By
James Whyle
This
piece was first published by Playboy South Africa to coincide with President
Mandela’s inauguration. It was republished by Pif Magazine and more recently
by http://www.identitytheory.com/
When
I was running away from the army in Swaziland I came across Nelson Mandela's
book, No Easy Walk to Freedom. It was a time when I had difficulty with
any literature except pornography and Doris Lessing. All the devils of the
military were on my tail and it was hard to concentrate. But I read some of
Mandela's speech from the dock and finally realized why he was in jail and why
his writings were banned. It came as a shock because it was so simple. So
down-home, common-sense simple. The lies about why he was in jail were
convoluted and gothic and worked on; art at it's most artificial and evil. And
one grew up on a gruel of those lies. Fed and fattened we were on the lies
about why Nelson Mandela was in jail.
Steve
Biko was my first black hero and I only found out who he was after he was
murdered by the police. The front page of the Daily Dispatch had a head-line
and picture of the man. Nothing else. That took up the whole front page. And I
had no idea who he was. I had to ask my sociologist friends in the bar.
This
is because I spent a happy, privileged youth getting an education in
interesting and sometimes useless subjects. Or if not actually useless, irrelevant.
I can still remember a snippet of Virgil. But of Nelson Mandela's first
language, Xhosa, all I remember is: Umnqundwakho
njanihashi. (Your arse resembles that of a horse.) I grew up speaking Xhosa
but when I went away to boarding school at St Andrew's College in Grahamstown
they replaced it with Latin. Xhosa was not in the syllabus.
Nelson
Mandela was never spoken about at home. Ian Smith, prime minister of Rhodesia,
he was an issue. "A bloody fool," was my mother's comment. Kennedy's
assassination, the shooting of Verwoed, the first man on the moon, Harold
Wilson; these, “grown ups” spoke about. Nelson Mandela, no.
The
fact is, the evil laws worked. People disappeared out of history like the
politician who is airbrushed out of the photograph in the beginning of Milan
Kundera's Book of Laughter and Forgetting. They sat incarcerated on
Robben Island and luxury yachts wheeled around them. If you were rich and
liberal you could buy Nelson Mandela's book overseas, smuggle it back, and read
his banned words as you wheeled round Robin Island on a yacht. You could look
up from the book and reach for a Stuyvesant and survey the beautiful view of
Capetown while you meditated on the meaning of Mandela's words. But for most
white South Africans, Nelson Mandela just disappeared out of history.
In
spite of these successful suppressions, by the time I was ready to drop out of
university something had become clear to me. "The evil racist regime"
was in fact just that. It was the inverted commas that were lying. Much of my
last year was spent worrying about whether I should go to the army or leave the
country. Eventually I chickened out. I told myself I was giving up all
pretensions to morality and reported for duty in Johannesburg. On July the 4th
1979 I boarded a train and travelled
out to a place called Burke's Luck in the Eastern Transvaal. It was horrible.
No
71518757 Rifleman J Whyle would lie in the bungalow reading Michael Herr's
Dispatches and wondering what was happening to him. Burke's Luck was far from
headquarters in Pretoria and the rank did what the hell they wanted. I remember
a Sergeant Major telling assembled troops that he liked to “make biltong out of
kaffirs.” The perversion of Christianity was awesome. The corporals were brainwashed
baboons regurgitating evil and misunderstood philosophies.
They'd
sit you down in the veld and tell you in all solemnity that the purpose of the
R4 Rifle was to kill the enemy. They tell you that you had no rights, only
privileges. They'd tell you that the enemy were black evil communist monsters
coming to steal your birth right.
To
add to my problems Christian National Education had produced a poor crop,
brainwise. It took my peers weeks to learn to assemble in a straight line. Every
time we did it wrong we had to run up a mountain. Our helmets bounced on our
heads like a private rhythm section. Once, someone collapsed with a burst
appendix. We carried him up the mountain. When we got back he wouldn't stand up
straight. So we had to bounce that burst appendix to the mountain top once
more. Sometimes people died. I think there was a stage when the army killed
more people in training than the actual war did.
After
six weeks, we were interviewed by a major who would decide what to do with us.
He asked my qualifications and I lied, telling him I had a degree, but adding
truthfully that I didn't like the army because it protected Apartheid rather
than South Africa. My lie gave him the excuse to rid himself of a potential
trouble causer and he sent me to the Engineers in Kroonstad. The President of
South Africa was not mentioned. No talk of Nelson Mandela.
I
finished the rest of my basic training as Sapper J Whyle of the Young Officers
Squadron of the Engineers School. The squadron was made up of graduate
engineers. People who could swiftly arrange themselves in a straight line. I
started to relax into the pain. If I was going to spend two years fighting a
bad war I might as well do it as an officer. Lieutenant James Whyle had a
certain ring to. My father fought in the trenches in the first world war as
Lieutenant James Whyle. Lieutenant James Whyle went over the top in France and
took a german bullet in the lung when he was seventeen years old. These
romantic justifications were interrupted when our corporal shot Colin Reece.
