To Survive and Succeed: From farm boy to businessman

By Mkhuseli Jack

Mkhuseli ‘Khusta’ Jack was born on a white-owned farm in the Eastern Cape. Evicted from their home, his family was split up, wandering between different relatives, with nowhere to live legally. The young Khusta had a fierce yearning to go to school. Meeting obstacles at every turn, he never gave up. Reaching high school in Port Elizabeth, against all the odds, his drive finds a new focus: freedom for his people. Through fiery years of activism, his resolve never wavered. Khusta Jack became a respected leader in the democratic movement. Today, as a successful businessman, he is as outspoken as always.
A true story of sacrifice, courage and triumph.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kwela
• Release date: Aug 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9780795708626

Mkhuseli Jack

MKHUSELI ‘KHUSTA’ JACK holds a BA Hon. degree in Economics and Development Studies from the University of Sussex (UK). He has served (and currently serves) on boards and committees of Aberdare Cables, Irvin & Johnson, Emfuleni/Boardwalk Casino, Ilinge Development Services, BKS Group, Absa’s Batho Bonke, Sanlam’s Ubuthu Butho, African Bricks, Algoa FM, Business Against Crime, St Francis Hospice, Eastern Province Rugby Union, Port Elizabeth FET College, etc. He joined student politics in the mid-70s, and was the chairman of the Student Christian Movement. He was also a member of COSAS and led the 1980s Student Boycott. In 1981, he was arrested again for anti-republic celebration activities and arrested again in 1982, for delivering a protest speech in response to the killing of Dr Neil Aggett. After six months in solitary confinement, he was deported from Ciskei. Jack was a founding member of the Port Elizabeth Youth Congress (PEYCO), and part of the formation of the UDF in that year in Cape Town. In 1986, he was slammed with a five-year banning order. He was also one of the leaders Mandela consulted at the beginning of negotiations in the '90s. He’s married to Karen Evans and has two children, Themba and Cayla-Rose and they live in Port Elizabeth.

Book preview

I am sitting on a wagon in the dusk. Jammed alongside and under me are our meagre household goods: a bed frame with coiled steel springs, a mattress of hessian bags sewn together and stuffed with dry kikuyu grass, and amakhuko – our grass sleeping mats. There’s an enamel basin, a home-made table with rough wooden benches, our three-legged cast-iron cooking pot and some larger pots used for feasts.

A pig and some chickens with their legs tied together have also been squeezed in, squealing and squawking in protest. Someone has remembered to pack the pumpkins that were being stored on the roof of our house and our stock of dried mealies.

Also sandwiched among our possessions is my mother, holding my toddler brother. One or two other siblings manage to find a spot, but the older ones will have to walk.

Some of our clothes are packed into the pots, the rest are bundled in blankets and tied onto the wagon with rawhide ropes, along with last-minute, almost forgotten items.

I am wearing the shorts I got for Christmas six months earlier, and which will have to last until next Christmas. My shirt is made from a cotton flour sack that my mother sewed on her crank-handle Singer, now also wedged onto the wagon.

As darkness falls, the icy wind whips my face and cuts through my flimsy clothing. I huddle deeper into the warmth and comfort of an old grey blanket.

I am six years old. It is the winter of 1963 and we are being evicted from the farm where I have lived all my life. We are being evicted – from the home I thought was ours.

CHAPTER 1

Without a trace

I was born on the eastern banks of the Gamtoos River but precisely when I do not know. State and church did not agree on the moment I spluttered into existence. Officially, my date of birth is recorded as 31 May 1957, yet my Christian baptism certificate claims that I was born a day earlier. This certificate was issued to my mother by the Anglican Church of the Province of South Africa in the parish of the Order of Ethiopia at Hankey in the Diocese of Grahamstown. My mother blames the mix-up on mistranslation. Whatever the reason, my family settled on the state’s date as my birthday.

My siblings and I were all born at home on the farm Mauritzkraal, but after I was born complications forced my mother to be admitted to Livingstone state hospital in Port Elizabeth – an entirely new experience for her. Despite the trouble I caused, she chose to name me Mkhuseli, which means ‘protector of the family’.

