separated from family, husband and children. The circumstances leading to the suffering of these women are not talked about. Suffering has become second nature/culture. Of course, in this respect black women do not differ much from many women from the working classes throughout the world, as they are socialized to accept pain and suffering as normal,’ says Shumakazi Jako at the International Conference on Women and Apartheid, May 1982 in Brussels14. ‘The presence of an oppressive, brutal, colonialist, imperialist, racist regime has added to even more intensifying the oppression of women and has undermined every attempt at making their own choices.’

Shumakazi Jako argued that also in earlier times women were subordinate to men. In marriage the woman was regarded as the property of her husband. The family determined who to marry. In Apartheid South Africa women spent many years without their husbands. In the absence of the husband his family took over parental authority. His wife could not take any decision concerning herself or the children. Shumakazi Jako: ‘My story is an exemplary and painful story of cultural and political oppression.’

Marriage

‘That I was to marry my 28-year-old husband as an 18-year-old girl had been decided by the two families when I was still at school. Marriage negotiations took place while my husband was absent for his work in Cape Town. Though I knew him, there was no relationship between us and no dating as was common in western society. My fiancé returned home for our marriage that took place in December 1956. I knew very little of my husband. According to tradition he never talked about his political ties and involvement in Cape Town. We spent some time together in Elliotdale. When he returned for his work in February 1957 I was just two months pregnant. I stayed behind in the countryside of Elliotdale and took care of my in-laws.’

Her first child was born in October 1957 and only the following year her husband saw his daughter. He came for the funeral of his mother who had died of cancer. Shumakazi Jako had nursed her mother-in-law for a long time. ‘My husband stayed with us for some time, but during this period a tragedy struck us once more. My father-in-law died of old age in December. My husband stayed for some more months and then returned to Cape Town.’ In the meantime her daughter suffered from a long-term illness and she had a miscarriage.

‘In March 1961 I took my sick child with me to Cape Town where my husband was working. I found out he lived in a boarding house for men where no women were admitted. By law black women are not expected to live in urban areas. Men are only admitted as workers. Each time they are unemployed their permit to be in town is withdrawn. My husband had to ask for permission for me to be with him. We were allowed a stay of two weeks which later on became six months because of my daughter’s illness. My husband managed to find a room where we could stay. During this time I suspected my husband might be involved in something, although he himself did not say a thing. I noticed he became restless and alert every time he saw a policeman. In the meantime my daughter had an operation in the Groote Schuur Hospital. By now pregnant again I was expelled from Cape Town and together with my daughter I had to return to the countryside of Elliotdale.’

Special Branch

‘In December 1962 the Special Branch15 interrogated me and my sister-in-law. I had just given birth to my second child, a son. They wanted to know where my husband was and I told them in accordance with our traditions I had no idea what my husband was doing or where he had been during that time. All I knew was he worked in Cape Town. Some days later my husband returned home unexpectedly after midnight. I told him the Special Branch had come to us and were looking for him. They had informed me that should they ever find him that would mean the end for him. When I tried to find out from my husband what was going on he only calmed me down without any explanation. As if he was about to die he said: Shumikazi, I know you are still young, but should something happen to me you must remarry. For days he hid in the orchard till he suddenly vanished. I had no idea where he had gone to. There was no communication whatsoever. Mysteriously I received registered letters with money, from East London and occasionally from Lesotho. I did not know the name of the sender. During this time the Special Branch repeatedly barged into my house, interrogated me, searched the house and read my mail. They wanted to know where my husband was, sometimes they tried to scare me and said he was dead, I would never see him again and that I certainly was no longer his wife.’

Strike

‘My two children were now in school. Poverty forced me to find work because even the mysterious letters with money were no longer delivered. I took a job in the laundry from the local hospital and I earned 4 Rand a month (1,13 Euro). The working conditions were poor and with a niece I organized a strike for higher wages.

