In their desire to make sure we were properly educated, my parents had no qualms about sending us to a mission school, which meant that we had to be boarders. People in Tabase didn’t understand why anyone would want to send their children away to be influenced by others: the fear was that they might not want to do physical labour after being cosseted. Although St John’s – founded as a theological college by missionary Bishop Henry Callaway in 1879 – shied away from political involvement, the school system was firmly based on the principles of equality. Our teachers came from all walks of life and from all over the world. They had a liberal outlook and wanted to make a difference in a sea of injustice.
In 1978 Vuyisile ‘PV’ Maneli took over as principal and became the first black head of St John’s. He was a talented rugby player – he’d been a member of the Leopards team, also known as the African XV – and had studied maths and science in the US during the ’60s. At last I had a role model who looked like me. He encouraged us to compete against each other for good grades, to choose an area of expertise and excel at it.
Each year the school competed in the International Science Olympiad (ISO). The aim of the competition was to promote careers in science, pit the brightest students in the world against one another and to compare teaching systems in different countries. Doing well in an ISO virtually guaranteed you university entrance and a bursary from Anglo American.
In my first year at St John’s, when I was in grade 10, a grade 12 learner named Derek Hughes was selected to represent South Africa at the ISO. I looked up to Derek, who was the goalkeeper for the school soccer team. When he told me about an academic scholarship available to top grade 10 students, I set my mind to it. I was awarded a full scholarship, which brought some financial relief for my parents who were raising ten children.
In 1980, I was the top student and I was chosen to represent South Africa at the ISO (International Science Olympiad) in London. Derek had taught me how to act on my dreams. It was a big deal at St John’s and before I left I had to make a speech in front of everyone, including officials from the Education Department. As I wasn’t much of an orator, a more outspoken friend, Oyama Mabandla, decided this was a good opportunity to put words in my mouth. He wrote me a speech that any revolutionary would’ve been proud of. It surprised my classmates and teachers, coming from someone who didn’t usually express strong political opinions.
My parents had never been abroad, nor had anyone in Tabase, and I had never travelled beyond the borders of Transkei. At just sixteen years old, I flew to Joburg to be put through my paces at an orientation week sponsored by Anglo American. Sister Lane, who had succeeded Maneli as school principal, organised for the entire grade 12 contingent to be at Mthatha’s KD Matanzima Airport to see me off.
In Joburg white students were taught to sing ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’, black students to sing ‘Die Stem’, and how to use a knife and fork – a rather telling assumption that we didn’t know how.
The visit to London exposed me to a world I’d never considered and, after a fortnight, I returned home as Tabase’s expert in international affairs and post-matric careers.
The Daily Dispatch newspaper published an article on me, no doubt egged on by my father, who said I had plans to study medicine the following year. What he didn’t know was that my mind was set on mechanical engineering – nothing else.
For my first year I enrolled for a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Transkei (Unitra), which didn’t offer engineering. Black students had to get permission from the Ministry of Higher Education if they wanted to study engineering. When he was the minister of native affairs, HF Verwoerd – the so-called architect of apartheid – had said something like: ‘What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when he cannot use it in practice?’
At Unitra I reconnected with former classmates such as Andile Mvinjelwa and Zwai Tshwele. I did well; my only real competition came from a student named Xoliswa Kakana, who had done her matric at Inanda High School in Durban. She qualified in Germany as an electronics engineer and became the founder, chairperson and group CEO of ICT-Works.
A curious thing happened on my first day at Unitra. I was about to get into a lift on campus when I spotted an envelope on the floor and picked it up. It was full of banknotes, enough for tuition and accommodation for the whole year. There was no one around. For a moment I panicked. What should I do? I got into the lift and pressed the button to close the door.
I kept the envelope, waiting to hear if anyone had lost money. Eventually I used it to pay what my parents owed the university. When I told my mother about it she decided it must have been God smiling on us. Did I make the right decision? Maybe I should have done things differently and handed it in. But I didn’t.
For my second year I applied to the University of Natal’s engineering faculty. Even though I had won the science olympiad, I still had to apply for ministerial permission. But the university refused to accept my first year BSc credits from Unitra. I had to do physics, applied maths and chemistry all over again. It worked to my advantage because I was a novice at two of my other subjects: engineering drawing and design, and calculus.
Calculus and engineering drawing were part of the matric syllabus at white schools but weren’t in the Bantu Education curriculum, maths included only algebra, geometry and trigonometry. Black engineering students were at a distinct disadvantage. Dissecting a piston engine in your mind is one thing, being expected to draw it from memory was another. A number of dreams were shattered, as calculus, drawing and design effectively became a tool to exclude black students from the faculty of engineering. The playing fields were not level.
In 1989, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) calculated that of the 163 800 professionals working in the fields of science and technology, just one per cent were black.
In lectures, I found myself a seat at the front of the class, constantly asked questions and concentrated on my drawing and design, assured of cruising through my other subjects, second time round. Just three black mechanical engineering students made it to second year: me, Edwin Mabelane and Joe Mathebula. Edwin became a GM at Eskom and he and I would meet up in later years in rather different circumstances.
My stint at Natal University politicised me and I joined the Azanian Students’ Organisation (AZASO). Its leaders were Joe Phaahla, now deputy health minister and Aaron Motsoaledi, the current home affairs minister. Others I came into contact with were ANC heavyweights Zweli Mkhize and Siyabonga Cwele, former KZN health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo and Dr Judy Dlamini, chancellor of Wits University.
Through friends from St John’s such as Oyama Mabandla and Mce Booi, whose father had been a minister in the Transkei government, I became active in the ANC’s underground network. Both eventually went into exile – Oyama to Lesotho where he helped set up MK cells, linking operatives to units based in Transkei and the Eastern Cape and recruiting people for missions. We would travel to Lesotho for weekends, on the pretext of attending graduation ceremonies at Roma University in Maseru. The contacts I made led to many unexpected overnight visitors to my university room – activists who were passing through on some or other operation, the details of which I never found out.
When the United Democratic Front (UDF) was launched in Cape Town on 20 August 1983, the AZASO hired a bus and we travelled down to draw courage from the likes of Joe Marks, Frank Chikane, Archie Gumede, Helen Joseph, Popo Molefe, Frances Baard and Pius Langa. I was nineteen years old and was inspired by the defiant mood – freedom now! The powerful gathering in Mitchells Plain was peaceful though, and I felt part of a momentous event. I was particularly impressed with Dr Allan Boesak, and judged him to be a great orator:
[T]he formation of the United Democratic Front … symbolises the crisis apartheid and its supporters have created for themselves. After a history of some 331 years of slavery, racial discrimination, dehumanisation and economic exploitation, what they expected were acceptance of the status quo, docility and subservience.
Instead they are finding a people, refusing to accept racial injustice and ready to face the challenges of the moment …
After more