Ramakgula’s Door

It all began with a door. Tebello Ephraim Ramakgula had purchased the house door made of Meranti wood for R78 to provide his rented house in Zone 7, Sebokeng, with safety and privacy. Sebokeng and Zone 7 in particular were notorious for their high levels of crime and the prevalence of gangs. Ram-akgula had bought the door in 1977 to replace the old, rotten front door the house had come with when he moved in. Months of discussions with the Orange Vaal Administration Board (OVAB) and the ward councillor in his area had convinced him that he had to take matters into his own hands as the authorities appeared unwilling to provide a new door. Adding to his problems, Ramakgula was told to pay the previous tenant’s rental arrears of four months.

In 1983 the door went missing. Ramakgula, an assistant electrician in his thirties with little formal education, enquired at the offices of the OVAB and was informed that the door had been removed owing to his failure to pay rent: a widespread strategy aimed at enforcing the payment of rent arrears. With high crime rates, a missing door was no minor matter but exposed him to insecurity and danger, and it constituted the (temporary) loss of a valuable item. Ramakgula’s experiences, typical for township communities in the Vaal Triangle, prompted him to attend the launch of the Vaal Civic Association (VCA) on 9 October 1983 and subsequently to join the area committee in Zone 7. Less than four years later, on 23 February 1987, he appeared in court as one of the accused in the Delmas treason trial for his alleged involvement in fomenting a revolutionary climate in South Africa.

Cross-examined by George Bizos, he explained his reasons for joining the VCA in 1983. The incident that caused him particular stress, he explained in court, was the removal of his house door. Rampant corruption, unaccountability and aloof behaviour of councillors, the harsh practices of the administration board and his dire economic situation had shaped the context in which the removal of the door came to symbolise everything that was wrong with the system. In his words, the VCA provided a platform ‘to come together and discuss with my fellow Blacks, my fellow people, to discuss the problems we have’. Ramakgula’s testimony bears witness to the subjective factors that moulded ordinary people’s political consciousness.