In the liberation movements ANC, PAC and BCM an equal role for woman was not a matter of course. For a long time women were kept out of the political events in the country. In founding the SANNC (later ANC), the first national liberation movement in 1912, no women were involved.

Buni Sexwale, Sharpeville Commemoration 1991, Nijmegen P: Azania Komitee

Buni Sexwale (ANC)16 recalled in 1991, during the Sharpeville Commemoration in the Netherlands17, that not until the 1940s women were admitted to resistance organizations and criticized the fact that no women were present in the negotiating forums on the future of South Africa. She stressed that holding positions by women was not sufficient to prioritize the equality of women.

‘Women have the right to play a part in the political activities of the nation’

In the years prior to the abolition of Apartheid and the legalization of the liberation movements in 1990 the discussion on the role and position of women was in particular within the framework of  the struggle for national liberation. Women had to fight for their equal place.

In 1980 PAC organized together with UNESCO their first women seminar in Dar es Salaam23. The PAC ‘felt compelled to organize a seminar for women of Azania to enable them to analyze their special position’. Representing the Azania Komitee Rita Grijzen attended the seminar as observer and reported on the seminar in Azania Vrij24.

PAC Women Seminar,1980 P: Azania Komitee

Stella Moabi (1944-2017), member of the PAC since the launch in 1959 spoke: ‘The role of the PAC women has evolved from becoming a PAC member by marrying to a uniformed cadre in a military PAC camp.’ From the start of the PAC in 1959 ‘our leaders at the time knew that the enemy would react violently. They made the strategic decision that women should not be directly involved (in the Affirmative Action Campaign), so they could keep family life running in case the men were in prison. In spite of these decisions women of all ages played an important role… and the women took their places alongside the men’. Within a year of its foundation the PAC was banned25. PAC leadership and many other PAC men were imprisoned. It was the PAC women who turned the PAC into a well-organized underground movement.

PAC Women Seminar 1980, Tanzania P: Azania Komitee

Christine Qunta, one of the attending BCM representatives at the seminar: ‘If men in the liberation movement not re-learn to support involvement of women and rather simply engage them for their own amusement or status, then that means that the number of militants will be reduced and the struggle hampered.’

Three years later, 8 March 1983, Irene Scheltes represented the Azania Komitee at the celebration of the International Women’s Day in London. The female warriors from the Third World31were well represented. They came from El Salvador, Chile, Ireland, Azania/South Africa (PAC an ANC), Palestine (PLO) and Namibia. Stella Moabi and Zoey Ethel Ntombizonke Mokgadi-Mbobela represented the PAC. At the time Stella Moabi lived in exile in England and remained active for the PAC there. Zoey Mokgadi lived in exile in West-Germany and co-ordinated there the PAC Women’s Organization.

The issues on the agenda are still relevant today: women in the struggle for national liberation, feminism and revolution, women under repressive regimes, immigration and minorities, Third World feminism versus western feminism, women from the Third World and the media, health and education, women and religion, hidden racism, anti-semitism and zionism. Even back then it was argued that no white woman could be exonerated from racism, no matter how unintentional or unaware that might have been.

Stella Moabi (1944-2017) spoke about life under a repressive regime: ‘Everything is dictated: what you should and should not do. That had an impact on family life. The ordeals you were put through from the outside travel home with you. The misery of the farm, the workplace and the mine becomes the misery in the living room and the bedroom. Already in terms of the male-female relationships the measures of a repressive regime have a massive impact. In racist South Africa it may happen that a man coming from his work is stopped by a police officer and cannot show his passbook. Even when he does not get arrested he comes home in a bad mood and will take it out on his wife. It can become worse. When your husband is arrested it may happen that in the beginning you are not even informed. Nobody is going to tell you anything. You are going to look for him at three locations: the hospital, the prison or the morgue. In that order. You are overwhelmed by anguish, concern and struggle. As a woman you do not only worry about your own safety or about the pain you have to endure in torture, but you are also terrified about your children: what have they got to eat, are they safe, how scared to death are they and how does this terror affect them.’

Zoey Mokgadi, Rotterdam P: Azania Komitee

Zoey Mokgadi emphasized that in Azania it is about a national liberation struggle of men and women. ‘However it is also a fact that men dominate women… Many men are stuck in old patterns and notions about women with which they are raised: for example that women should not be fighting because they cannot and because we should be protected by the men… that kind of thinking and male domination in general can be fought by pointing out that women in prison, in daily life, in the struggle experience exactly the same problems and therefore have the same rights!’

Elisabeth Sibeko, PAC J’burg 1992

In 1984 Elisabeth Rejoice Sibeko outlined again in the UN34 the situation of women in Apartheid South Africa: ‘Besides having to fight for her own rights, she had to keep the family together, educate her children in a society where education for Blacks was neither free nor compulsory and job opportunities few and far between. She had to see her men folk either arrested, detained or even murdered. She had to endure the mother’s torture of seeing her children ruthlessly mowed down by the trigger-happy racist police. In several cases she had to endure the life of a widow or virtual widow.’ She mentions Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe (1927–2018) who could not be with her husband Mangaliso Sobukwe35 for years for he was a prisoner on Robben Island. And: ‘Mrs Urbania Mothopeng, the wife of Comrade Mothopeng has had to endure enforced separation from her husband since the late 50s.’ She also mentions Galiema Haron the widow of Imam Abdullah Haron36,  ‘a PAC member and underground worker who was tortured to death’. Elisabeth Sibeko spoke for the by then established PAC Women’s Organization.

Elisabeth Sibeko (1938-1999) was born in Utrecht in KwaZulu-Natal. ‘She was born to a Zulu Mother and a father whom would be classified as ‘Coloured’ in the demented racial caste system foisted on Africans who neither cared or had the slightest allegiance to the hateful bigotry of European White Supremacy.’37

Later she left for Soweto and met there her husband David Sibeko, who worked as a journalist for Drum Magazine. In the Baragwanath Hospital she studied to become a nurse. Together with David they were among the founders of the PAC in 1959.

After resistance against the pass laws (Sharpeville 1960) the PAC started the armed struggle by forming POQO38. Her husband joined the armed wing. ‘After several operations, David Sibeko was arrested and charged with treason by the South African police and would spend close to a year in the jails of the oppressor. The torture that David endured in jail took its toll on his wife and family, and Elizabeth endured constant harassment from the police, irrespective of the fact that she was pregnant.’39

Gladys Qabukile Nzimande-Tsolo lived for many years as a refugee in various locations throughout the world. She had lived in Rotterdam, together with her husband and 2 children, for over 20 years. Her husband Nyakane Tsolo (1939-2002) led in 1960 the Sharpeville March against the Pass Laws44.

Gladys Tsolo had been a freedom fighter of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC, from the 1960s to the early 1970s. She was among the first female guerrillas. She trained in Tanzania, the Soviet Union  and East Germany. Later she joined the PAC.

 ‘I grew up in a coal mining area around Newcastle in a small township with one main street called Dawnhauser. Traditions were not very strict. I came from a Christian family and my mother was very religious. We were Methodists45.’  She left her hometown in the early 1960s hoping to be able to train for nursing in Johannesburg or at least to be able to continue her education. Gladys Tsolo: ‘Unfortunately, I, like so many unemployed youth, had to work as a domestic worker and worked for a while at a local butchery in Orlando-East, Soweto46.’ In the end she left for Botswana hoping to attend a nurse training programme. ‘However, the promised nursing school turned out to be a missionary station which was run by Catholic nuns from Ireland; there was no nursing training and, again, we were forced to do domestic work. There I met other young Azanian women and one of them became my best friend, Elizabeth Maluleka.’