Colin
Reece was a bright, young, decent, left-leaning engineer who was about to get
married. He slept opposite me in the bungalow. We brewed coffee together. He
was a nice guy.
The
corporal took it on himself to shoot at us in the safety area of a bush
lane shooting exercise. Under army regulations, you were not allowed to have a
magazine in your rifle in a safety area. This baboon, who was in control of our
lives down to the fine details of how we folded our underpants, started
shooting at us because we were tired and falling asleep and because some baboon
had shot at him when he was in basic training. He started with plastic rounds.
We didn't react. We were tired and somehow that bang and the puff of dust in
the bank next to us was hard to tie together with imminent death. So the
corporal slotted in a live magazine and fired a few more rounds and one of them
went through a tree and then through Colin's sleeping head.
I
saw Colin jerking, but still didn't tie it together. I thought he was having an
epileptic fit. Twenty minutes later he was dead. The coroporal was charged in a
civilian court and sentenced to two hundred hours served over weekends. He
carried on training troops. A priest came and spoke to us.
"Look
on the bright side," he said.
***
When
the major interviewed us at the end of basic training my line was I'd rather
wear dogshit on my shoulder than the State President's commission. They sent me
into the base camp to get rid of me. No one mentioned Nelson Mandela, but I was
starting to get the measure of the beast. Little did I know that I was to be
greekly present at the conception of it's offspring.
The
base camp was full of recalcitrants and misfits, most of them violent. There
was a young miner called Greensby who could break every bone in his body in a
bike accident on Monday and have recovered enough by Friday to beat the shit
out of some poor soul on the grounds that he had been in the army less days
than Greensby had. Greensby's boast was that he was down underground ordering
grown black men around when he was sixteen. There was mysterious man called
Whitey who joined us on brief breaks from detention barracks. Whitey had no
rank but would march outside the squad next to the corporal on the way to
breakfast. When Whitey was out of DB we locked our section of the bungalow at
night. We prayed stricken prayers to the Lord as we listened to Whitey down
bottles of brandy and beat on the door and howl out his intention of tearing us
limb from limb. Whitey had the brain and force of a buffalo and the soul of a
rabid Hyena.
I
ended up as a clerk in the visual aids store, cataloguing ancient films on road
building and Bailey Bridges. One of the functions of the visual aids store was
military shows. We loaded up a Bedford with Mines and a water purification
system and put on displays at agricultural shows in small Freestate towns. The
Staff Sergeant was artistic and would decorate the bombs with tinsel and roses. We would explain to old grannies how a
certain mine was activated by a trip wire. It then leaped into the air and
killed everyone within fifty yards.
"Oulik,"
the grannies would inevitably respond, "oulik." The word is
Afrikaans. It means "cute."
One
of our team was Sapper Seamus Fijn. Fijn liked breaking things and fucking
things. He'd fuck anything. A pile of pipes, a sandbag, anything. He liked to
leave the big generator loose in the back of the Bedford and then break hard at
a robot so that the generator rumbled forward under the force of it's inertia
and smashed against the cab. One night at the Bloemfontein showgrounds he got
drunk and disappeared. Eventually our tall, worried, ginger Lieutenant got up
the courage to report the disappearance to the military police.
"Oh,"
said the MP Sergeant, "that guy who fucked the cow."
The
beast had been procreating.
***
The
beast was busy. It was the beast at work when Dan Hull said to Rodney Dicks:
"That's
my beer."
"No,
it's not."
"That's
my fucking beer."
"No,
it isn't."
Hull
slapped Rodney hard through the face."
"Why
don't you hit me."
"No,
I don't want to." Another slap.
"Hit
me, you fucking woman."
"No."
"I'll
kick your cunt in you fucking woman."
"No."
"Hit
me, you fucking woman." And so on.
Eventually
Rodney planted a straight right that knocked Hall straight off his feet. Rodney
then danced around like an englishman, waiting for Hull to get up. Hull was a
headbutting street fighter and Rodney ended up getting his teeth kicked out of
his head. He sat on the floor of the bungalow saying "no, no," and
his teeth bounced on the lino. I sat, English, on my bed, watching.
Middle
class, fence-sitting, english, I had sat and watched this evil grow for twenty
four years. It was enough. Not long afterwards, instead of returning from my
yearly seven day leave, I travelled to Swaziland and bought Nelson Mandela's
book, No Easy Walk to Freedom.
