Former Free State premier Ace Magashule. (Mlungisi Louw/Volksblad/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
Free State courts have suddenly become busy. A number of officials are on trial for corruption in various cases. This is indicative of the significant shift in our politics.
The revival of electoral fortunes, for the ruling ANC, depends on them proving they’re on a new path of renewal. Governance in the Free State, which has been under the ANC since 1994, perhaps more than any other province, is in desperate need of renewal. Things are so bad that Gwede Mantashe, the ANC’s national chairperson, recently remarked that government is effectively non-existent in that province.
The shambolic state of the Free State is illustrative of the hollowness of populism. The former premier of the province, Ace Magashule, styled himself as a “man of the people”. His presence was not only felt in every part of that territory but he claimed to prioritise the needs of his people. He meddled with the appointment of officials, some have asserted, down to the level of cleaners.
Magashule justified this intrusion into the administration by claiming he wanted to ensure the best person was employed for the job. The evidence, however, proved the contrary. Municipalities in the Free State are among the worst in the country and they deteriorated under his watch.
For a more befitting illustration of the fraudulence of populism, however, one only needs to look at Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s Brandfort House Museum. Magashule is fond of using Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy to buttress his liberation credentials.
Madikizela-Mandela was a popular figure, known for her militant defiance of the apartheid state. She was also very critical of her own government when she felt it was unresponsive to the needs of the downtrodden. Some of her criticism was sound but she was also not averse to populism — making unreasonable claims to elicit popular applause. That was part of the reason for her popular adoration, making her an attractive model for Magashule. He not only associated himself with her, but styled his leadership in a similar fashion, in the hope that he too would be adored. He used Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy to prop himself up.
In essence, however, Magashule’s advocacy of Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy was more about public relations — without any substance. The museum, in the house to which Madikizela-Mandela was banished for eight years, between 1977 and 1985, was neglected throughout Magashule’s tenure. Declared a museum in the late 2000s, the house was earmarked for renovations and regular maintenance. Nothing happened until around 2018.
The reason for the neglect was the disappearance of funds that had been allocated for the declared museum. It was only in September 2022 that the officials suspected of syphoning the funds were arrested. And, their thievery happened between 2008 and 2010. Throughout the intervening period of 12 years, the height of Magashule’s tenure as premier, the officials were never brought to book.
For someone claiming to be a prodigy of Madikizela-Mandela, one would have expected Magashule not only to prioritise the museum, but also be outraged at the mere mention of the syphoning of the funds.
That museum is most telling of both the hardships that befell Madikizela-Mandela and her resilience. She was woken up in her house in Soweto in the wee hours by police dressed in camouflage and driven 400km to Brandfort, a place she had neither been to, nor even heard of. Madikizela-Mandela knew no one there, nor could she speak the local language, Sotho.
Banishment was one of many draconian measures the authorities used to silence political opponents but the practice predates apartheid. The very first banishment, in what would later become South Africa, was recorded in 1636. Upon the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, banishment was legalised through the 1927 Native Administrative Act. The state was empowered to relocate “agitators”, without any notification or explanation, to places where they were unlikely to do “mischief”.
To be sure, banishment was the last draconian measure the apartheid state inflicted on Madikizela-Mandela for political involvement. Her debut act of activism, in the 1958 women’s march against passes, earned her detention and a dismissal from her job. A series of banning orders and detention spells, coupled with solitary confinement, followed. But, they just couldn’t break her spirit. The state hoped banishment would succeed where other action had failed. The last straw for the state was her closeness and, consequently influence over, Black Consciousness Movement activists in the 1970s.
The Brandfort house was in a shabby state. It was a three-roomed structure, attached to another, without a floor, electricity or running water and had an outside latrine. She had no furniture in the initial weeks, to months, of her arrival. Contact with the outside world was difficult, for the township had no public phone. She had to travel to town to use the public phone at the post office.
Locals shunned her. Officials had terrified them into believing that she was a terrorist and that any contact with her was punishable by arrest. She had to get a permit to attend church services, which she refused to do, believing that she did not need anyone’s permission to worship. For a regular church-goer, not attending added to her suffering.
Rather than letting it break her, Madikizela-Mandela became even more defiant. She refused to comply with the segregated services that were the hallmark of apartheid. Instead of using the entrance reserved for Africans, Madikizela-Mandela would use the whites-only entrances — to the horror of local whites. She defied the rules that prohibited black customers from trying on clothes before buying them. Clothing shops eventually capitulated and scrapped the racist practice.
Inspired, locals followed her example. They too defied discriminatory practices. They began to realise that Madikizela-Mandela was not the terrorist that they had been warned against. She was simply insisting on humane treatment. Her caring nature and social activism also endeared her to them.
On realising there was a high mortality rate in the township, due to malnutrition and inadequate access to nutritious food and healthcare, she started a garden of her own and encouraged others to do the same. Sympathisers beyond Brandfort got word of her social activities and sent seeds.
The authorities installed a tap in her yard to cut her off from mingling with other women at the communal tap. Whenever she was there to collect water, other women would gather for a chat. Instead of using that tap for her private benefit, she used it for public upliftment. She initiated a number of other projects to fight poverty and ill-health. These included a clinic, soup kitchen, bakery, sewing group and a kindergarten.
Local whites were not left untouched. Most resented her presence and what they considered her insolence. Others were exposed to the cruelty of apartheid through Madikizela-Mandela’s experiences and her efforts brought them to realise that she was just human. They had never encountered confident African women, with a strong sense of self-agency.
Dr Chris Hattingh, a white man, became an acquaintance, offering assistance. He would later die in a mysterious car accident, which Madikizela-Mandela believed was caused by foul play. A local lawyer, Piet de Waal, also became an acquaintance. De Waal’s wife, Adele, warmed to Madikizela-Mandela to the point of befriending her.
But, “Little Siberia”, as Madikizela-Mandela called Brandfort, never became home to her. She longed to return to Soweto. That opportunity presented itself in October 1982, albeit just a visit, forced by illness. She had a car accident earlier that year and suffered an injury to her leg. The injury never healed and later caused her serious illness, forcing an emergency surgery.
She insisted on getting treatment in Johannesburg but refused to ask for permission to travel, saying she would rather die than beg for it. Fearing the backlash that would be sparked by her death, the authorities allowed her to travel. The surgery was successful. Instead of returning to Brandfort, Madikizela-Mandela insisted on staying in Soweto, at her house, until she had recovered. After a five-year absence, she was back home, without the permission of the authorities. It would take the police several months to force her to return to Little Siberia.
When she finally returned to Johannesburg in 1985, it was not because the police had willingly agreed to end her banishment. She refused to inhabit the house, after it was damaged in a fire caused by a petrol bomb. Fortunately, she was not there at the time. Faced with a defiant Madikizela-Mandela, the state relented to her demand to return to Johannesburg.
Madikizela-Mandela’s Brandfort house, therefore, tells a story of hardship and defiance. That she didn’t surrender to the horrors of state terrorism added to her iconic status. That’s what Magashule hoped to exploit by feigning closeness to her. Because he was a populist, he was never about preserving the memory of Madikizela-Mandela’s life. Populism is hollow and shameless.
Mcebisi Ndletyana is professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg. This column draws from research he did for the National Heritage Council, where he serves as chairperson of a panel of experts.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.
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