The diary of Maria Tholo - December 2 - 15 by Carol Hermer

From the book: The Diary of Maria Tholo by Carol Hermer

Maria's Diary, Sunday, December 5

Things have exploded in Nyanga. Isaac arrived here early this morning, badly frightened. 'I'm not sure what's happening,' he told us. 'All I know is that a friend of mine, Manuel, is dead. He was in a house that was burned down at 2 a.m. this morning.'

'Is it the students?'

'No,' he replied, 'it's from the single quarters. They're the ones who started the trouble. And now it's chaos. Everyone's fighting.'

I heard the full story much later from Philemon, who stays just across from the single quarters in Nyanga East. He was here to visit Father.

It actually all started on Friday night. Nyanga East is badly laid out. On one side of a section there are three blocks of family homes. Then right next to them are two long blocks of single quarters. And then at the end, family houses again. (We call this section Mao Mao and that is where the trouble was.) So you get single young men in groups living opposite family homes where there are young girls. I mean anything can go wrong. It's not safe. And when men are together they plot a lot of silly things. And they're always doing their rituals and whatnot like they do in the country. So the people who live near them have quite a tough life.

I must describe these Bhacas, the single men who started all this. In Johannesburg it was the Zulus who fought the township people. They are the ones who are the contract workers for the city council. In Cape Town it is the Bhacas. Very few Xhosas work for the council and they look down on the Bhacas who are very illiterate people. They come from Mount Frere and that district. They aren't from the Transkei. The Pondos are not so bad but the Bhacas are the sort of people who are prepared to work in the toilets. During the days when we still had bucket toilets, the Bhacas were the only people who would clear away the buckets.

Another thing, when the townships were built people formed their own vigilante groups to patrol the streets at weekends. And the people who were most willing to join these groups were the men from the single quarters. Those country people were used to fighting and it was quite an exciting thing to do.

But then they stopped patrolling just their own area. They would come into the township and if they met anyone in the street, they would beat them up and send them to "the police station as if they were robbers. Or just beat them and leave them lying there. A child in Nyanga was once killed by the patrols. Gus was chased home one night after working late. He nearly bashed down the door to be let in, as they were waiting in the road to see if he was genuinely at his own house or just running from them.

To get back to the troubles. It started in one of the family houses where a young guy was running a shebeen. This Tambo, I suppose, had thought it would be profitable to sell liquor so close to the single quarters. He was one of those raided during the shebeen crackdown, but he had moved his furniture to his parents' house in Guguletu and left a bed and a few things and was still selling liquor.

Right across the road, in the single quarters, was a rival shebeen, where many of the Bhacas went. The owner was a man called Nondzabi. In the first raid on the shebeens, the single quarters were left alone. The students couldn't get near them. In fact, there was a pitched battle where the children kept the single men at bay with stones. So the bachelors must have wanted to get their revenge and teach those kids a lesson for some time.

After the mess last week with the burning of the informers' houses in Guguletu, there were rumours that once the informers were dealt with it would be back to shebeens. The Bhacas must have decided that they would not allow the students to get away with that in Nyanga.

Now Tambo and the people who came to him were all young. His being a rival of the shebeen that the Bhacas frequent must have been the excuse they were looking for. So on Friday night, either they went across to Tambo looking for a fight, or perhaps they had been chasing somebody who ran into his place, but by the time they got there they were beating up any people they met.

Now that was bad enough. But last night, Saturday, they were back drinking at Nondzabi, and they must have thought that the evening was long and they wanted some fun, so why not pick on a few youths.

They were already drunk when they went over to Tambo's place. This time they climbed on top of the roof, broke through, and threw something inflammable inside. And as the people ran out, they were met by kieries. The people didn't die from the fire, they died from the blows of the kieries that met them in the dark.

But this was the Bhacas' undoing. When the township people heard about the attack they decided, 'Now it's time to teach these bachelors a lesson. They have been running our lives here. We've had to keep indoors because of them going on the warpath, singing those wild songs and whatnot.'

There was a quick meeting this morning at daybreak of all the men who live around Mao Mao - not youths or tsotsis, the older men - and they said, 'It's enough. Today we teach those Bhacas a lesson once and for all.'

And then it was blue murder. The police were powerless. They just stood on the hills next to their vans and watched. They didn't know who or what to shoot.

This was war. The Bhacas were very confident because they knew how to wield a kierie. They were still raw from the country. But they hadn't reckoned with the stones from the township people, and each township man also carried a stick. It's our only means of defence. We township people still have it in us to use a kierie.

