The hands that gave life to many have gone numb. The body whose skill revived countless hearts to beat loudly has frozen. The voice that shouted order to take the struggle for freedom to higher levels has muted. A glorious spirit that defined the life of Dr Abbey Nkomo, ‘the people’s doctor’, has departed; the sun that warmed and brightened many lives has set.
During this difficult period,
when real expertise is needed, as many people face the invisible and silent
pandemic – the coronavirus – it callously attacked the best among us and one
who had been our protector for a long time. Dr Nkomo departs when the authentic
leadership is needed as the country solely seeks such wisdom; when the youth
are faced with the prospects of a bleak existence because of the rising
unemployment and the ever gaping distance between the rich and the poor; when
there is a greater need for the leadership of the caliber of Dr Nkomo so as to
defeat the wretchedness of many of our people such that none should forever
shiver in the bitterest cold of poverty and be blinded by the darkest hours of
destitute.
It seems to many who learned
under the principled feet of Dr Nkomo, that to merely praise him would not be
enough. It may be inadequate just to shower him with glorious words, as
convention demands that we should. Accordingly, by word and deed, we should
solemnly declare and indeed do whatever is possible for the organization Dr
Nkomo spent his whole life serving, the African National Congress, to return to
be what he knew it was when he prosecuted a life and death struggle –
principled, ethical, incorruptible, people-centered, selflessly working for the
poor without expecting anything in return.
Dr. Abbey Nkomo started his long
political engagement as an active member of the ANC Youth League before
liberation organizations were banned in 1960 in the aftermath of the
Sharpeville massacre. Even when he was a student, first at Fort Hare and then
at the Natal Medical University, when he came back to Tshwane, those youngsters
who were to be active in PAC activities at Hofmeyr High such as Mark Shinners
attest to the fact that Dr Nkomo worked hard in the ongoing mobilizations of
the time.
Once he qualified as a doctor, he
saw at the doors of his surgeries, people who, because of poverty, were
condemned to perpetual illnesses; those who were overcome by the elements due
to the absence or frailty of their habitats; those on the brink of death due to
substance abuse; women disfigured because of abusing husbands and spouses; and
those who chose to be insane because to be sane was to invite pain. But to his
eternal glory, he treated all of them with passion, compassion, care, and love.
Dr Nkomo also used his medical
skills to help with the establishment of the center for mentally-challenged
youth in collaboration with Mama Zodwa Fanele. He later was to be involved in
the organization of medical practitioners as part of the United Democratic
Front’s mobilization of people on a sectoral basis. He further mentored many
aspirant doctors at MEDUNSA and ensured that they used their talents and skills
to be part of the motive forces for change. As part of the Council Members at
the then Northern Transvaal Technikon, Dr Nkomo imparted to the youth the value
of education as a true liberator.
But for Dr Abbey Nkomo, it was at
the local level where his extraordinary energies were expended. This was
because he fervently believed in grassroots mobilization. He had an abiding
trust in the need for the oppressed to be the masters of their own agency.
Through the Society for Creative Community, Dr Nkomo mobilized the community of
Atteridgeville/Saulsville to strive for self-sufficiency and self-reliance,
helping to instill a sense of frugality and prudent usage of the meager
resources at their disposal. Among others, the organization sought to fight
against the commercialization of bereavements.
When the
Atteridgeville-Saulsville Resident Organization (ASRO) was formed, Dr Abbey
Nkomo was at the forefront of the civic body and used his exceptional mobilizing
strengths to bring on board scores of professionals and business people into the organization.
He effortlessly fused his phenomenal intellectual skills with down-to-earth
efforts to ensure that ASRO was one of the most formidable civic bodies in the
country. It is a matter of historical record that within the United Democratic
Front, many activists learned from ASRO activists the art of mobilizing the
cross-sections of the various townships where the apartheid regime tried hard
to divide people across ethnic lines as well as between those in the hostels
and the townships.
