Two dates in September are hard for me to forget - September 12 and 27.
On September 12, 1977, 42 years ago, Steve Bantu Biko was murdered in police custody. He was 30 years old.
On September 27, 1969, 50 years ago, Imam Abdullah Haron, at the age of 45, suffered the same fate.
Both deaths left an indelible mark in my young mind. I was 11 years old when Imam Haron died. My parents were deeply affected by his death and this filtered through to us as children.
The burial took place on September 29, 1969. On that day, my father called my mother from a shop before the procession reached the graveyard, and asked her to find a way to bring us to the side of Groote Schuur Hospital, where we could witness the thousands of people who had walked from the Imam’s home in Athlone to Mowbray.
They had jostled for the honour of carrying the bier on their shoulders for the 8km walk. I had the privilege of witnessing a scene that will forever remain lodged in my memory.
Biko was murdered when I was a third-year student at UCT. By then I was fully conscious of the fact that we were living in a country run by authoritarian racists.
The news of Biko’s death swept like a pall of darkness across the country. His naked body in shackles at the back of a police van is an image that will always remain printed in my mind.
Soon after his death came the banning of newspapers and clamping down on journalists. The state waved its security apparatus like a sledgehammer, not caring who was caught in the process.
Biko’s death, even though I did not know him personally, felt like a knife had pierced my heart.
The night Imam Haron was buried, Cape Town experienced a severe tremor as an earthquake hit the town of Tulbagh. It was around 8pm and I was in the bathroom pouring a jug of water over my feet. I remember my dad rushing in as the house shook and lifting me up and running out of our home.
All along Ottery Road, people were rushing from their homes and gathering on the sidewalk.
In the middle of that night, the telephone rang. I heard my father answering the phone. He was asked to gather all of us on the pavement because another tremor could come.
My dad’s response was to say that he preferred letting his family sleep and would move us should the shaking start again. Nothing happened. We remained safely in our beds.
Forever after we associated the Imam’s burial with that night, and came to believe the local interpretation that God had shown his wrath in response to this injustice.
The Imam Haron 50th Commemoration Committee has arranged a host of events to lead up to those fateful days of 50 years ago - to memorialise the 123 days of his detention.
Some of these events include the unveiling of the official provincial Heritage Site Plaques for the Imam Haron gravesite and the Al-Jamia
Masjid (mosque); the erection of
memory boards at Islamia College in Imam Haron Road with the names of 117 killed in detention, and at
the shrine on Signal Hill where the Anglican priest, Reverend Bernard Wrankmore fasted for 67 days in protest against the killing. Cricket and rugby festivals have been arranged for the weekend.
An organisation called Qibla will launch a play called Danger to the State at the Joseph Stone Theatre.
On the morning of September 29, the day of Imam Haron’s historic burial, his family and members of the community will gather for the recitation of the Qur’an from beginning to end, a deeply spiritual exercise.
The Czech writer Milan Kundera said: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
September as Heritage Month is perhaps an appropriate time every year to pursue the struggle against forgetting - and remembering the objectives of those who died in pursuit of freedom.
It is a good time, too, for all of us interested in a South Africa free of racism, violence and inequality, to remember them and to reflect on what actions we need to take to move our country forward so that they would not have died in vain.
The Haron family has provided a template this year as an example of what families of the slain can do in Septembers to come.
Jaffer is an award-winning journalist, author and activist. This is an abridged version of the article that first appeared on The Journalist, www.thejournalist.org.za and at Zubeida Jaffer, www.zubeidajaffer.co.za