Journalist ‘Nat’ Nakasa, whose life and work are the subject of a new exhibition in Durban, was a rainbow man long before we became a Rainbow Nation, writes Mphathi Nxumalo
When Nathaniel “Nat” Nakasa fell from his hotel room in New York – it remains a mystery whether he jumped or was pushed – South Africa lost a true son and champion of non-racialism.
Born in 1935 in the township of Chesterville, Nakasa grew up in a poor family, according to his sister Gladys Maphumulo: “Nat was heavily influenced by his father who was a writer. His father wasn’t a journalist, but he used to write a lot of letters.”
Maphumulo, who attended the opening of the Nakasa exhibition at the Durban old courthouse museum in Samora Machel (Aliwal) Street, describes Nakasa as the ever consummate gentleman and a “Rainbow man”. She said that he was always respectful and soft-spoken.
With the influence from his father, Nakasa took to writing. He worked for Ilanga lase Natalbut later he moved to Johannesburg to seek greener pastures.
From his days in Chesterville, which later had the infamous apartheid state sponsored A-Team death squad in the 1980s, he was a fervent supporter of multi-racialism.
He immersed himself in Durban’s political landscape, interacted with Liberal Party activists and intellectuals from the South African Institute of Race Relations.
His interactions with South Africans of different hues not only broadened his views but exposed him to famous South Africans such as Alan Paton, Ismail and Fatima Meer, Selby Msimang and Archbishop Denis Hurley who were some of the people from whom he drew his inspiration.
In Johannesburg he soon joined Drum magazine in its heyday. He was part of a group of journalists at Drum commonly known “The Drum boys”.
Lewis Nkosi, also from Chesterville and a fellow Nieman scholar described them as “The new Africans cut adrift from the tribal reserve, urbanised, eager, fast-talking and brash”. The Drum boy whose motto was taken from the 1949 movie Knock on any Door was to “Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse”.
Nakasa wanted to live in a country where one’s existence was not determined by race but by being a South African.
His writing style contradicted those of his fellow writers at Drum who often wrote in fiery rhetoric expressing the anger and the fear that was predominant during the apartheid era.
He often dealt with race and the feelings that race brought with it in a jocular manner.
In 1964, when he was about to leave South Africa he wrote an article describing the dilemma he found himself in having to leave the country on an exit pass and needing a passport to go to America.
He went through various possibilities: He said he would embrace Russia and “I may wind up as prime minister of the Soviet Union. After all Dr Verwoerd was born in Holland and he became the prime minister of die Republiek van Suid-Afrika.
“If I should become homesick I will pass laws that will South Africanise Russia a little. The first step would be to introduce influx control in Moscow. Get all the native Russians to carry passes and start endorsing them in and out of town. Apartheid all over again!
“This may be described as Afro-Asian minority rule. Others will call it baaskap. We would call it parallel development, or black leadership with justice.”
He was able to take the mickey out of apartheid by showing its inherent flaws by applying the apartheid logic to a different context.
This approach enabled him to tackle complex issues with a deftness that was able to bring out the nuances on difficult issues such as identity and how it affected South Africans.
In an article in 1958 he said: “There has been many a time in South Africa when colour has been forgotten, when men have risked their lives to save someone of another race. You find it on the Rand mines: white saving black; black rescuing white”.
Nakasa described himself as a Pondo but could not speak the language because he grew up in a Zulu speaking home because his mother was Zulu. Yet when he was thinking about issues it was in English.
This showed his acknowledgement of the many aspects of his life that made him the cosmopolitan South African that he was.
In 1962 he wrote that: “I am more at home with an Afrikaner than with a West African. Some of my friends who have been abroad say they got on best with Afrikaners they met in Europe instead of Englishman and West Africans.” He was able to see commonalities where people thought there were none. Before the rainbow was allowed.
His talents were soon recognised, he became the assistant editor at Drum and became the first black columnist at the Rand Daily Mail . Wally Serote a poet who grew up in Sophiatown said: “Nat Nakasa was a rainbow man before the rainbow was allowed.”
Press ombudsman Joe Thloloe, who spoke at the exhibition said: “Nat was ahead of his time, believing in the ideals that we now espouse, a non-racial, non-sexist democratic South Africa in which all are equal before the law while we stewed in our bitterness and dreamt of tearing this country apart and starting afresh.”
Thabo Mbeki’s I am an African speech resonated with what Nakasa said earlier, Nat said: “I am a South African. My people are South Africans. Mine is the history of the Great Trek, Gandhi’s passive resistance in Johannesburg, the wars of Cetshwayo and the dawn raids which gave us the treason trials in 1956. All these are South African things. They are a part of me.”
Nakasa embraced the South African experience. When he interacted with people he did not see race but saw South Africans.
Being ahead of his time meant he caught the eye of the apartheid government and when he was offered the Nieman fellowship at Harvard University, he decided to take the opportunity and go to New York. The opportunity however came at a great cost. He was to leave the country on an exit permit meaning he could not return to his country.
At the same time Nakasa could not enter America because he did not have a passport. He had to make applications to various countries to give him a passport. Tanzania was to grant him one. While he was in Tanzania waiting to get his passport he met US civil rights leader Malcolm X and stayed with him in Dar es Salaam.
Still the optimist, looking beyond colour he went to the US. As political activist Keorapetse Kgositsile recalled, “Soon after his arrival there, where I had been for almost three years, one of those issues was the US itself. He arrived believing that the US was not a racist monstrosity like the South Africa he had left with an exit permit. I would try to argue that the US was just bigger and more sophisticated than South Africa.”
Kgositsile said Nakasa would argue that Kgositsile’s problem was that he uncritically accepted Richard Wright’s assessment of American society.
Kgositsile would later recall Nakasa would soon realise the racism that dominated America during the civil rights era.
Thloloe said South African society chewed and spat Nakasa out. when he was in America, American society chewed him up and spat him out making his self-description of being “a native of nowhere” apt.
He died in 1965 and was buried in Ferncliff, the same cemetery as Malcolm X. What is certain is that he was one of the first true South Africans who looked at people through the prism of being what it means to be truly South African. The society that he was in was only able to see the world through race tinted glasses.
At the young age of 28, his perception belied his years, his mature perception was to see what it meant to be South African.
On hearing of his death his sister said: “It filled us with great pain hearing the news. My father who loved Nat dearly and was proud of him since he was a writer took it harder than most of us.”
South Africa has yet to mourn one of its first true sons.
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Repatriation process
The process of bringing home the body of Nat Nakasa has been in motion for almost 10 years. It began when the Nakasa family made a request to have Nat’s body repatriated.
The government, through the department of foreign affairs, made a request to have his remains returned. There are technicalities that need to be met, such as government stating the plot will have his remains interred when the process is completed.
Nakasa’s family accompanied by a government delegation will exhume Nat’s remains.
When Nat’s body is returned there are plans to have a celebration in honour of his homecoming. the event will be sponsored by the national Department of Arts and Culture, the Office of the Premier and eThekwini Municipality.
He will be reburied in the township of Chesterville.