Indeed, in the 1980-1990 period,
the great wheel of political revolution moved faster and furiously. Ordinarily,
in many places, the struggle tended to transfer from legitimate but natural
causes into irregular, uncontrollable and violent impulses, whirling with
fearful celerity till it assumed fire from the rapidity of its own momentum and
thus blazing onward, spreading conflagration and terrifying destruction
everywhere.
Part of the violent celerity was
intra-community violence, destruction of people’s homes, and attacks at targeted
individuals belonging to different organizations. Everywhere, the stokers of
the various violent clashes in black communities rubbed their hands in glee,
pontifically shouting from their roof-tops: Black-on-Black violence.
Several challenges arose during
this period,
The first
was that, as the insurrectionary conditions obtained from 1984, and organs of
people’s power became the norm in many townships, unavoidably, there were
opportunists and 3 agent provocateurs who rode on the bandwagon and sought to
infuse criminality and thus discredit legitimate revolutionary programs and
actions. Atteridgeville/Saulsville was lucky to have the steady hand of comrade
Abbey Nkomo and thus managed to navigate one of the most trying periods of the
struggle for freedom. The street and area committees of the township as well as
the Advice Centre was highly organized with well-run programs under the
leadership of Dr Abbey Nkomo.
The second
phenomenon was the inter-organizational conflicts that led to attacks and
counterattacks. These were fueled by apartheid agents. But because of the
matured leadership of Dr Abbey Nkomo, the ideological differences between UDF[1]aligned structures
and those of the Black Consciousness Movement never became violent.
The third was
that the township never experienced conflicts between those in the single-sex
hostels and township residents, because the local hostel was highly organized
and became a critical component of the Atteridgeville-Saulsville Residents Organization.
The fourth
challenge was when there were incidents of taxi violence in many parts of the
country. Invariably, in Atteridgeville/Saulsville, there appeared some worrying
disturbances that threaten to implode into unimaginable violence that would
have left both people in the taxi industry and commuters as victims. Dr Nkomo
moved swiftly and instructed the leadership of ASRO to nib in the bud the
impending conflicts.
The fifth
challenge was when the Lotus Gardens Township was built and declared and Indian
area. Lesser pretentious individuals would have used the apartheid created
divisions through the Group Areas Act to further stoke the fires of racial
hatred. But a committed non-racial leader such as Dr Nkomo worked hard through
ASRO to ensure that the area accommodates African people from
Atteridgeville/Saulsville, because Lotus Gardens was, in any case, a natural
extension of the overcrowded township.
Finally, and sixth
was the actual working for the real non-racial society in South Africa. Dr
Nkomo gave invaluable support to her wife, Mama Marjorie Nkomo, a true freedom
fighter in her own right, together with that formidable mother of our township,
Mama Rosina Mphahlele when they organized black and white mothers to share
their challenges, fears, anxieties, and hopes during the one of the darkest
moments in our history. White women spoke about their sons who were conscripted
into the army and in fact, had to commit horrendous acts in black areas. On the
other side, the black mothers had to share not only the anguish of they
themselves together with their husbands being harassed and detained. But their
sons and daughters were also victims of ongoing repressive actions.
Further, as part of trying to
prepare for a future non-racial society, both Ma[1]Mphahlele
and Ma-Nkomo organized what was called Koinonia Encounter where 4 white people,
who had never set foot in any black area, were partnered with the locals as
part of preparing a truly non-racial society. These were important building
blocks for a future South Africa whose democracy was evidently not offered on a
platter.
Clearly, always aware of many
self-destructions; pained by the prospects of calamitous suicidal acts of some
of his own people, Dr Nkomo insisted and led from the front to unite as one,
people artificially divided by political differences struggles around economic
crumbs and even those separated by the Section 10 of the Black Local
Authorities Act into the real sojourners in the land of their ancestors – the
‘migrant hostel dwellers’ – and the ‘township residents’.