Botswana, Tanzania, Soviet Union

 ‘Together we left Maun and headed to Francistown and it was there where we met young men who had recently arrived from Azania. We joined them in the recently set up Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) military camp in Francistown called Luthuli Camp. Thereafter, I traveled as an MK combatant throughout Africa, and received further military training in Odessa, Russia. After a year I returned back to Tanzania and stationed at the MK-camp Khongwa in Dar es Salaam.’

East Germany

‘I finally got my nursing training in 1965 after arriving in East Berlin (East Germany). And it was there at the Lumumba Institute in the city of Leipzig, far away from home, that I met the love of my life, the ever charming Nyakane Tsolo. (..) During our dating period we spoke often about our respective journeys from Azania into exile, our upbringing in Azania, our coming into political consciousness, as well as our longing for home and the pain of missing family. He became my family and, together, we formed our political radicalism, developed our Pan-Africanist consciousness and steadfast commitment to the liberation struggle.47 In Germany I got training to become a midwife and he studied physics and chemistry. We got married and got our first child, a girl which he named after his oldest sister, Julia Teboho.’

 About her experiences in East Germany Gladys Tsolo tells: ‘Azanians there were completely cut off the struggle and the outside world, unless someone was lucky enough to have a powerful radio. All there was were Sechaba and Spotlight: two journals which were produced in de GDR and which did not say very much.48 In 1966, there was a very strong campaign of indoctrination in the GDR. There was no chance to think and develop political consciousness. All travel to the West was forbidden. The atmosphere in de GDR was very oppressive, and I could not gain political satisfaction. Also there was a very strong line against the PAC. Sharpeville was never mentioned49.’

 The Netherlands, Rotterdam

 ‘In 1973 we left East Germany in secret to the Netherlands, and received assistance from two Dutch left-leaning students when we arrived as refugees at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol with no passports, just our suitcases. We spent weeks in a police holding cell with our daughter, a painful and stressful and traumatic experience for any parent. Eventually we were transferred to a refugee shelter in the second largest city in the Netherlands, Rotterdam, which became our home for the next 20 years. Whilst in the refugee shelter we had our second child, a boy, Zakhele Liholo.

In addressing some of the frequent outbursts of Afrophobia rampant in our society, it is quite important for ‘South Africans’ to understand that we too were once considered ‘foreigners’, ‘homeless’, ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’ in various countries around the world50.’

In Rotterdam: ‘It was a stressful time because we no longer had protection from any political organization. We both had to work multiple jobs in order to take care of our young family, learn a new language, he excelled a bit better than myself in Dutch. But it was hard; we were poor and missed our home – Azania – immensely. (….) When Nyakane met David Sibeko, then PAC’s Permanent Observer at the United Nations, in the Netherlands, he became the PAC representative for the Benelux, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. We returned to Azania in 1992 at the height of the CODESA negotiaties51.’

Gladys Tsolo campaigning for the Upington 14. 1990 J. Bosch College, Den Bosch P: Azania Komitee

In the Netherlands Gladys Tsolo could not work in her profession as a midwife. She enrolled in a professional course Socio-Cultural Work and studied for some years Social History and Museology.52  Among other things she worked as a community work volunteer. She participated in the start-up of the women’s group WOVO (Work Group Career Development for Women in Overschie). For many years the Azania Komitee had worked closely together with Gladys and her husband Nyakane Tsolo.

‘The black woman has endured  many sufferings’

In 1982 women of the Black Consciousness Movement started Black Women Unite: ‘The black woman has endured  many sufferings. Apart from having to play a double role as a mother and nanny, she has been exposed to harassment and injustices of the detention laws of this country.’ Black Women Unite developed campaigns and projects for homeless people, for families of political prisoners and in the area of education and union work.

Mmagauta Molefe in Rotterdam, 1985 P: J. Warner

Mmagauta Molefe, member of AZAPO and co-founder of Black Women Unite, paid a hurried visit to the Netherlands in 1985. She spoke at meetings organized by the Evert Vermeer Stichting57 in The Hague and the Azania Komitee in Rotterdam. She also met with CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal) and CPN (Dutch Communist Party) women. The radio show Hoor Haar (VARA – Association of Worker Radio Amateurs) broadcast an interview with her.

