Ablon ‘Bafana’ Duma: Reverentially celebrating a brave freedom fighter
By Dr Vusi Shongwe
“The present generation may rewrite history, but it does not write it on a blank page.” – Maurice Halbwachs
“Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it and wiser than the one that comes after it.” That was the analysis of George Orwell almost a century ago.
If one peers under the bonnet of any organisation, whether it be a nuclear family or a giant corporation, it is what many members believe is true.
The American female civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hammer teaches us that there are two things we should always care about: “Never forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.”
In the South African context of the struggle for liberation in South Africa, Ablon “Bafana” Duma and many other unknown and unsung struggle heroes are part of the revered bridges that carried us over to freedom.
President Igor Smirnov of Transnistria, near Ukraine, talks about the importance of saving (and not ridiculing) the heritage of the senior generation, as “their feat will remain for centuries as a caution for our descendants, as a lesson of courage, selfless service to the fatherland, fidelity to the ideals of good and justice”.
Originally from Umzumbe under the Tolomane Mnyayiza Region, Duma, with his greatest weapon, the courage of a righteous cause, also not only denounced the injustices of the apartheid government, he was prepared to, by any means necessary, deliver a decisive blow to the apartheid regime.
He is credited for his underground operations in the 1960s that involved the blowing up of electric pylons and railway tracks. He eventually died in Zimbabwe after surviving many attacks.
Delivering the Bafana Duma Memorial Lecture in Umzumbe, ANC Provincial Chair Siboniso Duma revealed that the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) operative (Duma) was an intellectual par excellence and trusted with sensitive information about the struggle. “He was often sent to deliver such information to comrades who were operating underground and in exile.”
Sadly, as a top ANC exile resident in eSwatini (then Swaziland), Duma was seriously injured by a parcel bomb sent to his private front-office box in Manzini. As a result of this bomb, Duma lost his lower part of his arm when a parcel bomb exploded in Manzini.
According to information contained in Captain Dirk Coetzee’s 1989 confession during the TRC hearings on hit squad activities and in his amnesty application, the operation to kill Duma was undertaken by the Ermelo security police with the aid of the security police’s technical division, where the device was prepared by then Lieutenant (later Lieutenant Colonel) WAL du Toit. Major Nic van Rensburg was in charge of the operation, assisted by Colonel Christo Deetlefs and Sergeant Chris Rorich.
Despite suffering the setback of being bombed and losing an arm, Ablon Duma was not intimidated but continued to pursue his dream of seeing the people of this country freed from the jaws of apartheid. Lest it be forgotten.
This was the second attempt on his life. Earlier, he became suspicious of a parcel sent to him, and when the police opened it, it was found to contain high explosives. A month after the Duma attack, a bullet-ridden, blood-stained vehicle belonging to Duma was found 6km inside eSwatini on the road to Mozambique. eSwatini sources said that the occupants of the truck were John Majola and Willie Nyoni, both South African exiles connected to the ANC.
It is important to note that ANC exiles from the 1960s were firmly established in eSwatini by the early 1970s. Their leading members included Wankie veteran Nduli, Stanley Mabizela, Duma, and Albert Dhlomo, a former Natal trade unionist.
In December 1974, Thabo Mbeki and Maxwell Sisulu arrived in eSwatini and were tasked with improving relations with the Swazi monarchy and recruiting refugees for the ANC. In short, Ablon Duma was one of the first underground operatives to join MK in the early 1960s.
Though consigned reverently in history, the time has come for the voice of this freedom fighter, almost forgotten and little known by the current generation, to be heard more widely.
We owe Duma and many other unknown freedom fighters a debt we can never repay. Above all, we owe him his deserved remembrance. In making sure that Duma is always remembered, a French-Canadian architect, Eugene-Etienne Tache’s motto, which he devised for Quebec, a province in Canada, is worth quoting.
The motto “je me souviens”, translated literally into English, means “I remember”. It may be paraphrased as conveying the meaning “we do not forget, and will never forget, our history, ancient lineage, traditions, and memories of all the past”.
We must remember Duma and others because we are also engaged in a crucial struggle of memory against forgetting. We must remember him not because we are prisoners of the past, but because the past provides the best point of reference for our present and can be our guide to a better future.
The Czech writer, Milan Kundera, puts it aptly when he posits: “The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, and its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, and invent a new history. Before long, that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was … The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
* Dr Vusi Shongwe is the former head of the Department of the Royal Household. The contribution is written in his personal capacity. The views expressed here are his own.