Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-23

MURPHY MOROBE: I think that, understandably, much of the literature is lacking in many critical respects and those, by and large, relate to fact, you know.  You know the actual factual things that happened.  I hear mention for example incidences of an encounter that I had with a teacher and the impact that has had subsequently to the events.  I have mentioned the role of SASEM as a student organisation and the backdrop to that from an ideological and political point of view as to what was actually involved.  I think that some of that still has to be covered, but I think by its very nature, history is not something that any one person can claim to have total, you know, control of in terms of facts because even though we might be going through the same thing, but the perspectives from which this thing impacts on us will be different.  So it will be difficult for me to say this is the most authentic account because even as I was centrally involved in those events I, for example, did not see how Hector Petersen was shot and killed you know.  I, for example, did not see how Dr Melville Edelstein was killed, you know.  So, those are things that happened at different points, but from the point of view of the organisation I think the account that I have given and I
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think what Dan Montsisi would have given, takes you more or less into the heart of some of the main players that were planning some of the things.
 There was a lot of things written about spontaneity, you know.  The only thing that was spontaneous, I must say, is not the march, you know, is not the participation of students in protest against Afrikaans, but it is actually the violence that happened.  The violence was never part of the plan.  It is something that people spontaneously resorted to in expression of their anger, you know.  Even though in the courts, they tried to use the courts to suggest that there was this element of violence plan enhance the severity of charge of sedition which in a different setting might have resulted in us getting death sentences for that matter.  
 The point is that the writings, I have no problem with writings.  I think there will be a subject of ongoing debates for many years as to what happened where, you know, and it is only when we have events like this that I can be able to corroborate what Nomavenda Mashiyane said, what Mr Mosala said about the UBC and other things.  So it is basically exercises.  Hence, I see the value in this process in that it is, even with reconciliation in mind, it is also helping this country to come to terms with the actual events lying behind its traumatic past.  I think that, I spent most of my time since I came off Robben Island in 1982 on almost every year talking about this and that to me, perhaps, is a way in which I tend to cope with what one has gone through.  As a way in which I could share my own experiences with generations that are there, but there is also more to the story.  It is not just about violence, it is not just about 
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schools closing or schools opening.  There is also elements of discipline.  
 There is still something in what we use to do even during the Bantu education era at schools like Morris Isaacson that when one looks at schools today, you really long for those things to come back, you know.  The discipline of the schools, the concentration on the studies, you know, respect for teachers, you know, and so on.  I think that is very important because the students are the foundation of the future and, I think, for those of us who have survived it is probably by the Grace of God.  One does not know how we might survive because some of the people today who turned out to be haskarries killing people, use to be people we knew very well, you know.  We might as well have been serious contenders for their sharp knives, but we have survived that and thank God we have survived.  
 I think that it is those kinds of interconnections in the history that will take time and many of the authors of this history often tend to be outsiders, you know.  They come from America, they come from England, they are white journalists who could not come into the township during that period, but they write these books, you know.  I think that the big challenge is on those of us who were involved to be able to put our resources and energies together to piece this history and actually give the right impression.  
 A Church like Reginamunde, in my view, it is a Church that really, you know, deserves the status of a national monument because of what this Church had to go through.  If these walls could tell stories, they could tell a lot of stories of things that the police did right inside this Church.  When some of the Government institutions could not
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have us hold meetings, we were able to come to Reginamunde and consolidate our struggle and unite our people through these venues.   think that I hear the cries from the Priests now and then.  It does pain me that today you still have the Priest crying for help.  It should not be.  This should come voluntarily.  We should be putting our efforts to say Reginamunde is a symbol.  We must give it the status that, I think, it deserves.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, thank you.  I have just one brief question for you.  Yesterday we had one of the journalists, Gabu Tugwana, who was giving his evidence lobbying strongly for trauma centres of some kind.  The things that you have seen, that you have gone through and some of the actions that you yourself during the most tender years you got involved with.  Did they leave you with emotional scars of some kind that you think should be taken care of, not only for you, but for many other young people who went through a similar experience?