As a black woman Mmagauta Molefe, then 32 years old, faced the degrading treatment by the police. It happened in schools, on the street, at work and with your parents. ‘We called the police terrorists instead of protectors.’58

Mmagauta Molefe started her political activities in high school and became involved with SASM59 and SASO. Because of her political activities she was kicked out of college. She was a member of the BPC60 until this organization together with all other Black Consciousness Movement organizations was banned in 1977. During the Soweto uprising in 1976 she was a member of the parents’ committee and was detained without charge from July to December in that year. She had been arrested before in 1974 and 1975, among other things for the activities organized by the Black Consciousness Movement on the occasion of the independence of Mozambique led by FRELIMO.

Mmagauta Molefe: ‘I was born in Alexandra, grew up in Soweto. We were one of the first residents in 1956. I was 4 years old then. I have worked as a freelance journalist for a full-time job was not possible. In the papers I could fill the women’s pages, about fashion, recipes and stuff… once you are politically active the police tell your employer who you are. You get easily fired. Now I am jobless. ’

After the ban on the Black Consciousness Movement she joined AZAPO which furthered the ideas of the Black Consciousness Movement. In 1982 she took the lead in forming Black Women Unite. Mmagauta Molefe: ‘We saw that women were hardly politically active. Women were much preoccupied with the everyday concerns in their households and the upbringing of their children, especially those women who had to live separated from their husbands by the system of migrant labour. In addition, women who work in the factories have their household chores. Women are underpaid and are deprived in the field of education. The black woman is oppressed as a woman, as a black woman and as a worker. You have to understand we want to organize women but not as a feminist organization that fights men. It is all about raising women’s and men’s awareness, so they both can share their responsibility and can work together in political organizations with the same political rights. We try to have women in the leadership of organizations and to organize activities to do some catching up. Men who become active often take their mothers, wives and sisters.’  

Black Women Unite wanted in particular to expose the inferior position of black women in a capitalist society. According to Mmagauta Molefe it is about ’making black women aware to effectively join the struggle against poverty, ignorance, diseases and domination. To encourage them to rely on their own strength and to stimulate initiative.’

In health campaigns Black Women Unite pointed out that hospitals prescribed black patients medication past the expiration date. Black patients were used as test subjects. Mmagauta Molefe spoke about the anti-Depo-Provera campaign. This birth control pill (‘the shot’) was given to black women on a large scale. This frequently happened, for example just after childbirth, without their knowledge. The usual dose of this contraceptive lasts at most 10 to 11 weeks. Black women were administered a dose that could last 1 to 2 years. This could lead to constant infertility and poisoning in lactating mothers. This pharmaceutical, a product of the American Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company, was manufactured in Belgium.

Black Women Unite supported the anti-asbestoscampaign61 started by the BAMCWU (Black Allied Mining and Construction Workers’ Union). Miners worked without protection and children played in waste heaps containing the carcinogenic asbestos. Asbestos was processed into building materials for houses and schools. The BAMCWU demanded compensation and closure of the mines.

Together with 400 other black organizations Black Women Unite took part in the National Forum, formed in 1983. ‘Our situation is the result of colonization, capitalism and imperialism. Our concern is to reclaim the land from the colonial occupiers’, explains Mmagauta Molefe.

‘Black is a political concept. The oppressed majority versus the oppressing minority’

It is vital that black people organized themselves as black people. Mmagauta Molefe:‘White people in South Africa are the only ones protected by the law. They can possess land and companies. In Azania they have never found themselves in the situation of the blacks: unskilled jobs, repression,

‘Our womenfolk fear a lot’

Urbania Mothopeng, Paris,1986 P: Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms

The Africa Women’s Organisation (AWO)68 was set up in 1986. The organization, affiliated to the then banned PAC, was particularly committed to uniting women of African descent and stimulating them through politics and education to join the struggle against racism, economic exploitation and for national liberation. At the same time, joined by men, fighting male dominance and superiority was on the agenda.

