Thread by @nombonisogasa

Working on something touching on my life as a teenage activist in the former Transkei. The story is dark, because it’s about the power of the ‘T’kei Republic’ and torture of a young woman. After all these years, I am able to look into the girl I was and the woman I am...THREAD

Working on this takes me to workplace cultures and my refusal to abide. Everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve introduced change of workplace culture, even at CGE (which caused most of the problems). This is not because I have an agenda but really because I come ‘as I am’.

When I worked in Nigeria for @IDEA_Africa, they and Nigerians allowed me space to develop the programme as I (and Nigerians) saw fit. It paid off for I-IDEA and Nigeria. The CGE was the first formal employment I had after I-IDEA in Nigeria. If that country taught me anything...

‘Be clear on your intentions, don’t compromise your core principles and values and be aware of human complexity, layers of history and do not cause harm to others’. Simple language, ignore the bull shit’. Even now, l think of my Nigerians saying ‘body language oh’ (posturing).

So, when some EC ‘Chiefs’ told me about the ‘PJ whispers’ I replied ‘ok, I’m mad. But does that doesn’t change the facts about The Traditional Courts Bill’, they didn’t know what to do. They thought they’d use gossip to embarrass and silence me. EC is incredibly Anglo-Saxon...

So, rejection of Anglo-Saxon notions of respectability has been a part of my life, whether it’s rebellion against patriarchy in family or patriarchal state power of T’kei. Luckily for me, my father who’s gathering was ridiculed by KD Matanzima on ‘national’ radio agreed with me.

So, when EC Chiefs told me about ‘whispers’ I didn’t give a shit. My focus was on the TCB campaign and why it was NB. My colleagues and friends in Nigeria helped me see different aspects and layers of this... Did my wearing PJs harm or cause discomfort? No.

@LarcUCT, was clear about my role. In addition, I thought I had a lot to learn from younger colleagues. So we connected at that level. It worked for me, for them and for the organisation. And that’s my message today ‘know your people, work with their strengths and give space’.

So, I’m working on this chapter of my life as a teenage activist. I’m revisiting fights, negotiations, pleadings and deals with my parents. In my mind’s eye, I see my father watching me confront Transkei Defense Force. He is not ashamed of me. He is proud and afraid for me...

My mother tells a station Commander she’s not going anywhere until they give answers about her daughter’s whereabouts. She is angry, afraid, strong and proud.

Her uncle decides to visit all T’kei prisons searching for me. 1 day he is finally outside the prison I am held, Mthatha Maximum, Death row section. I hear him call my name. I use blankets to get myself to hoist myself up, taught by other prisoners & see his white hand kerchief.

I wave frantically, hoping he can see me. Years later he tells me he didn’t see me waving. A prisoner or warder (he’s not sure) told him I am there and gave an update. Tonight, writing about this time when Nigeria is burning, I think of my friends in Nigeria & those who left...

And remember for them and for many of us, #EndSARS is not a trend. It is a claim to a birthright, to live in a country in which we are regarded as human, rights bearing and deserving of a life without fear of police and armed forces...

It is a battle worth being dismissed as ‘crazy’. It is a battle worth laying down their lives and mine. It is battle to live in a society in which profit from mining, corruption. It is a battle for which Fikile Ntshangase was murdered. Everywhere, people are fighting for freedom

Struggles for human dignity come in different forms because of many forms deprivations and oppression. I write about how it was for me on the 1980s. #EndSARS is about how it is for Nigerians now. Fikile was about her community in Somkhele.

I write about events that happened more than 30 years ago and the indignity of oppression. My friends in Nigeria write about 60 years of indignities. Fikile Ntshangase was killed because she and her community they had no more years to give...

Everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve pushed for an environment that accommodates our full humanity. I do this because many of us have been to places that are hard to imagine, let alone to articulate...

When I wore PJs to my office @LarcUCT, I wasn’t crazy. During that period, I couldn’t breathe, my history was choking me. I was not a lazy slob. On the contrary, I was hyper aware and vigilant. I could sleep. Every morning, I scrubbed obsessively in the shower and wore clean PJs

I wore clean and comfortable PJs and nightdress from Anokhi. Years of therapy have not shed light on why night ware, specifically? I don’t really care, I love the soft cotton against my skin.

And yes, my position on TCB and unfettered power of Chiefs originates from T’kei nightmares. So what? Today I write about a security officer who collaborated with Chiefs and subjected to ‘traditional authority and courts’. I close my eyes and hear the sentence 100 lashes...

In my mind’s eye, I see my mother standing up, protesting the sentence. Her voice is calm and she challenges ‘traditional patriarchal authority’. I will take the lashes for my daughter and the seven boys, her comrades...’ Dumisa Ntsebeza, our lawyer is horrified...

Silence falls in the court. And then, the Thembuland courtiers recover and release a collective sigh...And then condemn and judge me mother. I open my eyes and there on the screen, I see not the words I am writing but my mother’s calm face. She stands up in the court...

My mother was the only person to directly challenge KD Matanzima’s words shaming my father. In that Court, in Qamata, she spoke on defense of my her husband’s fathering of her eldest daughter, Nomboniso. She was the only person to call me by my name, Nomboniso. Not ‘the girl’.

Now, I am struggling to find ‘English’ to describe that moment. We didn’t get 100 lashes on our behinds because the two presiding officers who knew my parents didn’t have answers for her.

And I, her daughter (the girls arrested with seven boys) and those 7 comrades of mine, could proceed to Cala and pay homage to our slain comrade, Bathandwa Ndondo, whom we didn’t bury because 2 days later, we were arrested again...

More than 35 years later, I try to make sense of what happened then and what is happening now, in this continent and world over. I struggle with a sensation that feels familiar and instead of running, as I often do, I ‘stay with the headache’ and the fear...

*fathering*

*I couldn’t sleep*