Gangster State

the time when we were doing our studies in Afrikaans.’^2
Magashule was attending Phehellang Secondary School in Tumahole
when the unrest broke out. ‘I know the school in Parys where I was [–]
it was called higher primary [–] was burned down, and some of the
students were arrested. We were fortunate not to be arrested at that
time, because we were not involved in those activities. But that’s when
I became more active.’
During this time, the young Magashule was a keen boxer and soccer
player. It was his skills with a football that earned him the nickname
‘Ace’.^3
Although he grew up without a father, he had older male figures to
look up to, at least in a political sense. The most prominent was Fezile
Dabi, a political activist who was three years Magashule’s senior and
for whom the district municipality that includes Parys is now named.
According to historian Tshepo Cyril Moloi, Dabi ‘played a central role
in conscientising some of the young people in Tumahole’, helping in
the late 1970 s and early 1980 s to establish the Tumahole Students
Organisation (TSO), which tapped into Steve Biko’s Black
Consciousness Movement for its ideological inspiration. The TSO
staged plays with strong political messages and hosted ‘symposiums
which highlighted the social evils of [their] community’.^4
Magashule appeared in some of these plays, landing him in the
crosshairs of the apartheid authorities: ‘Police were always after us
even when ... we started with simple dramatic societies. We were
actors. We’ll act and after acting police would come and say “but your
drama is a political drama, you don’t want whites”.’^5
According to a hagiographic profile of Magashule that appeared on
the Free State provincial government’s website while he was premier