The women’s section of the SABMAWU organized the establishment69 of the AWO. From all over the country about 500 women came together. They represented various trade unions and women’s organizations as, for example, the Transvaal United African Teachers’ Association (TUATA) and the  Domestic Workers Association in Port Elisabeth. Urbania Bebe Mothopeng was elected as the first president.

The Azania Komitee and Cineclub spoke with Urbania Mothopeng in Paris during the World Conference on Sanctions against Racist South Africa in June 198670. At the time of the interview everyone in occupied Azania was on edge. The Apartheid regime had again declared a state of emergency to clamp down on the multiple activities of resistance and commemoration to mark the Soweto uprising in June 1976. At that moment her husband Zeph Mothopeng was, for the second time,  imprisoned on Robben Island71.

Urbania Mothopeng on AWO: ‘This is a very, very new organization and it may look a little bit different from the other women’s organizations, that it emphasizes African…. But I am not trying to solicit racism. I am just trying to say, our interests differ a little from other people, our goals may not be the same. Our objectives are among others to rally the women around, try and show them, educate them on not necessarily political issues but it will come into the picture later on… into issues like fear. Our womenfolk fear a lot. The police can harass us, the police can mislead us, the police can force us to say things that normally we would not say, just because they do not understand either the language or the very set-up itself. So that basically we have to show them that fear must not be the objective, we must learn to understand, and to do things.’

‘The women who belong to our association, and will continue to come I think, will be the women who are in the very lower income group, women who are not working, women who are really not educated…as we know how housing is in our country…women who come from shacks and so on. Because these are the women who know the difficulties, these are the women who need help…but as I say, we are not looking at the colour of it at all. Coloureds, Asians, Whites…anybody…if they feel they wanted to join us…they were able to come, provided they could answer one or two questions: What we would do.…I could say: I live in this kind of a structure, and so are most of us. Now, you come from uptown. Now in order that you can feel exactly what we feel, are you prepared to give up all what you have, to come and live among us and understand exactly what we understand? Our struggle for a better life: we want to work, eat, clothe and have homes like everybody. But now we know those people will not come, therefore we know automatically they fall out because of that, but should they say ‘Yes’, then ‘OK’.’

In 1986 AWO campaigned for the Sharpeville Six who were sentenced to death72. One of the Six was Theresa Ramashamole, the first black woman sentenced to death. The campaign to save them from the gallows was internationally led by Joyce Mokhesi73, sister of one of the Six and the mother of Theresa, Julia Ramashamole.

AZAYO poster, 1991

In 1991 I met in South Africa Phindile Mavuso, vice president of AZAYO (Azanian Youth Organisation). She worked closely together with trade unionist and AZAYO president Thami Mcerwa.

During the Soweto uprising in 1976 she was wounded by police fire. Because of this gunshot wound she had to lose her leg. Later she worked for disabled people in South Africa and became active in the Disability Rights Movement. She underlined the necessity for communities to get rid of stereotyping disabled people.

‘People show us sympathy from a sense of superiority and colonialism’

‘South African women in the Netherlands also face here racism, Apartheid, also within solidarity groups.’ This is what women concluded at a conference80 in 1986 organized by black women from South Africa staying in the Netherlands. Oshadi Mangena, since 1977 in the Netherlands as a political refugee, was critical of the paternalism and whiteness of the Dutch Anti-Apartheidorganizations, no matter their intentions.

