1954–1956

Politics is not a controlled happening. The Prof had proposed something new without intending to cause a revolution. But that was what happened. Relationships between Congress and the people had to be turned on their head; the people had to be encouraged to speak for themselves and, for the first time, Congress activists had to learn to listen. From that process came a radical Freedom Charter and the first outlines of a revolutionary new South Africa.

It is a paradox that this revolution was triggered by the most conventional, respectable and thoroughly bourgeois activist of us all, Z K Matthews. And equally paradoxical that it should have been started in a schoolroom in rural Stanger. From these unlikely beginnings, the congresses set out on the revolutionary years which would culminate in a radically new South Africa forty-five years later.

The Prof and four other great men set their stamp on that revolutionary period. The father figure of them all was Chief Albert Luthuli, who commanded a unique respect across all sectors, from the old guard to the new young militants.

The others were Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu, who together formed a remarkable triumvirate. All their familial and cultural roots were in the Transkei. Their contrasting personalities complemented each other so fully that their combined influence on the period was far greater than the sum of their individual parts. They had come together in Johannesburg in the early days of the new nationalism and cut their political teeth in the ANC Youth League. They were all men of exceptional ability and total dedication to their ideals, without regard to self. South African liberation history thereafter is, in considerable part, their history.

Were it not for politics my path would probably never have crossed any of theirs and my life would have been poorer for it. We met quite casually, in encounters at occasional conferences and meetings, but in the course of the COP campaign I worked with them and came to know them well and to appreciate their extraordinary qualities.