I haven't dared tell anybody but I drove there three times to see what was going on. I said to myself that I needed to check up on Isaac but I was also curious. Things were so wild you couldn't get close to anything by car. You had to walk. Every passerby was stopped and graded as to which group he should belong. Those fighters couldn't have known who was hitting whom. By evening there was a loud speaker going around, even to Crossroads, ¹shouting to all women to stay inside and to all township men to wear identification so that they wouldn't hit each other.

Even women were involved. There were girls who were always available for the single men and they slept in the single quarters. They came running back to the township when the fight started.

But the township women weren't having any. They sent them back. 'You stay there. What belongs to the single quarters must be there. And don't come back.'

Monday, December 6

This morning I went again early to Nyanga after I dropped Gus. By 7 a.m. Isaac was still not at the shop. I drove on to see if he was at a friend's. I wasn't worried because I was following a police van - right to where the fighting was.

I don't think the people from Mao Mao could have gone to work today. They were still hot, still determined. The Bhacas must have lost about six or seven houses already. Now a house there is built like a tube, each with four doors. I counted four houses completely burned out so that made 16 doors.

I parked the car at a corner and walked from there. The streets were full of stones. I passed a group of men coming from the family houses. They joined another group and I overheard them saying, 'Now it's your turn to go and have coffee.' They had stayed up all night forming a cordon around the Bhaca houses, stopping them from moving out. And now they weren't going to allow them to go to work.

The reports in the newspapers were all wrong. There was no stay-at-home call. There was no strike. It was just the township' people preventing the Bhacas from going anywhere because of the fight.

By the time I got back to Guguletu there was a crowd around the school. Shelley had got there at 7 a.m. as usual to find the house locked and the key missing. It turned out that some church had used the place for a meeting over the weekend and walked off with the key. We finally got in at 9.30.

The ministers of the church came to apologise later on. They belonged to the Independent Presbyterian Bantu Church. They were brothers and their father was the founder of the church. They were here in Cape Town to recruit and convert people. I asked them what they had found wrong with being in the same church as whites. They felt that they could do their own planning and handle finances as well as anyone and weren't able to do that in the parent church. I wished them every success and told them that as founders and ministers they would soon be rich from ail the presents and donations they would be receiving from hero-worshipping members, and from those who wanted senior positions in the church. They were quite offended, but it is true. Our ministers and their wives do get lots of presents.

I was invited to the birthday party of Mrs. Z., one of our minister's wives. When I arrived I found the people seated. There was a chairman and a secretary as well as a treasurer at the centre table. It turned out to be Mrs. Z. 's turn to get donations from her club, which met fortnightly. The donations were kept track of in a register and every member's contribution noted. If it was your turn you could also invite anyone you liked. By the time I wanted to leave they had already collected R248. Of course a minister's wife has a lot of people who owe her favours, but I was interested to see that there were no class distinctions as far as money was concerned. There were teachers, nurses and domestics all belonging to that club.

To get back to Nyanga. I heard that by the afternoon the fighting was still going on. A couple who work for the council and stay here in Guguletu told me this after going to fetch their tools from the office in Nyanga. They said that many Bhacas and Xhosa bachelors were trying to leave Nyanga East, running away with all their possessions and moving to other bachelor areas. But those bachelors outside Nyanga said, 'No. Finish your thing. You starred it. If you come here you are going to get us into trouble.' So they have nowhere to run to.

People were so desperate to move away from that hot area that they were taking any old broken car that had been standing for months, packing their things into it and pushing it along the road.

It's the same as happened in 1960. The bachelors were so frightened that all they could think of was 'HOME'. They walked, carrying their things as far as Worcester rather than wait at Cape Town or Langa stations to catch a train. They just wanted to get, as far away from the fight as possible,

Well, they shouldn't have started it. But what devastation. Houses burned, piles and piles of clothing. I don't know how much money was lost in the fires.

I believe they did try to cool it down. They apologised to the township people, asking to live together in harmony, but the people in Nyanga East had had enough. They wanted something, done about the way the bachelors were housed in their midst.

Last evening, Philemon was here, and we were discussing the situation and why it was happening. My father said, 'As sure as I am sitting here, crippled as I am, I know from experience what it is working with so-called Christians - people who give the impression of charity and wanting to work amongst blacks. There would be one white working in our mission with five or six Africans and he would do his best to split the other workers so that he could spend his time making peace between us. Otherwise he would have had nothing to do. And I'm sure these Boers are using the same tactics. They are going to the migrants saying, "You are people of law and order. You know how to use a kierie. Don't let these people bully you." But generally people have gone mad here now.'