***
My
position in Swaziland was clarified when the UN Representative for Refugees, a
Ugandan who spoke English with an american accent, told me to leave as soon as
possible. The Swazi government, he said, would sooner throw me in jail and
forget about me than upset South Africa. The alternative was Europe. If I was
lucky, England and the dole. I went back to Kroonstad.
After
all, I had BA Psychology Failed behind my name. Once I had found my way to the
psychiatric ward of the Bloemfontein Military Hospital it was plain sailing.
"If
I have to fight this war," I told them, "I'd rather be on the other
side."
They
showed me an ink blot.
"A
spider feeds the apartheid politician," I said.
They
looked worried. They showed me a rural picture of a beautiful young mother
outside a farm house. She hugged a bowl of fruit to matronly breasts.
"The
fruit is rotten. It's the hidden decay of afrikaaner nationalism."
They
tried to frighten me. I yelled straight back. Within a week they gave a
beautiful certificate saying I was "emotionally immature with tendencies
towards neurosis."
"I
suppose you want compensation," they said sulkily.
"Huh?"
"For
what we've done to you."
"No
thank you," I said.
The
thought had never entered my head. Relieved, they sent me home. Wherever that
was.
***
In
1986 I drove down to the Grahamstown Festival of the Arts with my friend the
painter, Carl Becker, in a 3 liter Cortina pick-up that belonged to Carl's
uncle. On the back was the world famous Aeroplane's sound system. The
Aeroplanes were a band that consisted of the nascent film director Michael
Rudolf, Carl, myself, and two youngsters. Michael and Carl wrote minedump pop
songs with names like Sally and Hey, Where's the Jol and South
African Male. They were ironic, tuneful, dance-inspiring songs that should
have been on the radio and never were because the Aeroplanes were rude about
the army and the government. Between sets Sean Taylor, Nicky Rebelo, myself and
others would perform sketches like the piece about the insane Reconnaissance
Commandos called Buks and Rooker:
BUKS.
Remember Pyp.
ROOKER. Pyp Terreblanche! Used to drink a bottle of Tequila and smack his head against a tree!
BUKS.
Dead.
ROOKER.
(Beat.) Is it?
BUKS.
Stood on a land mine in Ondongwa.
Everyone
that Buks and Rooker talked about was dead:
BUKS.
Remember Shorty.
ROOKER.
That bastard. He stole my other piece of chicken.
BUKS.
Dead.
ROOKER.
(Beat.) Is it?
BUKS.
They took him out with an AK in Katlehong.
Buks
and Rooker were maniacs from the war zone that went around slaughtering black
people. They referred to women in genitally specific terms:
BUKS.
So what are you doing here?
ROOKER.
(Beat.) Checking out the poes.
The
sketches were funny and surreal. You weren't allowed to hear stuff like that.
South African art had always been a
mirror that lied. For people to suddenly see themselves was a shock. The
laugh of recognition that came from black people lifted the heart.
Carl
and I used the mountain route past Clocolan and Wepener. Eeach of those little
Free State towns was divided in two: one little town for white people - one
little township for blacks. And the towns where the black people
lived were surrounded by lights like a soccer stadium. At night the police or
the army could go in there and see what they were doing.
A
state of emergency had just been declared and there were many road blocks. They
were big road blocks with lots of vehicles and many army and police personnel.
When they stopped you, they'd shine a torch in your face and wave you on when
they saw you were white.
***
There
was trouble as soon as we hit Grahamstown because the End Conscription Campaign
had distributed leaflets at the Goodwood Hotel where we were playing. The End
Conscription Campaign was banned and the Aeroplanes had became the unofficial
thin end of an anti-army wedge. By distributing leaflets at Aeroplanes gigs the
ECC could let their supporters know that they were still around. This was
important. At that time few people were saying in public how evil the army was.
Those that did it officially tended to go to jail. The manager of the Goodwood
hotel felt that supporting banned organizations and inviting the attentions of
the Grahamstown security branch might be bad for his standing in the local
business community. He gave us a lot of flack. So the whole gig started on an
edgy, wired, note that was the opposite of the Aeroplanes' true aims. When the
Aeroplanes cooked, people smiled a lot. We created very good parties. We were
the band for good whites who were staying.
It
wasn't the best gig we ever did and when we'd done two or three sets for our
hard core fans we'd go up to one of the other bars and get drunk. We drank
consistently and hard for eight days. By ten in the morning Carl and I would be
in the Cathcart Arms having a beer to take the edge of the hangover. At around
eight in the evening we'd acknowledge that the beer wasn't working and order
six tequilas.
We
tended not to see many shows but some Aeroplanes and camp followers did come
and see me and the writer Ryk Hattingh read our pieces of prose and poetry
called 'N Gesprek Tussen Twee Cuntos in a Land of Despair. The afrikaans
part of the title means "a discussion between two Cuntos". That last
word is made up and if you need help with the last syllable there is a South
African street word "ou" which means chap, bloke.
