HEADS AND TALES
Stories of a quiet hero
Thursday, 28 April, 2005
The South African Mint Company (Pty) Ltd has just announced its new issue of R2, R5 and R25 gold coins in a ‘Giants of South Africa ‘series. A set of three coins, with a combined face value of R32, will sell at R4950. Each sale carries the proviso that the ‘risk of gain or loss’ passes to the purchaser.
What do you think of that?
Well, it makes me think of the first 'Giant' in the goldcoin series, an exceedingly honest, sincere gentlemen with a great smile. Despite his dignity, you wanted to throw your arms about the man. There are very few such leaders in history.
Chief Albert Luthuli, 1898-1967. His head and his lifetime dates appear on all of the new coins. The set honours him as the Nobel Peace Laureate of 1960. The R5 coin carries his quote of 1958:
" We have reason to hope for freedom in our time. But you and you alone can turn this hope into a glorious reality. Afrika Maybuya! Freedom in our lifetime! "
I heard him uttering those sentiments – and many other wise and carefully considered things – in the early 1950s, when I also heard the cry Afrika Maybuya roared with an aggressive fervour that gentle Chief Luthuli seemed a little uncomfortable with.
He was a big man, so his gentleness was not immediately apparent. It came through in his calm body language and in the way he said things, rather than in what he said.
[I should add more on Luthuli’s style and leadership here] I remember a hot day in Durban, one of those politicised public holidays in the 1950s after the Nationalist regime had broken Parliament by illegally packing the Senate, and crushed an independent Supreme Court by using its new power of a political ‘High Court’.
Tropically humid Durban was experiencing one of its really hot days as Zulus gathered for a meeting, and for some planned cool protests. It needed to be ‘cool’, because the Nat regime was reaching the height of its power, with police in full control and no prospect of the government being challenged legally, or unseated by other means. The world outside was uninterested. South Africa’s nearest neighbours seemed cowed as well as uninterested (though certainly not disinterested whenever it became relevant to them). Our African neighbours behaved rather like most of South Africa’s populace.
It was in a different time: years Before Sharpeville.
So the meeting began, confined strictly to those who could squeeze into a small hall somewhere between Somtseu Road, I seem to remember, and that symbol of colonialism, the Durban railway station. (An ornate Edwardian-style brick structure, with a giant, glass-dome spreading over the main platforms; creating a canopy designed to withstand the pressure of several feet of snow. . . the design had been taken straight from Canada).
Hold those cheers
Durban ANC delegates defied the heat. Men in their best suits and ties and women in copious dresses and even shawls, were packed tightly together below the platform where numerous speeches were about to be delivered.
I was squeezed in a corner immediately below the platform with one or two other reporters – the only white (albeit anti-Nationalists) in the place. When the hall rocked with noise, we conducted our strict ritual of demonstrative neutrality. . . neither cheering or clapping or smiling. We did not even stand at the official opening during an unforgettable rendering of the hymn Sikelele Afrika.
This etiquette of "unbiassed neutrality" often had Natal newspaper reporters sitting on their hands – and in trouble. They found it hard not to cheer at times, especially the Torch Commando, and its underground successor in the 1950s which went under the James Bond-style name of “Natal Horticultural Society”.
So, as happened at every political meeting in those days (most especially at Nationalist rallies in northern Natal) the audience grew hostile to the press, with the front row of the rowdy audience - in touching distance - demonstrating their displeasure at our lack of enthusiasm for the fine speeches and the exciting occasion. Hostility and the unending speeches – this ANC meeting was just like a normal political gathering, except for the congestion and the heat.
The addresses of welcome; the praises; the thank-you’s and the oratory in English and Zulu droned on. . . until the leader of the ANC Youth clambered up onto the stage. Within minutes he had the crowd up on their feet and cheering. Soon they were shouting and stamping. He spoke – he raged – in Zulu, which unfortunately I and the other two at the press table could not follow. But we could certainly follow his drift, and judge the mood he was creating among the increasingly angry, respectably dressed audience.
Injustice. Oppression – and Freedom! The concepts bounced off the walls and were clutched in fists raised ceiling-wards. People started standing on chairs, to make room for others to chant and dance. The Youth Leader, shirt sleeves and fists raised to heaven, was screaming Afrika Maybuya! And stamping his foot as he added powerful war chants. He seemed to have drifted from his allotted task of appealing to the delegates to put money in the collection boxes that had ceased to circulate. Men at the back were gesturing at the doors behind them and calling to the crowd to come out of the crowded assembly so that they could demonstrate more enthusiastically in the street.
But everyone knew that there was a ring of police outside, ready to enforce the court order that the meeting had to be indoors only. Everyone knew that an act of defiance was being generated – right in laps our laps below the platform. The consequences of storming off to confront the heavily armed police waiting outside were as high as the tensions here indoors.
Mob frenzy
I have seen all kinds of riots breaking out at meetings – decent voters storming platforms and mauling the speakers with their chairs; mobs rushing through the streets smashing windows and beating up an occasional bystander; white Nationalists attacking the press as we leapt for the open window under which we always tried to station ourselves in those interesting times.
Crowd moods are as hard to gauge as they are to describe or control., so all I can say is that this audience was becoming a mob. Its mood was becoming increasingly illogical and ugly.
The programme was now thoroughly interrupted, and Fiery Youth had already taken over when Albert Luthuli stood up, walked to the front of the platform, and shouted. The Chief had never been known to shout. Those near the front who heard him, paused. He began to speak. He spoke evenly and quietly. People began to sit down (so did the Press -too far from the shut windows to escape). He spoke in Zulu, and he said things the Press did not understand, and things that the ruffled, sweating delegates obviously did not want to hear.
There was shouting, but he did not raise his voice in reply. He talked quietly, with miraculous effect. People returned to their seats, almost shamefacedly and began ‘shushing’ other people. He made them all smile. And then he asked them to sing. And I think my colleagues and I went against all ‘ethics’ by standing up to ‘honour the singing’. No-one could help smiling. Not even the Press. But a man nearby, who had been barracking us, smiled most of all.
Chief Luthuli, looking cool in his old, uncreased grey suit, said :“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the youth leaders - these fine young warriors in our midst - are going to get you to donate to our cause, and I ask you to give as generously as you are able. . . but not more than you can afford.”
Something like that. And I think it was then that I first heard him telling his audience:
“Freedom will come. Afrika Maybuya! We shall have freedom in our lifetime!”
And, the way he said it, people became calm. Later, when the meeting came to a purposeful close, they walked out confidently through the ranks of watching police.
I have seen many orators work up an audience. This was the only time I ever witnessed a leader stand up and immediately talk his wildly excited supporters into being civilized, thoughtful human beings again. Forty years later, when watching Nelson Mandela’s leadership, I sometimes found it hard to believe that it was not Chief Albert Luthuli visiting us from the grave. |