My mother’s husband, Fikile Jack, had died very young, leaving her with six children, the oldest barely a teen and the youngest not yet a year old. Three years later, I was conceived through a love relationship my mother had with a man who had his own house and family. My father and I have never met. Being brought up in a home with loving uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters and an army of cousins meant I never had to think about there being a person missing in my life.

When I was four, a baby brother entered our lives. His father was a labourer employed by what was then known as the General Post Office. He was very close to all of us but particularly to my younger brother and he occasionally arrived with a pair of short pants and a shirt for him.

Although some older siblings were old enough to remember their own father, they knew little about him. His surname was Khethani, but Jack became the surname that was officially documented and given to all of us. Its origins are not known, but we presume it was coined by white officials who could not be bothered with surnames they could not spell or pronounce.

Fikile was a proud and dignified man who loved and practised all the Xhosa customs and traditions. This I gleaned from the fact that my grandfather never implied that Fikile had been in arrears with his lobola payments and because all my grandfather’s children spoke of him with respect. I could tell which of the sons-in-law had met their lobola obligations on time: their children enjoyed better treatment and more attention in the household.

By the time he died Fikile had accumulated some livestock – cattle, goats, pigs and chickens – and had implements to till the land. For years after his death, these assets helped to sustain us until some of his children were old enough to fend for themselves. I, of course, knew only my mother as head of our homestead, a role that included supervising the herding of cattle, milking cows and goats and rearing chickens. She also made decisions about what to plant, when and where – though I wonder if it mattered because the soil in our valley was rich and fertile, which meant we always had plenty of food. While my mother laboured in the fields, my oldest brother Bonakele, then a young teen, laboured alongside her.

Bonakele was our hero. He knew a wonderful selection of Xhosa folklore stories, and was a senior boy, or captain, of the local boys and, as such, was expected to lead the local boys to ubudoda, manhood. This title was not attained through age only: bravery was a critical factor, as was excelling at stick fighting against the boys in the surrounding area. A boy could also be recognised for his hunting or horse-riding skills. Being a senior boy carried a lot of benefits. For example, he had the advantage of being the first one to make a move on girls. In traditional rituals, the senior boys were allocated meat or food meant for all the boys. Junior boys knew what chances to take and the cost of doing so. Xhosa boys were governed by the law of the jungle, which is the survival of the fittest.

During the week, I had to look after the calves and chickens and do other little jobs. I also followed the older boys around as they did their duties of planting, fertilising, watering and hoeing the fields, as well as fetching the cows for milking. Sometimes I would risk the thorns to pick fat, ripe prickly pears. I loved their sweet juicy taste.

I always looked forward to weekends because that was when we could watch our local boys compete at stick fighting with boys from neighbouring farms. It was exciting for another reason too: it was my chance to play with other boys my age. I didn’t have many friends on the farm and I was too young to walk alone to a neighbouring farm.

Stick fighting among Xhosa boys happened on different levels. Entry into the sport was preceded by small boys using amahlamvu (tree branches) as training towards graduation to real stick fighting. When I was six we heard that stick fighting was no longer allowed, which was sad for me because I was just about to qualify for the entry level and use sticks, not amahlamvu. It was seen as a serious handicap if a Xhosa boy did not have scars on his head or face to show that he had competed at the highest level of stick fighting.

Being a small boy in our tradition was a challenge because all the risky tasks were assigned to us. We were used for stealing chickens, eggs, watermelons, milk and all sorts of other things. Even illegal things, such as dagga and tobacco, were collected by small boys. The senior boys used us to convey messages to girls they fancied. Sometimes the messengers became targets of assault or swearing because relaying bad news to a senior boy, such as a rejection, could cost the young boy dearly in the form of punishment or scorn, both of which were humiliating.

* * *

At the time of my birth not a single person in my home had attended formal schooling. Those who tried it out later didn’t keep it up for long. There was no school close to where we lived – at least, not one we black children could attend. The closest school was the prestigious and exclusively white private school Woodridge, off the N2 road that links Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. The school that admitted the children of farm labourers was at Mondplaas, about four kilometres from our home on the Jeffreys Bay side of the Gamtoos.