To his eternal glorious legacy,
Atteridgeville/Saulsville did not only managed to avoid the unnecessary
internecine conflicts among the people, but in time, ensured that the local
Saulsville hostel was to be the best host of many underground combatants of
uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) ably assisted by that indomitable down-to-earth organizer,
Pharaphara Mothupi.
This local hostel was called
‘Letlapeng’ by those who stayed in the caged-like place, the name referring to
the concrete beds on which tired and super-exploited bodies were required to
rest. But Letlapeng became one of the rock-like organized areas of the local
civic, ASRO. When violence flared between some hostel residents and township
people in other parts of the country, the Saulsville Hostel shone as an
exemplary beacon of hope of how the oppressed people of South Africa could and
should unite, despite their artificial man-made divides, to face a common
enemy.
With the leadership of Dr Nkomo,
Atteridgeville/Saulsville also managed to encourage the local clergy to organize
themselves under a fraternal body that became part and parcel of the motive
forces for change. All these were possible because Dr Abbey Nkomo knew how to
marshal the accumulated grievances of his people in a disciplined, yet militant
manner to a point of imminent drastic revolutionary struggles that ultimately
exploded in full insurrectionary ways giving birth to organs of peoples’ power,
especially from 1984 onwards. At all times, comrade Abbey Nkomo was the
necessary retraining and cajoling force between, on the one hand, those who,
consciously or not, would have brought about self-defeating uncontrollable
chaos and on the other hand, others who would have turned our people into
docile, obedient collaborators with apartheid.
During the darkest hours of
apartheid brutality, Dr Abbey Nkomo led from the front. He was the first to
urge some militant students to go back to school during the long boycotts of
the 1984-85. He was the first to console the families of the murdered student
Emma Sathekge and the callously killed four-year-old Mita Ngobeni. He
disregarded his personal safety when the security police killed community
leaders such as Mama Esther Masuku and attacked mourners during her funeral. He
did the 5 same as he gave support to the many other families that lost their
loved ones because of the violence unleashed by apartheid forces. When his two
surgeries were burned down and his house bombed, he never retreated.
During the National State of
Emergency, Dr Abbey Nkomo was detained for the whole year and kept at Pretoria
Central Prison. If the apartheid regime thought that they would break his
resolve, the opposite happened as both in prison and after his detention, he
continued to give support to many freedom fighters and assisted in the final
demise of the racist system.
After the unbanning of the ANC
and other organizations in 1990, the first branch of the organization in Atteridgeville/Saulsville
was chaired by none other than Dr Abbey Nkomo and through his leadership,
ensured that thorough preparations were made towards the 1994 democratic
elections. Indeed, When Nelson Mandela came to address the people of Tshwane
and beyond at the Atteridgeville Super Stadium (later renamed Masterpieces
Moripe stadium), after his release, Madiba was hosted and given the best
African hospitality at the home of comrade Nkomo.
In 1994, Dr Abbey Nkomo joined
many other freedom fighters as they engaged in the new terrain of struggle,
working for the transformation of South Africa towards a truly non-racial,
non-sexist, and prosperous country. This he did as the Member of Parliament and
the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee of Health as well as in other
committees. Then, Dr Abbey Nkomo eminently represented South Africa as the
Ambassador to Malaysia and Canada.
We know that in the twilight of
his life, Dr Abbey Nkomo was greatly pained by some of the immoral, amoral, and
decayed happenings within the ANC. He constantly asked why characters that are
engaged in malfeasance are not dealt with. In his memory and that of the many
heroes and heroines who have given so much for our freedom, we have a duty to
correct the many wrongs within the ANC and in government at all levels. Long
Live the Spirit of Comrade Abbey Nkomo,
Long Live!! Ends.
Titus Mafolo is an author, political counselor, community builder, veteran of the African National Congress, a community builder, a diplomat in his own right, historian, and business person of a special kind. History records him as former Political Advisor to former President of the Republic of South Africa, Thabo M Mbeki. As a community leader and UDF activist in Tshwane, more specifically from Atteridgeville, he worked, lived, dined, led, and related with Dr Nkomo.
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