491 Days
Page 15
I regret to advise you that I do not have R500 and am not likely to have it even in the next ten years if I live up to that, nor would there by any point in me adding more worries on my husband by even informing him about this. It is not only enough that he is serving a sentence of life imprisonment but also in his own words he has found the past eleven months too much of a burden on one man’s shoulders even under the best of times. We are also human beings.
I can assure you that I meant my gratitude which I tried to express and was cut short in court. I looked forward to meeting Mr Zwarenstein whom I was advised as long ago as June that he would be appearing for me. Needless to say I shall always remember Major Swanepoel’s words for a long time to come, one of these incidentally was his advice on my ineradicable and irredeemable error of trusting too much.
Your faithfully,
Winnie Mandela
LETTER FROM WINNIE MANDELA
TO NELSON MANDELA
12-11-69
My Darling,
It is wonderful to be able to write to you once more. I gather from the numerous messages you endeavoured to send to me that you must have spent anxious moments in the last few months of silence. Thank you my love I got them all on the day I led my ‘crusade’ to their last journey into captivity on the 28th of October. It’s a band of Christians with the same spirit which drove Christians into caves two thousand years ago in defence of the gospel. My glorious surprise was the lovely anniversary card which was given to me on the 26 of October,154 quite appropriately two days before I was to be charged. Words are too shabby to describe the sentiments it evoked in me. I have been re-reading it since in the solitude of my cell and each time I get a new meaning [of] life. The battered and torn envelope in a way told many tales and is the very symbol of the harsh reality of the past eleven years, with no regrets.
It is irrelevant now to tell you how sorry I am that my attempts to see you have not materialised. The case is set down for the 1st of Dec. The progress we have made so far with Mr Carlson is infinitesimal. There have been no proper consultations yet due to so many odds. As you are a co-conspirator I suppose I can tell you that we are 22 accused and we are charged under the Suppr of Comm.155 Act. There are 21 main charges some of which concern me alone really. It is absolutely imperative that you be acquainted with the full details by a legal man though as this affects us to a large extent.
I had a serious relapse in September but was again seen by the specialist who has since increased the treatment. The prison doctor has been almost fatherly in his medical care of me. He has explained just like the Joburg specialist that the condition is permanent and will continue to deteriorate for as long as we have our problems. I have failed him in one thing, my inability to stop thinking. This is of course impossible darling for as long as one is held incommunicado. Perhaps things will be better when we are together. There are five charged women altogether. If only the girls were a little older things would not be so bad. I must tell you that in the past three months when I was quite ill Brig and the doctor arranged for me to have a bed, I can no longer lie flat I have to be propped up due to the condition. I am feeling better darling you should not worry. If you want more details I do not suppose there would be any objection to your being furnished with the full specialists reports.
We have to plan for the children. By the way both my sisters and their husbands, Maud and friends were in court. After six months in solitary confinement I could not describe the feeling I had in seeing them. Niki has visited me already. It is amazing how different people can be when you look at them through the spectacles of prison life. I saw a completely different Niki. She has brought me a new wardrobe of clothes, the old ones are too big. The girls did not return because her husband’s travel document was withdrawn. They spent the holidays with Uncle Allan Nxumalo.156 Niki says Marshall has been promised that he will get the travel document back. The little souls must have been so hurt but they are very understanding. Uncle Mashumi has been to see them at school and says they are very well. I wrote to Kgatho and gave him messages [for] you only to find that he must have already seen you. The best news of the year was when Niki told me Kgatho is back at home with Nomfundo. Mr Levin told me he has lost interest in education, I found it hard to believe this although I have secretly nursed such a fear after all the emotional upheaval we have all suffered. Is this correct? What did you arrange with him with regard to next year or should I continue with what I had in mind?
One of the most moving in sympathetic messages came from Dad and has instructed Niki to cheer you up. He is sending our sister-in-law to represent the family because my brother will be at school for some time correcting papers as he is now the principal. By the way dad could not get the licence for the bottle store nor the loan from the Bantu Investment Corp presumably because of his children.
Have you got the examination results yet? I will be the most surprised if you did well and how are your funds?
I do not know how we shall discuss the question of the legal guardian of the children. Its seems to me it would be too late if we leave this matter until the end of the case. There are already so many difficulties. I plan [on] speaking to Major Coetzee of Johannesburg about the travel documents, it is already a few weeks before they close. He has assisted us before with correspondence to the school now during my detention and he said I should raise such problems with him.
I can well imagine your state of anxiety about these matters. I have learnt a lot darling and am still able even more so now to analyse situations even under the best disguise. What a pity I was unable to see you before you were charged. I have developed a liking for studying human behaviour and human relationships. It has been a sense of rude awakening to me to realise the various categories under which we fall. Some of us see relationships between objects whilst others see objects between objects, does one watch and despair thereby committing physical suicide or does one despair and watch thereby committing moral suicide? No, both of these are undignified, so one must find a middle course, because there is a certain species in man that is beyond reason the immalleable. I am always reminded of a childhood story of my grandfather who is reported to have said to someone, ‘What kind of men are these we are dealing with? They buy a cow from you and pay you with your own horse.’
