Should the ANCYL Screamers ever be inclined to know how Barbara Hogan earned her stripes, this ANC history is at their fingertips, says Don Makatile.
If you happened to be dropping by on Earth from Mars and you chanced upon the latest statements from those like the Durban chapter of the ANC Youth League around who qualified to take the podium at the recent Ahmed Kathrada memorials, you’d be forgiven to think there were no leftist whites in the Struggle against apartheid.
Before Durban, where former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was almost howled off the stage, the same mindset that has befallen the Durban ANCYL had taken root at the Joburg leg of the memorial service.
According to the pernicious narrative peddled by these Screamers, all Barbara Hogan ever did in her political life was to marry Oom Kathy. In this screaming match, it is their view that at the end of their chorus of cacophony, poof, the Struggle credentials of Hogan would be gone.
On September 22, 1981, a 30-year-old Hogan was “arrested by the security police after a report she had sent to the ANC was intercepted”.
At age 34.5 it is difficult to ascertain what ANCYL president Collin Maine reads, other than the WhatsApp group messages he sends and receives to and from his ilk.
But this ANC history is at his fingertips, should he ever be so inclined to know even remotely how Hogan earned her stripes.
The danger with the present day ANC is that those in the “wrong” factions are shouted off the pages of history. I do not care about white people, especially of the Penny Sparrow variety, but their role in the Struggle is likely to stand or fall at the sound of a decibel. And this is worrisome. In the words of one popular quote: “Reading can seriously damage your ignorance”.
Those who are apprehensive of this damage will lose out on the story of three ANC activists who broke out of Pretoria Prison using a counterfeit key made out of wood!
The heroic tale of Tim Jenkin, Alex Moumbaris and Stephen Lee went on to achieve Escape from Alcatraz type fame around the world, making headlines in the UK.
On the night of December 11, 1979, Jenkin opened his cell door then went on to free his mates in a daring escape from the notorious jail. Staunch ANC activists, they were in jail for setting “off harmless leaflet propaganda bombs in a bid to spread dissent against the apartheid regime in 1970s South Africa”.
Jenkin was serving 12 years; Lee eight. In the same round of convictions that sent the trio of ultimate escapees to jail after the swoop on ANC-SACP networks, Jeremy Cronin was sentenced to seven years under the Terrorism Act and Internal Security Act in 1978. Today Cronin finds himself caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, careful not to speak truth to power lest the Screamers take umbrage.
In this age of populism where Jacob Zuma and his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s names have immense currency, you’re likely to attract blank stares if you were to mention the names of Rodney and Heather Wilkinson.
If we all wore the race-tinted glasses of the Screamers, such names as Neil Aggett, the first white political prisoner to die in detention, would be excised off history books.
He was found hanging in his cell at John Vorster Square 70 days after his arrest on 27 November 1981.
A medical doctor, Aggett could easily have gone on to live a highly privileged white suburban life but he chose to stand on the side of truth, with the oppressed masses against the apartheid regime.
Had he lived, he’d also be given the Hogan treatment by those who make or break heroes of the Struggle at whim.
Hogan bumped into Aggett at John Vorster Square shortly before his death. Unbeknown to them, this would be the last time they saw each other. Thankfully, Winston Churchill said history is always written by the victors.
The Screamers will not prevail.
Not all whites thought greatly of colonialism or that HF Verwoerd was a clever politician.