I bumped into a childhood friend the other day. It was supposed to be a happy reunion because the last time I saw him was a little more than seven years ago, before he was arrested for the murder of another friend. But he was far from happy.
Incidentally, it was the same week that former Robben Islander and Namibian struggle hero and now that country’s Prisons Minister, Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, had complained that his former South African comrades at the island had forgotten about him and his compatriots when they set up and benefited from the Makana Trust.
The trust was established in 1996 to help former political prisoners held at the famous Atlantic Ocean island adjust to normal life. Last year companies that Makana Trust had interests in declared R5-million worth of dividends. The Namibians have since set up their own fund.
But Sula — that is my friend’s name — is no struggle hero. He dreams of visiting Cape Town. He should have been happy to be out on parole after serving five of his 10-year sentence.
He is no saint, either. His ”main trade” was theft of anything with a resaleable value, until he was eventually arrested for taking someone’s life. ”I don’t know why I did not get arrested for what I did for a living. But maybe there was a reason for me to survive the 1990s. Many of the people I lived with didn’t,” he told me.
Having accepted his fate and after adjusting to jail life, Sula made the first attempts at cleaning up his act. He completed matric, with the help of an inmate jailed for political violence. Even better, he attempted his hand at mathematics, a subject that Bantu education institutions taught us was for the gifted few. He was breaking new ground after reading history and biblical studies before dropping out of high school.
”In jail, you can be anything you want to be. You can be an even better criminal than before you came in, or you can get a fresh start in life, it’s up to an individual.”
Sula completed two years of a four-year technical college diploma in electrical engineering. Then a warder broke the worst possible news. He was to be released on parole.
”What’s the point of being released into this hopelessness? When I was inside I could go to school, acquire skills, but out here you are on your own. I cannot expect anyone here at home to help me [pay to] complete the diploma.
”When I asked not to be released, the warders looked at me as if I was mad — I did not want to be released after seven years [two awaiting trial and five years after conviction]. They told me that — as I knew it myself — jails are full and some people have to be released.”
But despite the obvious benefits of being in jail, Sula is determined never to return to jail or a life that could expedite his return.
I suggested to him that perhaps the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Reintegration of Offenders (Nicro) could help.
Nicro’s record as a trailblazer in attempting to make the plight of offenders is well known. It has been known to assist prisoners, and sometimes their children, to access study bursaries.
But a visit to the Mofolo south office was devastatingly short. ”We used to have bursaries but not anymore. There are very few funders and the computer training project we used to run here had to be discontinued because of a burglary,” explained a woman who did not say who she was and what she did at Nicro.
”You can go to the Johannesburg Library’s reference section, they have a book there on where and how to access bursaries. That’s all I can say,” she added.
Like I said earlier, Sula is no struggle hero but that does not mean that he has to be left to the wolves. In fact, unlike struggle heroes whose consciences drove them to jail, we should pay better attention to the rehabilitation of common thugs. It is for our own good.
I am one of those people who thought former correctional services minister Ben Skosana too easily had abdicated his responsibilities when he said half of all prisoners are destined to return to the joint at some point. But he rightly added that rehabilitation was the responsibility of society as a whole.
The Makana Trust has set an example of what can be done. Starting a Makana-type project for ”common thugs” could be another way of showing that the gains of our struggle are not just for the politically connected few.
We can choose to invest in such a project or in higher walls and complicated security devices at our homes.