neighbour or a person you knew in the township, you’d take some
mealie-meal to that house, take some coal or take some wood. That’s
how we grew up.’
But even this tight-knit community could not shelter the young
Magashule from the harsh realities of apartheid South Africa. ‘When I
was in Standard Five, I can’t remember the year, but I grew up in that
environment where we were treated by young white boys as ... we
were calling them baas at that time – klein baas. We grew up knowing
that they are better off; they know better than us ... We grew up
knowing that white people in South Africa don’t like us – that’s how
we grew up because of the type of education we were doing.’
Magashule gradually became aware of the ANC, its affiliated
organisations and the broader struggle movement. As a boy he heard
the story about the ‘One Pound a Day’ minimum-wage campaign that
had been initiated by the ANC-aligned South African Congress of
Trade Unions (SACTU) in the late 1950 s.
‘As time went on this is the type of information which we managed to
get from old people who had been staying in that township,’
Magashule explained. ‘Well, we just knew the ANC as this
organisation which was banned; people left the country to take up arms
and fight white people because they were ill-treating us. I faintly
remember the ANC – an organisation which will free black people.
That’s how I remember it.’
According to Magashule, his political consciousness was ignited when
the Soweto uprising of 1976 spread to Tumahole. ‘[I]n 1976 some of
the schools in the area were burned. So the Soweto influence actually
spread to some of the areas in [the] country, and Parys was one of
those areas. We were the last people who did Standard Six. And that’s
nora
(Nora)
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