Our
stories were about growing up in South Africa; about how we got where we were;
about origins. The show was a litany of the lies we had been taught about
history combined with our experience in armies and schools and beds that had
taught us the truth. Hardly anyone saw it because it was too raw and private
for any general audience of that time. Every time we did it in Grahamstown an
accumulation of drink and emotion and worry about the country lead us into a
cathartic relationship with our audience.
We'd
meet before readings and have a brandy and gingerale at the bar in the 1840
Settler's Monument foyer. The bar was run by an amateur who sold his tequila
for regular prices in glasses twice the size of the norm. It was irresistible.
The spirit would ease it's warmth into my soul and I'd feel those accumulations
of anger and love that were my relationship with my tribe and country squirt
into my blood stream from the love gland. That's what it felt like anyway. And
every time I got to the story of Sapper Fijn and the Cow, I wept. I wept
for South Africa.
***
Norman
Mailer claims that spirits enter a man when he drinks hard liquor. I believe
him. When I got back from Grahamstown,
I wrote like one fueled by the anger of the ancestors. Everyday I walked into
Hillbrow and sat down at the Potato Kitchen in Kotze Street in Hillbrow and
ordered coffee and wrote in an exercise book with a Parker fountain pen.
"When
I was running away from the army in Swaziland," I wrote, "I bought
Nelson Mandela's book, No Easy Walk to Freedom. I realized then that
Nelson Mandela is not in prison because he is a dark, ruthless, AK 47 bearing,
communist monster. Nelson Mandela is in prison because he is brave, reasonable,
honest man who took action."
***
Later
in the eighties Nicky Rebello and myself and others did a show called Out of Control at the
Black Sun, which was then Johannesburg's only truly alternative revue venue.
The show consisted of seven men singing a capella versions of great rock songs
like Buddy Holly's Don't Fade Away. In between the songs were sketches.
We had stuff about smoking dope on Durban beach while bombs went off in the
beach front bars and the seagulls said:
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!"
We
did a kind of musicalized chant version of Sapper Fijn and the Cow.
Nicky did a beautiful piece about a white boy whose parents taught him to be
cruel to blacks and now he was going to jail for murder and he couldn't understand why.
The
show ended with a cacophony of political speeches:
"We'll
fight them on the beaches..."
"I
have a dream..."
"Ask
not what your country can do for you..."
And
Nelson Mandela. Banned, imprisoned, Nelson Mandela.
We
used the last paragraph from his second statement at the Rivonia Trail in 1964.
The famous bit.
"During
my life time I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African People. I
have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black
domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in
which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is
an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal
for which I am prepared to die."
I
claimed the piece for my own. After all, it was against the law. And every time
I spoke those words my heart filled with a patriotic pride that Christian
Nationalist Education had tried to instill in me and failed. For a long time
afterwards, I knew those words by heart.
***
When
Nelson Mandela set himself free and walked proudly out of the Victor Verster
prison I watched with my wife and children and friends and the rest of the
world in the sitting room of our house in Johannesburg.
Some
years later I stepped out the back gate and bumped into my friend Jon Maytham.
Jon was dropping his son off at the play school next to the Synagogue next
door. He had performed with the Aeroplanes in the old days. He did a horse race
commentary where the horses had names like African Nationalism and Naked Racism
and Logical Positivism (a rank outsider). The Racist Regime was still in full
swing then and the audience would roar with laughter when Total Anarchy took
the race by a length.
Jon
and I chatted for a bit and then he said:
"There's
Nelson Mandela."
I
looked up and there he was. He walked out of the play school with his grandson
and two low-key body guards. A white mother recognized and greeted him. He
chatted to her.
It
occurred to me to introduce myself; tell him about Swaziland, buying his book.
But the sunny Johannesburg morning was so peaceful. It seemed an unnecessary intrusion. A grandfather was picking up
his daughter's child from play school. Let it be. Mr Mandela smiled and nodded
to the woman, spoke. After a couple of minutes they parted and he drove off in
a black mercedes. I looked around. A domestic servant was chatting to a friend
on the corner. An Hassidic man hurried into the Shul. I could hear my wife
calling to the children.
There
was still evil loose in the land. But it was centerless. It had lost it's state
funded nucleus. That is why the violence was so random. The strong force of the
hurricane was divided into many small whirl winds. We get them all the time in
Africa. We call them dust devils. The beast's work.
I
feel at home here now. There are honest men among us. Good men who live by
truths so simple that speaking them had to be paid for with twenty-six years in
jail. Simple, difficult truths: democracy, law, freedom. And the men that speak
them are human. They pick up children from school. They are fathers,
grandfathers, sons. They make mistakes. I have never felt more at home.