The Mondplaas area was controlled by conservative white Afrikaner farmers who dominated the dairy industry in the Gamtoos River valley. Other farmers were large-scale producers of vegetables and first-grade citrus. The mud school at Mondplaas was built on the land of a certain baas Dempers Meyer, who later became a member of parliament for the National Party.

For my brothers and sisters of school-going age, trudging sixteen kilometres a day to and from school became too much, especially on top of the chores they had to perform when they got home and many of these tasks also had to be performed in the early morning before school.

Besides, in our small community schooling was not viewed as progress but rather as a form of Christian indoctrination. The church and school were seen as two sides of the same coin – both brainwashing tools with the aim of undermining our customs and traditional African way of life.

All the stories we were told at home before bedtime were about our own people, stories that emphasised the strength, courage and the importance of our Xhosa ancestors. Poems of our glorious past were recited, giving expression to both good and sad times in our long history. We were amaqaba, meaning that we were neither educated nor Christian converts, and none of us was given a so-called Christian name at birth.

My oldest brother and sister never even tried to go to a proper school, but there was a young man on the farm who started teaching them, and other children, to read and write – until his family was forced to move and look for a place on another farm.

The only evidence that my brother could write is the tattoo on my left arm which says ‘Elvis Presley’. He used a needle to break my skin and then rubbed in a black substance from a battery, possibly lead dioxide. I was six years old at the time. Elvis clearly had a strong impact on my brother, though I can’t imagine how he came to know about the ‘king of rock ’n roll’: where we lived, there were no newspapers or radios, and definitely no television.

One day around evening milking time, not long after I got my tattoo, my mother returned from working in the fields as usual. But from the expression on her face I could see that something was wrong. She looked shocked and upset. I’d never seen her like that before. We children crowded round her, wide-eyed, as she told us we had to pack up everything and be gone by sunset the next day. Talking fast in her panicked state, she told my older brothers to go to families on neighbouring farms to ask for help: to see if they could take care of a few cows or goats for us because the farmer, Koos van der Walt, had told her we must leave nothing behind; there was to be no trace of us.

When the men came back from milking they were talking about the farmer’s orders and shaking their heads. Men and boys, and some women too, came to help. The adults started sorting and packing up. Everyone was grumpy and touchy. I kept asking why we were leaving, and whether we were going to come back, but the adults brushed me aside, too busy to bother with my questions. Eventually I was told the white man was the owner of the farm and he wanted us gone.

Until then, I had thought that where we lived and where my mother worked in the fields was our land. It was the beginning and end of my world. I had no idea that there was a white owner – a boss of our lives.

One of my brothers walked over to Mondplaas to give the terrible news to our Uncle Oudenks, one of my grandpa Kholisile’s sons. He said we could come and stay with him and then dispatched his own sons to find out from other families what help they could offer. The next day support came in small welcome measures. Local people offered help in all sorts of ways. Some offered to hide us from their own employers who would definitely have objected to having ‘more blacks on their land’. Some took care of our livestock – taking four or six goats each – keeping the numbers small to avoid detection or suspicion from their mlungus (white bosses). There was much coming and going the whole day with everyone kept frantically busy. I simply felt helpless and confused.

CHAPTER 2

Uprooted

The sun was beginning to set when the last things were added to the pile on the borrowed wooden wagon. One of the local men, helped by my older brothers, inspanned six oxen – I think they were ours – and we climbed up, settling ourselves as best we could. We were ready to leave. The man driving the oxen cracked his whip, the wheels creaked and the people who’d helped us pack stood in a group and waved as we drew away. I looked back at our little brick house with its chimney built on one side. It was empty and lifeless and the cold dry ash from fireplace outside, where my mother always cooked our food in a three-legged pot, was blowing around in little drifts.

