Johannesburg -
In the past, it was a criminal offence for black people to be found on the streets of “white urban South Africa”.
In conservative Vryburg, North West, blacks were unwelcome even during the day.
This semi-rural dorpie accounted for a number of racial attacks. And, 24 years after South Africa gained independence, former student activist Andrew Babeile claims the racial tolerance in the town is the work of ANC stalwart Ruth Mompati.
Mompati died on May 12, aged 89.
Babeile was speaking at his family home on Friday ahead of Mompati’s burial on Saturday.
The controversial Babeile’s past dates back to 1999, when he was charged with attempted murder and convicted for stabbing a white pupil with a pair of scissors.
He was sentenced to four years in prison, with two years conditionally suspended for five.
The stabbing happened in February in the school grounds of the formerly whites-only Vryburg High School, attracting international attention.
His trial in 2000 forced Nelson Mandela out of political retirement to help ease the racial tension in Vryburg. Ironically, Babeile was released on Freedom Day - April 27, 2002.
One of the people who organised his welcome rally, he recalls, was Mompati, who was born in Tlapeng village in the district of Ganyesa outside Vryburg on September 14, 1925.
Growing up in the same town as a teen, Mompati fell victim to apartheid laws.
At her funeral at the weekend, mourners were told that Mompati started her teaching career at Dithakwaneng Primary School near Vryburg in 1944 at the age of 19.
Her obituary said: “When she got married in 1952, she lost her job as a teacher because the apartheid laws regulated that married black female teachers were not allowed to teach.”
President Jacob Zuma said Mompati became frustrated after her expulsion from the teaching profession and moved to Joburg and joined the ANC.
She became one of the first few women to join the ANC, following in the footsteps of the late Albertina Sisulu.
In Joburg, Mompati worked as a secretary at Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo’s law firm.
She also played a central role in the August 9, 1956 women’s march against the dompas to the office of then-prime minister JG Strydom in Pretoria.
She went into exile in 1963 and joined the ANC military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe.
She returned to the country in 1990, following settlement talks between the ANC and the apartheid regime.
Mompati is known for her international diplomatic and ANC humanitarian work, but Babeile applauds her for “bringing racial harmony” in the small dorpie “where others had failed”.
Babeile was the first black pupil to register at Vryburg High School in 1995 and he attributed it to Mompati.
“She was deployed in Vryburg to normalise the situation. At the time, mme (mama) Ruth came to implement one of the tenets of the Freedom Charter, which says ‘the doors of learning and culture shall be opened to all’.
“Whites did not want to accept us at their school. Mompati spoke to the management of the school and showed them the importance of racial integration. Gradually, more and more black pupils were admitted until I was accused of stabbing a white pupil with scissors in 1998.”
Seventeen years later, Babeile still protests his innocence. “I did not stab him,” he says.
Babeile stays in one of those old municipal houses built for migrant labourers.
On the wall in the lounge hangs a picture taken at Kimberley Prison on September 15, 2001.
The photograph is dear to his heart. He is with Mandela who visited him, accompanied by former Northern Cape premier Manne Dipico and Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba.
Babeile says Mandela, at Mompati’s request, visited his hometown of Huhudi in September 2001 and met his mother.
“The three of them then went and met the family of the boy I was accused of stabbing. A few days later, I got a call that Mr Nelson Mandela wanted to visit me. He came on September 15 and we had a meeting in the office of Mr Monyobo, regional commissioner of correctional services,” he said.
“Mr Mandela encouraged us to obtain education and he also gave me R20 000 for any of my educational needs,” he says.
Babeile plans to write a book that will “reveal everything about my one-on-one discussion with Mr Mandela. I have just been giving bits and pieces about it. I intend to reveal everything in a book”.
The Star