APPROACHING the house in which her brother, Ashley Kriel, died, Michél Assure found a trail of blood. Leading from the back porch, through the kitchen and into the bathroom, the once-clean vinyl floors were smudged with red.
In the laundry basket in the bathroom she found a bloodstained peach towel, maroon jersey, and blue T-shirt, all remnants of the torture her 20-year-old brother experienced before being shot dead by security policeman Captain Jeffrey Benzien.
Twenty-seven years have passed, with Ashley’s memory fading more with each year.
“We need to do more to keep his legacy alive,” said Assure, sitting at her dining room table.
“If we don’t speak about it over and over we will forget about what he stood and died for.”
Kriel, a Bonteheuwel resident, was a prominent young leader in the fight against apartheid. He was killed in a safe house in Hazendal in 1987. His heroism has been celebrated with an annual lecture organised by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and memorial events on the anniversary of his death.
But Assure believes more must to be done to remember the example set by Ashley and other young martyrs of the anti-apartheid movement.
“So many of our youth are engaging in the fruits of newly found freedom, but they don’t know about our political history,” she said. “It’s important to make the youth aware of the ills of the past and how it affected our people.”
On Wednesday, young people marked the anniversary of Kriel’s death with a dance performance and short play, but many had not known who Kriel was. “I had heard his name but I didn’t know who he was until a few days ago,” said Thurston Telacruz, who portrayed Ashley in the play.
Other than opposing apartheid, Ashley worked with youth to keep them from joining gangs in Bonteheuwel.
“He just had this ability to mobilise youth,” Assure said.
“He would always encourage them to become active in their community rather than take part in gangsterism.”
At 14, Ashley, and two friends, Gavin Adams and Paul Jansen, formed the GAP Brotherhood, a youth league for young people on the Cape Flats that encouraged the youth to reject gangsterism and engage with their communities in more positive ways.
But as Assure and her sister, Melanie Adams, who now lives in Mitchells Plain, known for its gang violence, have seen, these problems persist today.
“Gangsterism, drug problems, these are even worse now,” Assure said. “There has been no improvement.”
Assure dreams of creating a youth-oriented exhibition with video footage of Ashley speaking, biographical information, and large photographs of him to inspire the young to follow his example.
“We could do workshops with young people to teach them about young heroes from those days,” she said.
“All of those unsung martyrs should be role models for our youth. We need to do more to remember them.”
But today even in Assure’s home, there are few mementoes of Ashley. Over the years, photographs have disappeared – all that are left are those printed in two Institute for Justice and Reconciliation booklets on his life.
“Sometimes I wonder if he was alive, what role he would have played in our society, what he would have done about the problems in our community now. What I know is that if he was speaking out then, he would be speaking out now.”