Soon I was hungry and thirsty but I didn’t tell my mother. There’d been no time for cooking and I could see by the way she was looking straight ahead, without turning back, that her heart was sore. As we bumped along on the gravel road, I was distracted by the oxen bellowing now and then, complaining as they strained to pull harder when the driver cracked his whip. I was also trying to hear what the older boys were saying as they walked alongside the wagon.

As darkness fell we crossed the old Gamtoos River bridge. I knew the smell of the muddy river because we often played on its banks. I couldn’t tell how long we’d been moving and I didn’t dare ask when we would get to my uncle’s home. Instead, I listened to the night sounds: the frogs were the loudest. I was tired but my curiosity wouldn’t let me fall asleep – besides, I had to be careful not to fall off my perch. It was dark, but I was not afraid. I was with my family and we were going to my Uncle Oudenks. I even began to wonder if we might land up in a place where we would have a better life.

Although the journey to Mondplaas was only about eight kilometres, the wagon was slow and it was very late when we arrived at our uncle’s house. It was exciting for me and the other children. About four of our cousins were younger than me and two were the same ages as two of my older brothers, and with the two families together the house was overflowing. I overheard my uncle tell my mother that we should stay indoors the next day until he had come up with a plan of how to approach his boss. He was tense and nervous about a possible negative reaction from the farmer. My mother told the older children to keep us indoors until matters had been resolved.

It was hard to stay inside when our cousins were outside. I kept getting up and peering through the window – I could see as far as the lucerne fields. At night, when everyone was home, we smaller ones had to pile into a corner so that the adults didn’t fall over us. There were two sleeping rooms, which were filled with bodies once each person had found a space to lie down. My little brother and I shared a bed with our mom. The two girls slept on the floor on amakhuko (grass mats) and all the big boys slept in the space used as a family room and kitchen.

Two of our cousins had the same names as my brothers: Bonakele and Galelekile. The two Galelekiles were born in the same year and had been close friends from childhood. My brother Bonakele, who was twenty by then, was the oldest. The younger Bonakele was two years younger than me. We had to get used to having double Bonakeles and Galelekiles in such a confined space!

My uncle, aunt and their children tried their best to make it seem as if everything was normal, but as time went by I felt that things were getting worse. Food in the house was running out. Generous neighbours started to contribute food for every meal. We never went to bed without food in our tummies, but how this was managed I still do not know. My uncle was the kindest of all the children of Kholisile. His wife, our Aunt Nowise, was the daughter of a devout lay preacher of the Ethiopian Church and she too was the kindest of souls.

Clearly our numbers in the small house had to be reduced, but no solution to our homelessness was being devised. Sorting it out would have to be achieved by some farmer employing my mother or any of her older sons. Should that happen we would be lucky to get a place we might call home but a resolution seemed a million miles away. Days, weeks and months rolled by and my uncle’s employer became increasingly suspicious and started asking questions about the increase in numbers at my uncle’s homestead. It was obvious that my uncle was fast running out of plausible stories to explain this population explosion.

Finally, my uncle ran out of excuses, and was forced to speak to the farmer, who was also coming under pressure from other farmers who complained about their fears of thieving and other kinds of mlungu paranoia. My mother and uncle then came up with a plan to send three of the older children to my grandpa’s place in Oyster Bay. This was an attempt to appease the farmer, along with an appeal to allow the smaller children to stay with their mother. My uncle pleaded with the farmer to accept the arrangement, at least until suitable accommodation was found for us. For some reason the farmer yielded, but not without serious threats of the consequences if he did not ‘sort out this mess’.

We could stay – as long as we hurried up and found somewhere else to go, the farmer told Uncle Oudenks. We spilled out of the house, playing, running, walking freely outdoors, except anywhere near the farmer’s house, which was totally, utterly forbidden. My cousins and I ran around pushing old tyres or bicycle wheels, skilfully keeping them on track with our hands. Sometimes we played games such as ugqabs – skipping while two others turned the rope – and, a favourite, upuca, using small stones and a circle drawn in the dust. Chores immediately kicked in too and we quickly got used to going to collect water and firewood for the house.