How I laughed when you recalled the medical student. My wandering mind collapsed back the gates of 76 Hans Street157 when the horrible green car refused to start at the wrong time and someone saw it and fainted. Do you remember the day MaMhlophe was driven back from Orlando on a trivial first misunderstanding and the following morning she collided with Mhlekazi at the office. They both went to wait for each other without any previous arrangement. Let alone the ‘Cigarette’158 and the famous statement, ‘Lo mfana ondisuse kuwe unzima’.159 He must now be saying that was good riddance. Then there was MaMhlophe and Tshezi one day in that office at Bara160 and how they could not stand each other.
The girls and I have shared moments of amusement too. One day two old ladies and the Methodist evangelist came to hold prayers, I was ill but we were in the front room. Unfortunately they chose the hour which usually belongs to the law on routine check.161 Whilst the evangelist was in the middle of a very emotional prayer there was a violent knock and it persisted. I went to open and when I returned to my seat there was no sign of anybody. That was a year ago and that was the last I saw of them! How I miss you at such moments.
Keep well my love, tons of love and a million kisses
Yours forever,
Zami
PS: Have you heard from Sabata?162 He is coming up at the end of the year to settle the question of our late Thembi’s estate. The property at Qunu was transferred to him just before his death. I do not know if I will be granted permission to see him but I’ll apply.
LETTER FROM NELSON MANDELA
TO WINNIE MANDELA
16.11.69
Dade Wethu,163
I believe that on Dec. 21 you and 21 others will appear in the
Pretoria Supreme Court under the Sabotage Act, alternatively, for contravening the provisions of the Suppression of Communism Act. I am informed that you have all instructed Mr Joel Carlson to act in the matter.
From the particulars of the charge it would seem that you would require me to give evidence on your behalf and I look forward to an early consultation with you and Counsel. I would certainly consider it irregular and unjust and contrary to the elementary principles of natural justice to force you to start a long and protracted trial on a serious charge without arrangements having first been made for us to meet. We have not seen each other since Dec. last year and a meeting between us would go a long way towards easing the strains and stresses of the last 5 months and putting you in a better physical condition and frame of mind. Only after such a meeting could you have something approximating a fair trial, and I sincerely hope it will be possible to arrange it. I am also keen to discuss the question of how you should conduct your defence and to anticipate the tactics the state will most certainly use. Since our wedding day in June 1958, you have, under some pretext or other, been dragged 3 times before the criminal courts and once before a civil one. The issues involved, at least in part of this litigation, are better forgotten than recalled. They caused much grief and concern. This will be the 5th occasion, and I suspect that here there is much that lies beneath the surface, and the proceedings are likely to be the bitterest experience of your entire life to date. There will be those whose chief interest will be to seek to destroy the image we have built over the last decade. Attempts may be made to do now what they have repeatedly failed to achieve in former cases. I write to warn you in time of what lies ahead to enable you to prepare yourself both physically and spiritually to take the full force of the merciless blows that I feel certain will be directed systematically at you from the beginning to the end of the trial. In fact, the trial, and the circumstances surrounding it, may so far influence your thoughts and actions that it might well constitute an important landmark in your entire career, compelling you to re-examine very carefully values you once fondly cherished and to give up pleasures that once delighted your heart.
Already the months you spent in detention have been a severe test for you and when you come to the end of the case, you will have got a deeper understanding of human nature and its frailties and what human beings can do to others once their privileged position is endangered. When this threat emerges all the lofty virtues of western democracy about which we read so much in books are brushed aside. Neither the moral standards of modern civilisation, the teachings of the Christian faith, the universal idea of the common brotherhood of men, nor pure sense of honour will deter the privileged circles from applying the multitudinous pressures at their disposal on those who fight for human dignity. Those who are on the front-line should be willing and ready to draw the fire onto themselves in order to inspire their colleagues and make things easier for them. In the battle of ideas the true fighter who strives to free public thinking from the social evils of his age, need never be discouraged if, at one and the same time, he is praised and condemned, honoured and degraded, acclaimed as saint and cursed as an irredeemable sinner. In the course of your short but lively political career you have been the object of all these contradictory labels, but you have never wavered; instead you held firmly to your convictions. Today even a bigger test faces you for a conviction will certainly entail many years of sorrow and suffering behind iron doors. But I have not the slightest doubt whatsoever that you will fight to the bitter end with all the tenacity and earnestness that you have shown on previous occasions, for you know only too well that substantial victories will be won by those who stand on their feet and not by those who crawl on their bellies.
