In black and white: The Nkosi family circa 1942, in a photo taken on the steps of a church in Ferreirasdorp, Johannesburg. Morley Nkosi, author of the memoir The Way Home, is seated in the middle.
The African Association had offices for different liberation movements in various countries. There were representatives’ offices for South Africans, South West Africans, Southern and Northern Rhodesians, Ugandans, and others. Geoff [Geoffrey Mokoka, a PAC member from Sophiatown] and I inquired about the representatives of liberation movements from South Africa. We were told that there were two representatives from the African National Congress (ANC).
It was quite early in the morning and they had not yet arrived, so we waited outside their office. The PAC did not have an office and had no representatives either.
We did not wait long before the two ANC representatives arrived. We did not know them, nor did they know us, but because we were South African refugees, they took us into their care. We gave them a full account of who we were and how we had arrived in Cairo. They confirmed that there was no PAC representative at that time but that they would take us in nonetheless. The two ANC representatives were Mzwai Piliso and Ambrose Makiwane.
We lived in their house until we found a small room on top of a high-rise apartment building near the African Association offices, which we rented. The ANC office helped us get financial stipends, which we used to pay our rent and buy some basic items. Our room was on the roof of this building, which housed the domestic maids working in it.
We shared a single bed. Apart from it, other treasured belongings were a primus stove, a couple of pots, a pan, two metal dishes, two old military cups and some spoons. We also had some linen for our bed, a couple of face cloths, and two towels.
What was really awful about this room was sharing a small bed and preparing scanty, basic meals using a primus stove. To sleep two of us on a single bed we had to sleep head to toe, each looking at and smelling the other’s feet. Geoff was a restless sleeper; sometimes I would be woken up by a kick in the face. But it was better than sleeping on the bare concrete floor. We simply had to put up with each other.
Geoff and I spent some evenings watching various sporting activities played by young Egyptians on the Zamalek sports field, which was well lit and which we could see from the top of the building where our little room was located. Those of us who sometimes had a little more money would venture into the nightclubs to watch belly dancers. Movies were a no-go because our Arabic was almost non-existent.
In the evenings, the boats that carried passengers, tourists, and cargo during the day were moored along the banks of the Nile. Some of these, which moored under the bridge connecting the island of Zamalek to the city centre, were very busy at night. They served liquor and were frequented by prostitutes. I met a few important African liberation leaders on some of these boats. We had all gone there for drinks.
Pan-African solidarity promoted and practised by leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Nasser, Julius Nyerere and other leaders contributed to the strengthening of the Pan Africanist fulcrum built over decades by black intellectuals in the diaspora and the continent. These leaders took a personal interest in keeping track of, and offering advice and guidance to, liberation organisations. Their influence on, and commitment to, the liberation and independence of the entire continent did not go unnoticed by the big powers, East and West, who were determined to exert their own influence on these movements.
Addressing exile: Writer and activist Morley Nkosi in traditional attire with his wife Joanna Karvonides in New York, 1970.
Consequently, there was no liberation movement that was not being courted by these powers. There were many ways in which they did this, but the most effective was by providing financial assistance in one form or another. In most cases, this took the form of scholarships in their countries.
Most of us were aware that we were pawns in the Cold War contest and were therefore quite vulnerable. We had to be careful about taking sides in the contest between East and West. Those of us who did take sides usually ended up facing disastrous consequences which, in turn, hurt the organisations we belonged to. Embassies from both the East and the West were aggressive in recruiting political refugees from the African Association.
It was in this atmosphere that we came to know, and become friends with, Sally Burgess, an official in the Consul section of the American Embassy in Cairo. Sally was a small woman, engaging, even gregarious.
It was Sally who introduced me to lavish evening parties in the desert around the Great Pyramids of Giza with the Great Sphinx gazing majestically over us. I learned to ride a camel at one of these parties. But I also had a feeling of disquiet. Being a pawn in the heady international political and ideological contest staged in the Cairo of the early sixties could easily have developed into an adventure with unpredictable consequences. Walking around Cairo, waiting for some help from the PAC while attending embassy parties where there was free food and lots of drinks, made me feel uneasy, adrift.
We all had a lot of time on our hands waiting to go somewhere. Some of us would visit interesting sites like the museums and parts of the old section of the city during the day. I even visited the Port of Alexandria and its fantastic museums. But Geoff and I became increasingly restless. We sent word to the PAC representative based in London, Nana Mahomo, asking to leave Egypt, and he finally came to Cairo.
We gave him an extensive briefing, which covered the period from the Sharpeville shootings up to our present situation, including our respective journeys, our meeting with Peter Molotsi in Dar es Salaam, and how we got to Cairo from Nairobi. He appreciated our long oral report. He then asked what it was we wanted to do and where? Geoff wanted to go to Ghana as soon as possible, whereas I wanted to train as a fighter pilot in the Egyptian air force. Geoff’s wish was accepted.
Frozen out: Morley Nkosi in exile in London circa 1961.
Nana was startled by my request. He rejected it firmly and instead proposed that I enrol at the local and prestigious Al-Azhar University. I was stunned.
What went through my mind was having to learn to read, write, and speak Arabic. Al-Azhar was at that time a renowned centre of Islamic and Arab learning in the world, and I was neither an Islamist nor an Arab, so I rejected this offer.
We had to find a compromise. And the compromise was that I would go to London where we would decide on what I could do and where. It was agreed that Geoff and I would go to London by ship, which we would board at Port Said. We were excited by the prospect of London, a place we still thought, somewhat naively, was the centre of the world.
I still feel occasional anger at Nana’s refusal to arrange that I be trained as a fighter pilot. I also wonder what would have become of me had I enrolled at Al-Azhar. I found out much later in the same year that I was in Cairo, 1961, the Al-Azhar University was taken over by the government of President Gamal Nasser. A wide range of secular faculties were added for the first time: business, economics, science, pharmacy, medicine, engineering, and agriculture. Before 1961, Al-Azhar was a religious university and centre of higher learning.
When it was confirmed that I was going to leave for London, Dr Hilmy and his family arranged a farewell lunch for me. It was touching. I was leaving an environment that I had begun to like and find quite familiar. I had formed friendships that I truly treasured, and by this time, I could speak passable Arabic. But now I had to go.
Geoff and I were contacted by a travel agent of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company and told that our tickets to travel from Port Said to Southampton by ship were ready. This port was east of Port Alexandria. I had hoped that we would depart from Alexandria, the largest port in Egypt and the second-biggest city in the country.
I had visited Alexandria earlier with an Egyptian whom I had befriended in Cairo and whose home was in Alexandria. He had shown me some memorable places in parts of the Al Montaza district, which is the major centre of the city. Some of the museums that I visited, like the Alexandria National Museum, were wonderful. I was hoping to return and explore other historic sites that I had been told about. Unfortunately, this was not going to happen: it was now time to leave the continent.
The Way Home is published by the University of Johannesburg Press.