Oshadi Mangena 1989, the Netherlands

Oshadi Mangena: ‘The Dutch need to understand that the root of Apartheid is in colonialism. Land has been stolen from us blacks. We are exploited as cheap labour and dumped in the ‘homelands’. Apartheid exists to maintain the status quo… In the Netherlands we are subjected to the same conditions as in South Africa. Solidarity groups do not realize that South Africa is in the Netherlands too. E.g. a black woman works as a nurse but was ignored by the patient’s family for they were looking for a real white nurse. In shops black women are frequently watched because the assumption is they are going to steal. Discrimination is so omnipresent you do not even notice it anymore.’

‘People show sympathy from a sense of superiority and colonialism. Solidarity groups ask which party you belong to. But in South Africa as a black person, whether you are organized or not, you are involved in the struggle, whether you want to or not. We are forced by solidarity groups to make political choices, which create division rather than unity. We have seen how South Africans in the Netherlands were not given the opportunity to meet fellow South Africans. They were told: ‘we have paid for the tickets’. She pointed out that ‘the ANC and PAC each have their own programme. Solidarity groups need to educate themselves in the history of Apartheid.’

In conclusion: ‘Do not see us as your hobby, for us it is a question of life and death…… We women from South Africa will definitely continue and from there joined by you. But it is vital you want to get to know us. You only think you know us.’81

The first question of a Dutch white woman at the end of the conference was typical: ‘How many South African women were present yesterday and did they see eye-to-eye?’ The reply: ‘This question is a typical example of what Oshadi has just said. Despite the differences among us in class or in privileges we are a homogeneous group. We share the same experience, which is being black…. The psychosocial mutilation we have endured cannot be seen on our faces. Not all of us have been literally subjected to torture. And that mutilation we have to endure once again in the Netherlands!…Discrimination is often subtle, with good intentions, like now. We are not even talking about the average Dutchman. The main thing for us is that for the first time we as South African women get together.’82

In Rotterdam, 1995, several organizations organized on International Women’s Day the symposium Human Rights – Women’s Rights. The symposium was in the spirit of the upcoming Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, September 1995. Women from five sister cities of Rotterdam (Durban (South Africa), Corinto (Nicaragua), Shanghai (China), Saint Petersburg (Russia), Constanța (Rumania)) and Rotterdam institutions came together to discuss ‘the male-female relations with respect to local culture, social development, demographic growth and South-North relations’. This was initiated by the Rotterdam Women’s Council together with the Emancipation Agency Riet Hof and Work Centre International Solidarity (WIS/COS Rijnmond and South-Holland). The Azania Komitee was co-organizer and invited Asha Moodley and Oshadi Mangena.

Oshadi Mangena criticized the many international UN Conferences on development aid. ‘Development aid’ in her opinion meant that particularly capitalist industrialized countries create neo-colonial dynamics and thus perpetuate the oppression and exploitation of the colonial period. ‘In the 60s this ‘development aid’ was focused primarily on neglected agricultural regions and today the outcome is poverty and debts bigger than ever. There is no way interest rates can be paid by the developing countries under imperialist trade terms. In the 70s women were discovered as an even bigger economically underdeveloped target group for ‘development aid’.’

Oshadi Mangena, Rotterdam 1994. P: Azania Komitee

Three earlier UN World Conferences85 had already been held and women can participate themselves, but Oshadi Mangena wondered what in the end is in it for women and what is in store for the women in the South. What is their gain, she observed when their mainly unpaid labour is further integrated into the process of profit maximization under capitalist conditions?

Oshadi Maphefo Jane Mangena (1931-2015) taught Women and Emancipation at the INDRA (Institute Development Research Amsterdam) of the University of Amsterdam from 1984 to 1996. She obtained her PhD on the subject of: ‘Eurocentrism and the imperative of women’s emancipation in Sub-Saharan Africa’86. ‘It stands to reason that a redress of the condition of the African woman is intertwined with a package of compensation rather than with the burden of repaying a ‘foreign debt’ for the damage done to her country and her people through colonial plunder and capitalist oppression and exploitation.’ In South Africa she had been trained to become a nurse.