In planning your own case and working out your strategy it will be important to bear in mind that you are engaged in a contest with an adversary who possesses vast resources in wealth and means of propaganda and who will be able to give facts any twist which he considers expedient. In such a situation your best defence, and one no power on earth can penetrate, is truth, honesty and courage of conviction. Nothing must be done or said which might imply directly or indirectly a repudiation of your principles and beliefs. The rest I propose discussing with you if and when I see you. That moment may or may never come. I do hope it will. If it doesn’t, then I know you will, nevertheless, be in good hands and that you will be able to manage even without my help and advice. For the present, I send you all my good wishes and fondest regards. I will keep my fist clenched, and will do anything to assist you, Ngutyana.164 How is our dear Nyanya? Do tell me something about her.
I have just received the tragic news that Cameron165 in Botswana had a stroke which resulted in paralysis and the amputation of a leg. To be struck down by such a fatal illness far away from your country and people is a disaster that may well make recovery difficult. I think of just how helpful he has been to you in my absence and regret it very much that we are not in a position to assist him. As far as I know, as an awaiting-trial prisoner, you can write as many letters as you please and I suggest that you immediately write to tell him that we wish him speedy recovery. Kgatho visited me on Oct. 25, following upon Nkosazana Tellie who was here on Sept. 6.
On Nov. 8 I received a disturbing letter from her in which she bitterly complains of having been left behind when relatives visited you on Oct. 28. She is very good to us, and is receiving wrong treatment from certain quarters. I hope it will be possible for you to let her know that she means much to us.
I received a stimulating letter from Amina166 and she paid you flattering compliments. I am sure you will be happy to know that our friends have not forgotten you. I believe Lily167 had at last got my letter. In July she sent me a warm and moving message of sympathy. I also received an equally inspiring condolence card from Irene. She seems to be a wonderful girl and has built up an impressive image. This month I wrote to Mrs Adelaide Mase, the wife of Mamqwati’s168 brother at Engcobo, thanking them for the letter they wrote me in August. Mamqwati also wrote in Oct. in reply to the message I sent to her on behalf of you and I.
The salutation to this letter will not surprise you. In the past I have addressed you in affectionate terms for then I was speaking to Nobandla, wife of Ama-Dlomo. But on this occasion, I can claim no such prerogatives because in the freedom struggle we are all equals and your responsibility is as great as mine. We stand in the relationship, not of husband and wife, but of sister and brother. Until you return to 8115, or some other appointed place, this is how I will address you, O.K? Perhaps this arrangement will provide room for the legions of students, medical or otherwise, that have crossed the life of one or other of us.
Finally, Mhlope, I do wish you to know that you are the pride of my heart, and with you on my side, I always feel I am part of an invincible force that is ready to win new worlds. I am confident that, however dark and difficult times might seem to be now, one day you will be free and able to see the beautiful birds and lovely fields of our country, bath in its marvellous sunshine and breathe its sweet air. You will again see the picturesque scenery of the land of Faku where your childhood was spent, and the kingdom of Ngubengcuka where the ruins of your own kraal are to be found.
I miss you badly! Tons and tons of love and a million kisses.
Devotedly,
Dalibunga
LETTER FROM NELSON MANDELA
TO MASHUMI PAUL MZAIDUME169
19.11.69
My dear Radebe,
I have received disturbing reports that my son, Makgatho, 8115 Orlando West, is not keen to go to Fort Hare next year. He should have registered at the beginning of this year, but he had to write a supplementary examination in March and apparently thought he could not be admitted for a degree course. It would be tragic if he were to miss yet another year and I should be glad if you would do everything in your power to get him to College in February at all costs.
He visited me on Oct. 25 and assured me that he had already filled in and forwarded to the
Registrar the relevant application forms. We also discussed the question of fees and allowance whilst at College, and gave him the names of two friends in Johannesburg who, I believe, will be keen to help in this connection. Kgatho will be able to give you their names and addresses, and I would advise that you see them in person and thrash out the whole matter with them.
You may indicate to Kgatho that in appealing to you to assist on this question, I do not in any way wish to suggest that I doubt the assurance he gave me. I have complete confidence in his personal integrity and sense of honour and do not believe that he would ever deliberately wish to mislead me on matters relating to his future career. I am, however, a thousand miles away from Johannesburg, and it is natural and reasonable that I should feel concerned about any information which tends to indicate that he is not acting with the prudence and diligence that I expect from him. I also make allowance for the fact that he may have special problems which, because of my present circumstances, he is not keen to confide to me. I have even wondered whether he does not find it humiliating or embarrassing to discuss financial assistance with persons who are strangers to him, and I am asking you to take a personal interest in the matter, as I believe that the intervention of a relative, who will negotiate on his behalf on these delicate questions, will at least save him this embarrassment.
At present he has a good job and earns a steady income which enables him to assist in the maintenance of the family and in paying for the education of his sisters. He may consequently doubt the wisdom of throwing away a lucrative post which makes it possible for him to shoulder important family responsibilities, only to start again from scratch some years later. Add to this his age. At 19 any young man in his position may not find it at all easy to resist the glittering attractions of a golden city. I mention all these things because I believe that you should be fully informed on the sort of problems that may be influencing the trend of his thinking and actions, and to enable you to know how to handle the situation. Anyway I leave the whole matter to you and to Mzala, Khathi.170