under pressure from the enemy. Andrew was identified as lacking initiative, but as someone who was loyal and committed to the programme of his movement.
Govan Mbeki informed the comrades that they were all going to be members of the National High Command and the implications thereof, and their respective roles. They were to assume their functions immediately. The struggle was up and running and there were things to be done.
In the same meeting it was decided that Joe Modise was no longer safe as he was under police surveillance. He was therefore advised to leave the country and go into exile for military training. Andrew was to take over Modise’s duties, including the recruitment of people for military training and transport. He was given a programme that he was to start implementing immediately, which included travelling across the country to explain to regional commands the programme of MK and to mobilise for more recruits in support of the provisions of Operation Mayibuye. After the meeting, Sisulu gave Andrew one pound and instructed Modise to deliver him, Gqabi and Mthembu to their homes. Andrew was the last to be dropped off.
As Andrew climbed out of Modise’s car and approached the front door he struggled to believe he was looking at his own house. All the windows at the front were shattered. There were signs that there had been some fighting. The door was closed, and he knocked. As it opened, Boetie Mlangeni, a son of his cousin who was living in Meadowlands, ushered him in. Inside the house, June was lying in bed. He checked the windows at the back. They were also broken. ‘Eventually, I realised that my entire house was without a single window that was not tampered with.’ It transpired that at the weekend that had just passed the family had hosted a party and many family members had been invited. The party was going well until a man known to Andrew as Maceke gate-crashed it and started to behave in a disorderly manner. He harassed June, and angry family members gave him such a sound beating that he was hospitalised. But June went on to report him to the police, who arrested him but released him on bail. He had apparently told his family a different story – that favoured him, because his family members then came and retaliated by smashing all the windows of the Mlangeni home. Mthembu and Gqabi knew about the incident when they visited earlier but they had decided not to tell Andrew when they met at Liliesleaf farm.
Andrew was very angry with what he was seeing and hearing and went immediately to Maceke’s house. He confronted him but Maceke’s speech was so disjointed that Andrew left, feeling this was fruitless and a waste of time. A week later, the court found Meceke guilty of assault and malicious damage to property; he was fined and the matter was deemed to have been settled. Andrew would have pursued him to fix all the broken windows, but felt it would waste his time and energy and derail the new programme that MK had just given him. In fact, he did not rule out the possibility that Maceke’s handlers may have sent him to provoke his family and therefore try to detract from his and June’s involvement in the struggle. ‘Maceke was reputed to be a police spy,’ said Andrew.
June had also been harassed by the police, who frequented her house day and night to conduct searches and to ask her questions about Andrew. Within weeks of Andrew’s departure for China, police had frequented his house or driven by, blatantly surveying it. June realised that she could be detained at any time, so she decided to take her two sons and daughter to Francistown to join their sister and grandmother (Andrew only found out about this when he returned from China). And June was not the only one in the family to be harassed by the police. The house of Andrew’s eldest brother Nyoko had been searched in 1962, sometimes with sniffer dogs. ‘It was scary every time it happened,’ recalled Josephine, Nyoko’s daughter. Nyoko’s wife, Jane Mdumbe, had been visited several times by white policemen demanding to see Andrew and Nyoko, and when they were told that both of them were not at home they would search the whole house, turning everything upside-down before leaving empty-handed.
3
1944, Conscientisation
Andrew Mlangeni’s military training in China and the eventual contact with Mao was the culmination of a political journey that had started about two decades earlier. The genesis of his political career was his graduation from Standard 6 at Pimville government school at the end of 1943, marking the beginning of his political activism and subsequent ascendency into higher ranks and eventual militarisation.
Like most primary schools at the time, the Pimville government school ended at Standard 6. This is where Sekila, his other older brother, with whom he had been staying, had enrolled him on his arrival to join him and his mother in the City of Gold – Johannesburg – and who at the beginning of 1944 enrolled him at St Peter’s Secondary School at Rosettenville where he began his secondary education. The school was said to be one of the best in the Johannesburg region. Its principal was Mr DH Darling, a very tall and imposing man. Students and African teachers called him ‘Sdakwa’ (drunkard – a nickname based on his character, in a figurative way rather than literally) and ‘Mabhekaphezulu’ (one who walks looking upwards). The former referred to his temperamental nature (rigid application of school rules but frequent arbitrary decisions); the latter had to do with his physical appearance – to be exact, the way he walked, looking up and posing a gigantic presence. A strict disciplinarian and a very professional leader, Darling was jealously protective of his school, insisting that everyone else should be the same. He was selective of the institutions his school should exchange cultural and sporting activities with, to guard against its being associated with what he believed were ‘mediocre institutions’ offering inferior education and allowing ‘relaxed’ levels of discipline. He would constantly remind his staff and students that his school aimed to produce future leaders and not cheap passes to low-level professionalism. He favoured Kilnerton in Pretoria and Wilberforce in Evaton, which he respected more than any other school in the broader region of Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging and he would threaten ill-disciplined students with dismissal and deportation to the infamous Fort Cox Agricultural School in the Eastern Cape, which he regarded as of a lower standard – this threat would send shivers up the students’ spines. His pride in the institution he was leading created a sense of loyalty to the school in students and staff and instilled an urge to be a responsible citizen. In the long run it would inculcate a high sense of moral duty in those who were associated with the institution and allow them to impart this to those who were not fortunate enough to be part of the school.
The teachers included Oliver Tambo, who taught Mathematics and Physical Science. Andrew remembered him as ‘one of the brightest teachers of the time and a rising political leader’. He had joined the school as a teacher a year previously. Others were Mr Benjamin Musi for Arithmetic, Mr Pretorius and Mr Mitchell for Geography, Mr Bernade for Afrikaans and Mr Stanley Sikhakhane for English. There were also two much admired female members of staff: Miss Mamabolo, who was one of the first black women to have a university degree and Mrs Lindsay whose leadership qualities Andrew would respect for the rest of his life. Women were not as associated with leadership as men and therefore Mrs Mamabolo and Mrs Lindsay were a rare breed in the eyes of Andrew, and probably of many other students as well as their own colleagues. Mrs Mamabolo’s achievements formed the foundation of Andrew’s respect for the intelligence of women, in contrast to what his own father believed and the way he treated Andrew’s sisters – and in contrast to how his father could have influenced him and his brothers. ‘My father believed it was a waste of time to teach his daughters to read and write, let alone to educate them for a better career and a meaningful contribution to society.’ Mr Mitchell was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the UK’s learned society and professional body for Geography, founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences.
Tambo’s political role among black people was something already recognised and respected by many. But it was his levelheadedness that would leave a solid print on Andrew. ‘He could digest issues quickly and make an informed and sober decision.’ This, and Darling’s way of leading and the manner in which he was fully in charge of the school, would lay a solid foundation for Andrew’s own leadership style.
At St Peter’s, Andrew was reunited with Duma Nokwe who, although a year younger, was ahead of him and had been his fellow student at Pimville government school. Nokwe was already an active member of the Young Communist League (YCL). He would later play a prominent role in the ANC in years to come and would also contribute a great deal to the history of black