Life started to feel normal again, except for those scary times when my chest closed up and I could hardly breathe. I had developed asthma. I desperately wanted to walk at the pace of the other boys, to play like other children and do everything my peers were doing, despite my clenched lungs. But if I walked fast or uphill, I would find myself gasping for breath. I begged not to be left behind, although sometimes I must have been irritating with my loud hacking cough.

Although they were twelve and fourteen years old respectively, two of my siblings started attending a farm school. Despite their advanced ages, they began in Sub A, known today as Grade 1, which is about seven grades below where they would be in today’s education system.

Our lives were improving. My mother was able to sell some of the animals being cared for by relatives and friends on other farms. She could also work in the potato fields of local farmers and earn a small wage to buy basic necessities, such as the weighty samp packed in brown paper, salt, soap, sugar, and the cheapest available version of coffee.

The popular food at my uncle’s house was roosterkoek, umphokoqo namasi (crumbled mealie meal and sour milk), inkobe (slow-cooked samp) and umcabosi (plums from the ngwenya or wild ash tree). For the first time in our lives, we didn’t have home-grown vegetables and meat. As this was a dairy farm, there was no space for labourers to grow vegetables to feed themselves and the number of livestock my uncle could keep was strictly limited. The only time we had meat was if one of the farmer’s cows died – even then, we would get only some of the meat, depending on the farmer’s mood. We ate meat when there was a traditional party, wedding, or the umgidi party thrown for young men, the amakrwala, returning from the bush after having undergone the sacred circumcision ritual.

In the spring of 1964 I overheard a conversation between my uncle, aunt and my mother. We were going to be relocated again, this time to Oyster Bay. I pretended to be fast asleep as my uncle spoke about what was going to happen. Apparently my grandfather had asked his employer for permission for us to live at his place. The farm owner was said to be a kind man and was willing to accommodate us until we found a place of our own. I told my sister what I had heard and she told the others. After discovering that I was the source of the leak, my mother gave me a severe scolding.

On the Saturday we were due to leave my uncle’s house in Mondplaas one of my uncle’s neighbours was hosting umsebenzi, a feast, at his house. I can’t remember what the occasion was, but there was plenty of food, meat and umqombothi, African beer. There was a wonderful atmosphere – everybody seemed to be happy. It was so different from that evening not long before when we’d left our home. This time, a big snub-nosed truck – a Thames Trader – arrived from Oyster Bay to fetch us, driven by one of my uncles, Lungile. The truck belonged to his employer, a Mrs Phoebe van Tonder, who had lent it to him. She and her husband Karel, who was wheelchair-bound after an airplane crash, founded Oyster Bay, which they developed into a holiday resort. One of my brothers, who had gone to find work in Oyster Bay to reduce the number of people staying in our Uncle Oudenks’s house, came with my uncle to fetch us. We were delighted to see him again.

My uncle and brother joined the celebration, where everyone was eating, singing, dancing and drinking. Suddenly, there was a loud bang: the truck had crashed into the house, knocking out a few bricks. There was a big dent in the front of the truck and my brother was sitting behind the steering wheel. A trail of older men came out of the kraal to see what was happening and spoke sternly to my brother, who apologised. I thought the whole thing was embarrassing and, most of all, I was scared that my brother, who had just come back into our lives, was going to be arrested. Some of the most traditional Xhosa men concluded that this was a sign that my brother’s time to go the bush had arrived, arguing that this antic showed that it was long overdue.

Fortunately, although the truck looked a little different from when it arrived, there was no mechanical damage and at sunset we loaded it up with all our possessions. It was a big truck, the kind that was used to transport crushed stone and building sand. This time I couldn’t wait to get moving: it would be my first trip in an engine-driven vehicle. The light was fading as we pulled away from Mondplaas.

The journey was much faster than our wagon trip and I found this exciting. We approached Humansdorp in the dark and for the first time I saw the bright lights of a ‘city’. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. As we rumbled through the centre of Humansdorp my brother who’d been living in Oyster Bay explained to us that those lights were generated by something called electricity. I would have liked more time to look at those lights but soon we were back on a gravel road for the last sixteen kilometres to Oyster