Cape Town - To keep the name of Dulcie September alive and on the lips of especially young people is the aim of numerous ongoing campaigns – with the most recent the unveiling of the Dulcie September mural in her home suburb of Athlone.
The anti-apartheid activist was assassinated outside the ANC’s office on March 29, 1988, in Paris, France.
The mural by street artist Dbongz Mahlathi was unveiled by September’s niece and nephew, Nicola and Michael Arendse, at the Athlone Civic Centre today (Tues).
“I knew her briefly when we were young. She’d come out of prison and she was under house arrest and she always joked and spoiled us to bits and then one day she was gone. I know we rushed off to Cape Town Harbour to see her off and that was it. So we got to know my aunt through other people,” Michael said.
“A mural I hope resonates with younger people and I hope that this mural will inspire people to go look up and do a little research on her.”
The Civic Centre, also named after September, seemed apt for the mural as September was born and raised in Athlone, and would later go on to teach in Athlone.
September’s life was marked throughout by a resolute drive for liberation. In 1964, September, with nine others, was charged for conspiracy to commit acts of sabotage and incite politically motivated violence, and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
The mural was intended to bring September back into the community, where many who reside in Athlone are unfamiliar with the freedom fighter, said director and producer Enver Samuel, who commissioned it.
The mural is part of several impact campaigns to bring September’s story and name “alive”.
Samuel said: “She was trying to do something at the height of apartheid – to expose a potential arms deal between the apartheid government and French government.
“The unfortunate thing is that as we came into democracy, it’s almost like the new government adopted the same policies in terms of keeping silent and then started to erase Dulcie September’s name, because they quickly went over from being people who were stopping the arms deal to the people who were perpetuating it.
“So there’s always been a silencing of the voice of the whistle-blower,” Samuel said.
The Justice for Dulcie campaign was another to stir up public emotion in support of the reopening of the case in May.
Educationist Karen Dudley, a keynote speaker, said the Western Cape Education Department had partnered with Samuels to see his documentary, “Murder in Paris”, about September, screened at all 1 586 schools in the province.
Following her release from prison and under house arrest, September worked as a receptionist at Dudley’s uncle’s surgery in Thornton Road, Athlone.
“I remember how the police would barge into that surgery at any given time to make sure she was there. The telephone was bugged, we were not sure if the house itself had been bugged, so many of those intimate conversations took place in the backyard under the lemon tree and the loquat tree,” said Dudley.
“At 5pm, you’d hear the gate rattling and the police would come in, they would put cuffs on her arms and legs because at 5pm, she had to be shuffled out because she was under house arrest and then they would take her back.”
Veteran actress Denise Newman portrayed September in the play “Cold Case: Revisiting Dulcie September”, directed by Basil Appollis. Both Newman and September hail from Athlone and attended the same high School, Athlone High School.
“What I’ve learnt from her is persistence. She was so persistent and everybody I spoke to said that she would not let a thing go and she kept meticulous notes of everything so she could go back to refer to it, and kept chipping away and making sure that nobody forgot what South Africa was doing to its people,” Newman said.
“If we keep the story of Dulcie and activists like her alive, we must realise that aluta continua, the struggle continues. It isn't over because we now have the vote, there are lots of other injustices we need to fight for.”
