I WAS invited by POST to contribute to a Journey in Activism series. I must confess that compliance was somewhat daunting as some may consider it rather impertinent to arrogate to oneself the activist label, even though not by choice.
But if it helps at a crisis time in our political history, I am prepared to assist, though hampered in terms of memory and detail now that I am in the twilight years of my life.
I was born in 1936, three years before the declaration of World War II. So, for starters, I know all about black-outs, though not as a result of load shedding; purely for security from air attacks.
I remember as my father bade goodbye before he volunteered to serve up north, and his arrival back to South Africa aboard the Cape Town Castle (then converted into a troopship) as it docked at the Durban harbour.
From 1945, barely 10 years old, I followed the war effort, remembering to this day the names of the famous and the infamous over the BBC. But for the restraints of space, I could recite, word for word, the introductory announcement of “This is London calling” over the overseas service of the BBC.
As a family, we would, ears glued to the table top wood-encased radio, listen to the news of the war effort, the successes and the setbacks.
Smuts, Eisenhower, Churchill, Rommel, Montgomery, Mussolini, and, of course, Hitler, were among the many familiar names that come to mind.
The year after Armistice followed our very own 1946 Passive Resistance Campaign, bringing home to me all the evils of racial discrimination to be eventually labelled “apartheid”.
Born and bred in Clairwood, the names of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Subhas Chander Bose were all too familiar, with many a home featuring pictures of Gandhi at his spinning wheel in a conversation with Nehru. And with that, one associated the names of doctors Monty Naicker, Yusuf Dadoo and the volatile Kesaveloo Goonam.
