Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

MR VALLY: You heard us questioning members of the Crisis Committee and the one issue we took up with them was why didn't they act sooner, why weren't they more decisive.  I notice statement in both of your submissions.  With the Cachalia statement paragraph 12, "It was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made", Mr Morobe's statement paragraph 20, "This statement has had a profound effect on me as an individual..", and you go on.  What was it, we try to understand this, what was it about Mrs Madikizela Mandela and her Football Club that made it so difficult for very important prominent people in positions people held from acting decisively before this whole series of events which you allege took place actually occurred?

MR CHAKALIA: Chairperson it was 1989.  We were on the eve of our liberation.  We were into our last push and our last push came later in '89.  The ground in our view was ripe in the sense for our final move.  We did not want anything to interfere with that, we did not want the regime to be side tracked ourselves.  We didn't want the name of our movement, I'm not talking about the UDF, I'm talking about the ANC because that was the movement that we were fighting to unban, we didn't want to be tarnished, so yes it was extraordinary difficult, point 1.
 And point 2, power.  When you deal with people who are powerful in any society, whoever you are, you deal with them a bit more carefully than you deal with somebody you see in a squatter camp.  Now what's so difficult to understand about that and I think we must put the cards on the table, Mrs Mandela is a powerful person, a powerful figure, so before you mess with a powerful person you must be clear of your facts and that was the situation.

MURPHY MOROBE: Well for me one of the things - incidentally I spent time on Robben Island and one of the inmates on Robben Island was Comrade Nelson Mandela from whom many of us as young people learnt many things, and in a number of debates and discussions that we had on the island one of the issues that we actually spent a lot of time on related to the whole question of cults, the cult of the individual, the cult of personality, I think those who have read the histories of the world would know about those events in various countries where powerful figures where they design, and even in fact they desire and even in fact acquire reverence from in fact subjects become so powerful especially when they are not being questioned that in the end they begin to work against the interests of the very people who are giving them in fact their power.  So the question here for me even when I was doing the statement it was a reflection of all those things that I learned and what do I do with the situation, I mean I am faced with someone as I say as a young student at Morris Isaacson on my way from school, one of my routes took me past her home in Orlando West, sometimes I will stop over, sometimes she will give me tea.   In 1976 the Archbishop was in Soweto, Mrs Mandela's house was burnt and I was one of those that came to the house to actually offer that support at the time.
 Now 1989 presents us with certain sets of circumstances and I am a grown up person, I have developed in terms of my mind, I understand a little better about these things and one of the things I have come to understand is the whole question of power relations in any environment where you as an individual have to relate to someone else.  In the situation of the Football Club I think psychologists or social theoreticians will be very interested to make a thorough study of the dynamics that take place in that kind of environment where we have people that come from different places that do not have power, that do not have money, in fact that need some support and in their relationship to individuals that are powerful, have got all the means, and in that situation it becomes important to even understand the behaviour of those individuals when they have to relate in that situation.  Now it might be said to be theoretical, of course I stand to be criticised and even perhaps crushed on the ground, but at least that's my view and that's how I understand these issues.
 And for me I was faced in 1989 with the situation of saying, do I subject what I think at that point in time had reached a point where we need to take a principled position or do we say well you know somebody, it's one of us, it's wrong, and we might quote other instances and say why didn't you do something about the whole range of incidents all over the country, but I think that's another matter, but the point is that on this particular issue we took a particular view and I think that view, in my mind, you know is still reflected in the statement which I think is still valid.

MR VALLY: My last question.  Mr Cachalia refers to the issue of settling old scores, Mr Morobe refers to the profound effect of the statement.  You see to be creating the perception that by taking the stance you did it had an impact and an effect on you people, I am talking about possibly the underlying threat which is why people were scared of taking action, has the issuing of the statement had an effect on your political or professional lives?

AZHAR CACHALIA: That's a more difficult one you know.  After the tough years of the UDF, in some ways I had felt for myself that I wanted to pursue a professional career, and do my law properly and I started doing that until Sydney Mufamadi got hold of me, so I mean I had quite consciously decided, if you like, to disengage a bit, from the political structures.  But having said that there were people who took sides on this thing and really it was a simple question, a very simple question.  People make political calculations, not only in South Africa, they make political calculations all over the world and if you were on the right side of Comrade Winnie, or the wrong side of Comrade Winnie, depending on where Comrade Winnie is in the structure, you took particular choices, and so, ja, in some ways it was a bit lonely because we had felt that, I had felt that a year after we had issued the statement in a sense some of the people were out for us, that there was a coolness, but having said that you know, as they say cowboys don't cry, you take stands like this and you mustn't cry about it.  And those things happen.
 I think people must, you know when you are confronted with difficult issues you must take the stand and that is how society is improved.  Nobody has harmed me.  I mean Mrs Mandela may have phoned me but nobody has physically tried to beat me up.  I mean nobody in the ANC has threatened me.  In the old days, the moment I spoke you would end up in jail so I mean there hasn't been in a sense a hostility other than the normal sort of, if you like, political manoeuvring and I think we must have a bit of a balance around that, because much of the fear that I think that is generated around Mrs Mandela it's not Mrs Mandela's problem, it's the problem of people themselves who are actually not prepared to sort of say, Comrade Winnie we think you were wrong on that particular occasion and then they generate their own sense of fear.