I was surprised at Philemon's reply. He looks so dumb. He said, 'In a situation like this a person must see all around him. You can't say a whole lot of people are mad. This is now politics. It's going deep. And it's happening all over the world. If you can't understand what's going on, brother, rather say nothing - but don't say a whole group of people is mad. It's just that we are only now awakening. Other people have long been wide awake.'

And I thought he wasn't the sort of person to be interested in things like that.

Wednesday, December 8

Nyanga is quiet again but there are still fires burning in Guguletu. I nearly didn't get to Claremont today. I thought that seeing that the buses were running again I wouldn't need to arrange to have the car. But I ended up waiting at the bus stop for over an hour. While I was waiting, Shelley came running to tell me that the house on our right was on fire. The place is teeming with riot squads yet the fires go on.

I know the woman who stays in that house. She is not selling liquor so they must be saying that she is an informer. She owns a lovely new Chev, a 1975 model. They've always owned two cars. She and her husband built themselves up very quickly. That's what makes people suspicious. But I think in the long run these accusations are going to be shown to be real untruths - that either people were jealous, or they sent those hooligans to burn down someone's house simply because of dislike.

Can there be as many informers as houses that have been burned down? I doubt it. That's why we're in such a state. You don't know what people think of you. Jealousies and personal fights are being decided by petrol bombs.

We held our end-of-year Christmas party at the school. We kept it very small with just a few parents invited because of all the threats against Christmas celebrations. The children had made lovely decorations but I didn't dare hang them up. We did all the baking ourselves and the parents also contributed. I tried to keep everyone as quiet as possible but by the end of the afternoon quite a few uninvited guests had turned up and we were all singing folksongs and dancing. Fortunately there was no trouble.

I am very relieved that the school is closed. Keeping it open was like holding a hot potato.

The teachers are upset. Department schools ²officially closed today but they are due to reopen on January 5 - two weeks early - though they don't think there'll be any students attending. It makes it a very short holiday for them. I suppose the education people felt that because they've had no pupils they've had their holiday. But they still had to be at their posts all that time and were under great strain.

It's a very strange school holiday. Usually there are extra buses at this time of year for all the mothers to take their children Christmas shopping but because we aren't supposed to shop, or paint or do anything this Christmas, it's all quiet. There are no long queues at the bus stops and most people don't dare be seen with large parcels. I've heard that people carrying parcels are searched at Claremont terminus and if the youths find new clothes they tear them up. Of course shoplifters and pickpockets are taking advantage of the situation by pretending to be comrades and confiscating things for themselves.

I don't know what to do about my monthly food buying. I always buy in bulk but I'm having to get it all in bits and pieces now. I hate the expense of buying meat in small portions.

Some mothers are thrilled by the no-shopping campaign as it means saving money, but most of us are worried because it also means no share of our husbands' Christmas bonus. African men do not give money easily for clothes, and Christmas is the only time they let go. I've never cared for decorating the house with all that rubbish but I do like to dress the girls properly once a year and also to paint the house. If we don't paint now it won't get done till next Christmas and I miss the luxury of a freshly painted house. Even in the country Christmas is the time to mend cracks and remodel and paint the mud huts.

My neighbour's cousin has a son at Fezeka. The son had warned the father about the no-painting rule but he was not going to be told what to do in his own house, so he went ahead and painted. The comrades arrived, stripped him of all his clothes and painted him from head to toe. He was made to parade outside his gate to warn others of what could happen to disobedient people.

I've also heard of people who have had paint splashed over their furniture. Some still go ahead but it's all done at night. New furniture is also delivered only at night-time. I wasn't going to risk painting, but on Tuesday Shelley and I closed up the front of the house as if we were out and washed down the kitchen and dining-room walls. We did it very quickly, taking turns to watch and see if anyone was coming. I haven't put up any cards though. They are hidden in a drawer.

The youths have declared that December 16 is to be our black Christmas. December 25 is for whites only. Our's must be what used to be called Dingaan's Day ³because Boer blood was shed on that day.