In 1977 she had to flee the country. In 1977 she was put under house arrest for her political activities for the Black Consciousness Movement (BPC en SASO). Previously she had been repeatedly detained without a charge and had been subjected to torture. She was held jointly responsible for the Soweto uprising in 197687. She testified about her experiences in prison before the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Before she fled the country she was regional director of the Christian Institute of Beyers Naudé. From 1974 to the ban in 1977 Oshadi was president of the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) in South Africa. During her exile she worked with the BCMA88 in exile. In 1994 she attended the first general elections in South Africa as an international observer of the South African churches.

The Municipality of Rotterdam supported in the 90s with funding from the ‘Fund Democratic Development Society South Africa’ the UMTAPO Centre and other organizations in Durban. The Campaign Rotterdam – Durban informed people from Rotterdam and their organizations about the situation in Durban and brought them into contact with people and organizations that worked in Durban at the heart of a new South Africa/Azania. The Campaign included projects and exchange in the areas of primary education, literacy, health, women’s organizations, minors, residential building and residents’associations.

UMTAPO concentrates on the most disadvantaged people in society. With the help of volunteers UMTAPO implements its programs. The programs aim to ‘promote anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-corruption, peace and socio-economic justice through popular education. Its philosophical framework is based on an ethical African humanism (Ubuntu)’. UMTAPO was founded in 1987 during a period of much intra-community black violence (‘Black-on-black’violence). ‘A small group of KZN (KwaZuluNatal) activists from the Black Consciousness Movement and the Pan-Africanist and Charterist tendencies came together to consider the establishment of a non-partisan organisation that would provide the platform for dialogue, leadership training and distribution of relevant information.’

In the context of the Campaign Rotterdam-Durban Arun Naicker visited Rotterdam in 1994. She gave lectures on the situation of women in South Africa and the women empowerment projects of UMTAPO. She shared experiences with the Surinam Women’s House, WOVO (Workgroup Career Developoment Women Overschie), VOS/VVCR and the institute Maaswerk/Municipal Girls’ Work Professionals. She also had meetings with e.g. the Riet Hof Centre/Agency for Women’s Empowerment, staff community centre De Kameleon, sex work social services and Basis Education. Her visit was organized by the municipality of Rotterdam, WIS (Work Centre International Solidarity) and the Azania Komitee. Arun Naicker noticed that the white women took the floor during her visit. The black women said nothing and only felt free to speak during informal discussions with her.

L: Delilah Sarmo (RADAR), Urmy Macnack(cross-cultural psychotherapist), Arun Naicker, Sidris van Sauers (RADAR), Rotterdam 2014

After stopping the Campaign Rotterdam-Durban UMTAPO maintained close ties with Rotterdam. With RADAR, an anti-discrimination organization in Rotterdam, UMTAPO created an exchange programme with anti-racism and empowerment courses in the Netherlands, South Africa and a number of European countries.

Arunthoothie (Arun) Naicker co-ordinated UMTAPO women’s work and activities for children in which the children are brought up with anti-sexist and anti-racist values. The relationship between men and women is also discussed in the literacy classes, youth educational work and other activities of the UMTAPO Centre. She supervised training courses for young black women. There women developed the necessary skills and knowledge to confidently and independently take on management tasks in society. Topics that were covered were: reporting, meeting skills, bookkeeping, public speaking, group dynamics, conflict management, communication, aids, race and gender in South Africa.

All these women fought and fight for their families, their people, restitution of land and their position as women. Heroines for humanity and mankind. They did so in their country with and without weapons and out of sheer necessity also beyond the borders of their country. The cruel oppression by the Apartheid regime, the obstruction by western white know-it-alls and the confrontation with racism in the rest of the world did not make them surrender. In spite of the major personal sacrifices they did not and do not dream of keeping their mouths shut, of not fighting anymore and of silently suffering their fate.

These women are shining examples for women in western individualized society that can exist through the exploitation of the rest of the world, in the past and today.