A Knock on the Door

The knock on the door of the house in Evaton, a freehold area in the industrial complex of the Vaal Triangle, was abrupt – if it was a knock at all. Likely, the sound that disturbed the peace that evening was rather a hammering. In any case, it was unwelcome as it did not announce the friendly visit of a neighbour but the dreaded coming of the infamous municipal police, known as the ‘blackjacks’. The year was 1968, eight years after the Sharpeville massacre and the banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and three years after the first houses were built in the neighbouring township of Sebokeng. A young boy of eight years had just come back from playing in the street when he witnessed his parents’ arrest. Neither his mother nor his father had Section 10 rights under the Native Laws Amendment Act of 1952 and their presence in Evaton was thus considered illegal according to apartheid legislation. To protect her husband, the mother claimed that he was a visitor and not the head of the household. Asked by one of the policemen whether he knew the man who had just been arrested, the child said no. Despite his young age he understood the gravity of the situation and was aware of his father’s precarious legal status. It was neither the first nor the last time his parents would be arrested during a pass raid.

Almost 20 years later, in April 1987, Gcina Malindi, who had by now become a grown man, recalled the incident in court as he was standing trial for his alleged involvement in creating a revolutionary climate to overthrow the South African regime. As one of his lawyers, George Bizos, remembered, Malindi was in clear distress when he recounted the story. It had been a life-changing experience that had influenced his young mind. It was a story symptomatic of life under apartheid, a story that happened countless times all over the country. The constant threat of being removed to one of South Africa’s bantustans, and the daily fear of being arrested, shaped the lives of the majority of South Africa’s disenfranchised population.