Friday, December 10

Nomsa has had a very unpleasant week. On Tuesday Mrs. P., one of our white volunteers, took her up Table Mountain. They went into the white section of the restaurant for lunch and Nomsa sat down next to a man who turned on her, saying that she had a nerve to sit there, that black people revolted him because they stank. He turned to the other whites in the restaurant for support, but they weren't interested and told him to stop making a fool of himself.

Mrs. P. also pounced on him, saying that if he was so civilised why was he in a restaurant with muddy hands and overalls. Finally he stalked out amidst boos from the other diners. But Nomsa was upset.

Then just two days later, the poor girl walked into a takeaway at Kenilworth Centre and asked for a drink of water. The man behind the counter told her to go and drink in the toilets. This time she came out and cried.

I've told her not to worry over low-class whites. I said they behaved like that because they had no education and felt threatened by the many blacks who were cultured. The thought of such a young girl speaking English made them furious because they could only speak their mother tongue. My pep talk seems to have worked because she's now going around saying how proud she is to be black.

Sunday, December 12

Alice, my brother Dan's wife, and two of the four children, arrived here today. She wanted money to buy the children something for Christmas. She hasn't heard a word from Dan, nor had any money from him since June. We haven't heard either, but I'm not surprised she hasn't. She practically drove him away.

But I'm very fond of the children and, after all, how Dan made her marry him was really terrible. He was very keen on Alice. She fancied herself as quite an actress; she had a small part in one of those big African productions and was in no hurry to get married. So Dan, a teacher mind you, went off and did it the old Xhosa way, by capture. ⁴

He and Alice had a bit of an affair and he was really smitten. He said to some friends of his, 'This girl doesn't want to get settled so I'm going to have to take her and would you please help me.' One night at a party one of his friends said to Alice, 'Just come out to the car. Dan is waiting to ask you something.' She figured she could get a lift back home. So she went to the car but it didn't take her home - it took her straight to Nyanga East to some friends' house where they locked her in the back.

The next day Dan came to me. 'You must do your duty as a big sister. You must get some dresses for Alice.'

'Who's Alice?'

'My wife,' he said, 'and she's being difficult. I've got her at Auntie Magaseli.'

'Well, let her go. How do you know she doesn't love somebody else? You can't force a person to love you.'

But he wasn't interested so I had to go and see her. I felt so stupid and she was really wild-eyed. She could see all those aunties guarding her and knew she wasn't going to get out of that house so finally, after we had had a drink, she agreed to talk to me. The next thing I heard her family had been to see ours. They weren't interested in having her back. They just wanted to make sure they got their lobola. ⁵

It took about two weeks, but finally she accepted the whole thing. And then came the babies - four of them. But it was always doomed. Even before the fourth one she was off to parties again, pretending to be at a girlfriend's house but really enjoying herself. And the fights they had. I sometimes thought she wanted him to beat her so she would have an excuse to go away. Finally it was Dan who took off; he just got in his car one day and went to Johannesburg. I don't think he ever finished paying for her either, just for the furniture.

All African families have a few strange relatives. Gus's are no exception. Half of them are passing for coloured. Gus and his two brothers carry passes but his sisters and two other brothers have I.D's. ⁶The eldest sister bought a house near Wellington and changed her name from Tholo to Theron. She was married to an African who was also 'passing'. His mother and two sisters had passes but he and another two sisters were coloured. But they all kept the same surname.

I can understand people doing it in order to get rights to stay in the area, but it does have its difficulties. Especially when it comes to doing the customs. They have to move to a relative's house for the whole period and follow the custom there. It just doesn't work.

Gus's brother-in-law was very particular. He hated having me around, especially as I can't speak Afrikaans. It used to be so funny. There would be all these people conversing in Afrikaans and then something special would happen and in the excitement they'd break into Xhosa, which they were not supposed to know. They'd get so embarrassed. And when the brother-in-law died the whole family arrived and people living there could see that these were all 'ware kaffirs'. ⁷So I don't know. It's easier to be what you are.

Commentary

The massive police presence in the townships following the arson attacks wasn't sufficient to prevent the outbreak of the Nyanga violence. Though first reports on the fighting were similar to those heard by Maria, later news stories claimed that the resistance to a strike call was the main reason for the outbreak.

The point of view in newspaper reports on the conflict depended on the side from which the reporter received his information. The Argus of December 6 quoted a Bhaca worker as saying that the house (Tambo's) had been set on fire in retaliation for the firing of the house of a Bhaca suspected of selling liquor. The report also mentioned that contract workers had 'helped the police by pointing out the intimidators and strike leaders.' This was interesting in view of the Nyanga residents' later assertions that police sided with the contract workers.

