to undergo military training.^19 These sound like the kind of struggle
activities Magashule would later claim to have been involved in.
In 1984 , after completing his studies at Fort Hare, Magashule enrolled
for a Higher Education Diploma at the University of the
Witwatersrand, but he was only there for a few months. ‘I couldn’t
survive because I did not have the money, so I left Wits, it was around
March or April,’ he said in his ANC Oral History Project interview.
He then began working as a teacher. After a stint at Moqhaka
Secondary School in Sebokeng, he returned to his old school,
Phehellang Secondary in Parys, in 1985. A source from this phase of
Magashule’s life said he taught English and Bible studies.
It was in November 1985 that he ran into trouble with the apartheid
government’s notorious police force. While he was teaching at
Phehellang, he was nabbed by the police under Section 29 of the
Internal Security Act. The Act allowed for political detainees to be held
in solitary confinement so that they could be interrogated.
‘I spent nine months in solitary confinement,’ Magashule later
recalled. ‘That’s the most terrible and horrible type of detention. That’s
the worst time in my life because I was alone in the cell. I wanted to
commit suicide.’^20
He repeated this story in a 2008 interview with journalist Fiona Forde:
‘I can assure you that Section 29 is serious torture. You know, I wanted
to commit suicide after that. I was completely and emotionally
destroyed.’^21
My source, who was around at the time, remembered the arrest but
seemed to recall that Magashule was detained for six months, not nine.
‘The police alleged that he was encouraging unrest in Tumahole and in