There is a very childish and petty non-debate that has been elevated to national discourse, and I think it must be challenged. This non-debate is about ntate Kebbys role in uMkhonto weSizwe, which many are reducing to insignificance, on the grounds that he was a cook. Like most people, I stand opposed to the vitriol that was spewed against the Public Protector by ntate Kebby. To accuse the PP of being a CIA agent is beyond reckless - it is dangerous. It creates the impression that our PP has a double agenda and some extremists out there could use this as basis for placing her in mortal danger. But beyond that, it creates an environment of fear and sensorship, where truth-defenders could be afraid of fighting injustice for fear of being endangered by what theyll perceive as government itself. But for people to use todays article in the Sunday Times to argue that ntate Kebby was a mere cook and therefore his contributions to the struggle are neglectable is wrong. It fails to appreciate that the struggle demands different types of heroes, who all contribute to its ultimate success. In doing this, people are reducing the roles of even ordinary citizens, whom I believe are not celebrated enough in our history books, to mere recepients of charity, as opposed to agents of change that they were. Imagine if uMkhonto weSizwe had no cooks. What would the likes of Chris Hani have become? Food is a source of life, without which, all living things perish. Soldiers go through grueling exercise regimes in preparation for combat. To succeed in these, they need to operate at optimum physical levels. Cooks contribute food, giving soldiers much needed energies, keeping them alive and able to fight and defend a nation. In fact, those of you who study history would know that Napoleon Bonapartes army was once defeated not by the enemies strength, but by food and weather. As it attempted to penetrate further east, in the dead of winter, it ran out of food supplies, and by the time it reached enemy territory, it had been severely weakened by the harsh cold weather and lack of food. How then does an intelligent person reduce the question of food security within MK camps to insignificance, given the critical role that food (inter alia those who prepare it) play? What this non-debate does is to create the impression that only combatants fought the struggle. It neglects completely the reality that without critical roles played by other people, we would have no combatants in the first place. Take the likes of the magogos who used to hide MK soldiers in their humble homes. Are those magogos lesser revolutionaries because they didnt train in Lusaka or Tanzania, when in hiding soldiers from the Nationalist regime, they contributed to the accomplishment of missions? A person who worked as a messenger, delivering critical messages from one end to another, are they lesser revolutionaries than those who carried out instructions contained in those messages? If we say yes to these questions, the logical conclusion is that ANC members at branch level who do door-to-door campaigns, who mobilise and actually win the movement support from communities, are mere volunteers and the executive is the one thats more important. Do you see how ridiculous such a conclusion is? Lets debate the merits and demerits of the Sunday Times article, in particular the issue about ntate Kebby running away due to living conditions, without degenerating. Lets debate the idea of running away from a camp because of hardships, and determine if that was cowardly or pragmatic and so on and so forth. Lets even take it further and argue if conditions in our camps (by this I mean camps of MK, AZANLA, APLA and TSU) and the internal fragmentation, couldve led to the weakening of our fighting force and thereby, a victory for SADF and the apartheid regime. In a post-USSR era, what would a defeat for our armies mean? Were negotiations legitimate? What are the ramifications in post 1994 South Afrika? Those kinds of debates. Thats what the article must inspire. Not this childishness and shallowness that were being dragged into.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 12:54:23 +0000