A resident suggested that the students had tried to involve the migrants in their protests by attacking a shebeen and the migrants' response had been harsh. He supported Maria's contention that it was not only students and tsotsis - as reported by police and all newspapers - but their parents as well who were involved in the fight against the Bhacas. ⁸

At a special sitting of the Cillie Commission in Pretoria to discuss the December migrant/township clash, Major van Reenen Mouton put the blame squarely on the youths. He said that the riots were the result of a militant action by young people and tsotsis who called them the 'comrades'. He said that migrant workers, who were older men, rebelled against being told what to do by youngsters and resisted the students' efforts to drag them 'into their protests against authority.' ⁹

The Chief Bantu Affairs Commissioner for the Western Cape, Mr. F.H. Botha, said the youths had attacked the living quarters of the contract workers and assaulted them because they had not associated themselves with the students' aspirations. As the hostilities had escalated, 17 housing units for contract workers been burnt down on December 6, while the workers were away. From December 11 to 14 about 30 units housing contract workers were burned down. ¹⁰Intervention by the Transkei consul in Cape Town, who tried to persuade the migrants not to retaliate against the students, helped to cool things down.

During the Monday fighting, 12 people were wounded by police fire, at least 20 houses burned down and 136 people left homeless. It was clear that this was no regular student protest. The towns­men of Nyanga felt very deeply about the bachelors in their midst.

Meanwhile, commerce and industry continued to press for change in the hope that an improved political situation would woo back the overseas investment scared off by the unrest, and give a stimulus to the stagnant economy Industrialists belonging to the Cape Employers' Association representing more than 80 firms, prepared a draft document recommending what they considered to be essential moves on the part of the Government to prevent further unrest among black and 'coloured' employees. These included a request for open housing, reconsideration of the declaration of District 6 as a white area, the extension of the Industrial Conciliation Act to include all racial groups, and the introduction of compulsory education and military training for all groups.

The Cape Town Chamber of Commerce asked its 1 400 member firms to sign a manifesto pledging practices that would lead away from discrimination in business. These would include equal pay, equal facilities in canteens and restrooms, equal pension schemes and opportunities for promotion.

In Johannesburg, the students' demands against Christmas spending appeared to be successful, with businesses reporting considerably lowered turnover.

The Africa-America Institute conference, held behind closed doors in Maseru, was attended by several powerful US officials as well as delegates from most African countries and several Southern African liberation movements. US congressman Andrew Young, soon to be President Carter's ambassador to the UN, was there, as was Senator Dick Clark, who took the opportunity to meet with Steve Biko, recently released after 101 days in custody. I talk to Mr. Vorster when I want to find out what the Government is thinking; I have talked to Mr. Biko to find out what the blacks are thinking,' Senator Clark said. ¹¹

The conference declared 'their unequivocal support for the freedom movements in their struggle to liberate Southern Africa.' Congressman Yvonne Burke received a standing ovation when she declared that, 'We will press for greater recognition that South Africa is the root of the problem of oppressive minority rule and violence in Southern Africa and is a threat to world peace.' ¹²

The first act of urban terrorism during the months of unrest took place in Johannesburg with the explosion of a homemade bomb in a Carlton Centre restaurant. The only injuries were to the man carrying the bomb. He lost a hand when the device exploded prematurely.

Minister of Police Kruger agreed to release all people detained during the riots by the end of the month, provided there was no further unrest in the country. ¹³But just six days later, on December 14, Mr. Percy Qoboza editor of the World newspaper, became the sixth member of his staff to be detained. He was released after lengthy questioning. There was a serious danger that this would be seen as an attempt to silence the World's criticism of government policy, commented the president of the South African Society of Journalists. He was not wrong. The World was permanently banned several months later.

On December 15, three pamphlet bombs exploded in Cape Town's Greenmarket Square, on the Parade, and at the Mowbray bus terminus. The bombs carried papers allegedly prepared by the military wing of the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Those not grabbed by passers-by were confiscated by police. Two men were seen distributing pamphlets on the Parade but there were no arrests.

The pamphlets dealt with the numbers of black people who had been killed by government action, including those who had died during the recent troubles. It was significant that they were distributed on the eve of the Day of the Covenant, this year hailed as the 'Black Christmas' and possibly the most important public holiday in South Africa, certainly the one that symbolises the acute difference in aspirations between white and black South Africans.