Activist-poet Munzhedzi Frederick “Zorro” Ramovha once warned the ANC, before it came to power, about the danger of liberation movement leaders backsliding, enriching themselves and neglecting the needs of the electorate once elected. His warning has, sadly, been forgotten.
Ramovha, who practised as a lawyer in the post-apartheid era, was a politically active youth who went into exile in Zambia and Zimbabwe in the 1980s, where he saw first-hand how liberation and independence movements in government, such as Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF and Zambia’s United National Independence Party, turned corrupt, incompetent and repressive.
In exile, he joined the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, and was involved in the anti-apartheid writers circles, mainly in the Congress of South African Writers.
He came back from exile after the unbanning of South African liberation movements in 1990 to study law at the University of the Western Cape. After completing his legal education, he worked as a public prosecutor in the Northern Cape, before returning to his home region in Venda in the Limpopo, to practice law.
Ramovha, an old university friend, died in November 2011 after a long illness.
His poem, Soul Raid, is about how newfound power corrupts former liberation movement leaders. An extract of the poem: “All hypocrites are right … /The spirit of Judas seems to reign supreme, pushing honourable man’s dishonesty to the extreme … /Silence plod my conscience like a soldier’s boot and alone I sit and vainly brood.”
He warns that when citizens give liberation movement governments unchecked power without holding them accountable, repeatedly supporting leaders based on their past “struggle” records, the parties and leaders will behave like God — above the law, without morals and with unchecked violence — safe in the knowledge that their supporters will continue to vote them back into power, no matter their failures.
Former ANC leader and South African president Jacob Zuma encapsulated the party leaders’ arrogance when he said: “The ANC will rule until the second coming of Jesus.” That was irrespective of whether the party delivered on its promises.
Ramovha describes how such unchecked power, which he calls a “poisonous pill” given to liberation leaders by their supporters, destroys the moral soul of the party. In the poem, he writes: “Beware! This is a soul raid aimed at destroying beyond repair.”
Ramovha, a supporter of the ANC, feared the moment of truth when the masses who supported the ANC finally realised the ANC leaders’ corruption, moral decline and blame-shifting.
In his poem Moment of Truth, he writes: “When the moment of truth comes I shall hide away from this cruel reality, in a bid to distance myself” and “When the moment of truth comes, my life may lose all purpose of existence.”
At UWC, he was largely known for his poem, Oh African Child, which he recited at many political rallies. The poem summed up the hope of a future better life for many black South Africans then, with the collapse of apartheid for the first time looking like a reality.
In Oh African Child, Ramovha writes: “Daily you dream about that day, the day that you will mourn no more … / the day justice will replace injustice … /Oh African child.”
[Recordings of Ramovha’s reciting of Oh African Child is held at the Mayibuye Centre, University of the Western Cape Archives) (https://mayibuye.robben-island.org.za/.../Sound-and-Oral...)].
Born in 1955, in Tsianda village, in rural Vhembe, Ramovha matriculated from Dimani High School, in Thohoyandou, in the old Venda homeland. He initially registered for a law degree at the University of Venda but left to go into political exile.
When he turned up at UWC post-exile, with a bursary from the ANC, he was much older than all of us fresh from high school. For me, he was a wonderful example of someone who grasped the opportunity of late-life academic education.
Ramovha threw himself, with almost childish excitement, into student activism. He was a member of the editorial collective of the Student Voice, the award-winning student community newspaper, of which I was editor at the time. He was active in the South African Students’ Press Union and the South African National Students Congress and was a leading member of the UWC Creative Arts Society.
He was humble but had a serious, almost distant, solitary demeanour. He could see deeply, beyond the superficial reality, appearances and rhetoric. He was a keen observer of people and could spot political opportunists from a distance, behind their slogans, struggle songs and toyi-toying.
Yet, Ramovha also had a great sense of humour.
Younger fellow members of the Student Voice editorial collective — such as Julian Jacobs, who teaches journalism at Rhodes University; the late Chris Matlhako, the late deputy general secretary of the SACP; Ingrid Masondo, later an award-winning photographer and curator; and Rene Lewis, the gender activist who was also a member of UWC’s Kopanong black feminist collective at the time — would often playfully tease him. He would laugh easily.
He would often, beer in hand, spontaneously recite poetry, more often than not Oh African Child, with deep emotion, at Student Voice newspaper production evenings, which at the time was done in the old-style fashion, setting, laying out, pasting the paper and debating headlines, front covers and where to place photos, in the Student Voice offices in the basement of the UWC student union.
I have a vivid memory of him sitting pensively, beer-in-hand, with Jimmy Hendrix playing in the background, at Ruby in the Dust in Observatory, Cape Town, then an eclectic alternative music spot for progressive youth, to which I dragged him to for a Student Voice post-production drink.
He rarely did small talk. He was soft-spoken. One often had to lean-in when he talked. He would, in his slow, halting manner, full of hand gestures, recite an anecdote about life as an exile in African countries.
His conversation phrases often came out like the reciting of poems. He loved the metaphor and the parable. It took some listeners a while to get the meaning of what he was saying.
One of Ramovha’s poems is called What A Confused World: “Nothing is accepted in good spirit if it bears all the qualities of nothing … /for nothing in something, gives not nothing nor something.”
His poem Song of Hope is a call for never giving up hope, no matter how dire the circumstances. “We shall sing this song of hope … /when poets start singing killer songs … /when this tortuous pain invades my mind, harsh memories coming down like hail … /this song will be my soul’s antibiotic.”
Ramovha was a tall, wiry individual, built like a long-distance runner. On campus, his old motorcycle, I used to call it his "bromponie", was his prize-possession, and he had an old-style helmet. He appeared inseparable from his motorcycle.
He remained a strong proponent of racial reconciliation, cautioning that many opportunists, populists and hard-liners among blacks and whites are deliberately weaponising racial differences for personal and political benefit or plain racism, ethnic nationalism and tribalism.
In his poem Wait Not Till Dusk, he writes: Brave Cowards Fear Their Own Shadows. He acknowledges that “my quest for reconciliation was tested and tried”, adding “but still, my heart is free of hate”.
He narrowly missed out being the imbongi, traditional Nguni praise-singer, at the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as South African president after the first all-race democratic elections in 1994. He was deeply disappointed.
Ramovha’s fellow UWC Creative Arts Society member, the younger Zolani Mkiva, was appointed to be the traditional praise-singer at the inauguration — and did an excellent rendition. I wrote references for both.
In 1994, he co-authored a poetry volume, The Labour-Pains and Joy, (UWC Press) with fellow UWC Creative Arts Society poets, Petros Tserere and Leviticus Mendlula (both former Student Voice members), Mark Botha, Looks Matoto and Kaya Somgqeza.
Ramovha had an apocalyptic vision for South Africa’s future under an ANC that continued to fail in power because of corrupt, incompetent and morally depraved leaders, while its supporters continuously backed the party based on its past struggle record.
In his poem Just Now, he writes: “Just now I shall lie down and sleep eternally … /Just now I shall close my eyes after a fruitless strenuous search of a future of darkness that holds for my soul nothing but tantalising dreams.”
Professor William Gumede was editor of Student Voice, the student community newspaper, and former Head of the South African Students’ Newsagency and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg).