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HERstory: Writing women into South AfricanhistoryMthunzi Zungu, Nozipho Manqele, Calda de Vries, Thato Molefe &Muziwandile Hadebe of the Oral History Unit of the Department of Arts andCulturePublished online: 14 Mar 2014.

To cite this article: Mthunzi Zungu, Nozipho Manqele, Calda de Vries, Thato Molefe & Muziwandile Hadebeof the Oral History Unit of the Department of Arts and Culture (2014) HERstory: Writing women into SouthAfrican history, Agenda: Empowering women for gender equity, 28:1, 7-17

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HERstory: Writing women into South Africanhistory

Mthunzi Zungu, Nozipho Manqele, Calda de Vries, Thato Molefe and Muziwandile Hadebe of the

Oral History Unit of the Department of Arts and Culture

abstractIt is said that “history is told not as it was but as men saw it”. Women have largely been absent from the telling of ourhistory, despite their vital contribution made in the struggle for freedom. The Department of Arts and Culturecurrently has an opportunity to record the largely untold micro-histories of South Africans through the recording andarchiving of oral histories. The practice of recording oral histories will have two major advantages: 1) acting as atransformational mechanism through which past imbalances are addressed, and functioning as a therapeuticmechanism to deal with South Africa’s turbulent past; and 2) enriching our educational curriculum at all levels,creating deep and thorough archives to be accessed by domestic and international scholars. It is of utmostimportance that research needs to be undertaken on women prior to and in the struggle; women’s everydaystruggles; and women in leadership positions, among other contemporary issues. 2013 marked the centenary of the1913 Women’s Anti-Pass Campaign in Bloemfontein – a campaign which served as a turning point in our history, andleft a lasting legacy for South African women in the 20th century. De Lauretis’ (1989) statement that “it is thespecific properties, qualities or necessary attributes that women have developed or have been bound to historically intheir different patriarchal sociocultural contexts which make them women not men” is useful in guiding how we writewomen’s lives and give women a voice. We, the KwaZulu-Natal Archives, will focus on writing the lives of forgottenheroines/activists like Nokuthela Dube, Portia Ndwandwe, Phyllis Naidoo, Bessie Head, Victoria Mxenge and CharlotteManye Maxeke.

keywordsgender, women, South African history, oral history, patriarchy, politics

IntroductionWriting women into history does not onlyinclude narrowing the gaps and giving thema voice, it also involves redefining and enlar-ging traditional notions of their historicalsignificance. Scholars have over the pastcenturies focused on men as players andwriters of history. This state of affairs has toa large extent neglected and silenced thevoice of women and their role, yet womenhave played a profound role in shaping thecountry’s history. Evidence has shown that

women have come together and fought forfreedom and dignity, for equal rights andsocial justice. They played an enormous rolein the relaxation of the pass laws in 1913 andlater the exclusion of women from carryingpasses in 1923. They have marched in pro-test on the stone towers of power. They havefaced police batons, teargas and guns. Theyhave been detained and tried to make a betterland for their children to give them what theynever had: the right to be free in their owncountry.

Agenda 99/28.1 2014ISSN 1013-0950 print/ISSN 2158-978X online# 2014 M. Zungu et al.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2014.871459 pp. 7–17

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“Wathintaabafazi, wathintaimbokodo,uzakufa” (“You have tampered with the wo-men, you have struck a rock, you will die”) arethe stirring words of a protest song composedin one of the largest mass demonstrations on9 August 1956, where 22 000 womenmarched on the seat of government in Pre-toria against white minority rule. It is throughdocumenting these struggles that as SouthAfrica marks the centenary of the 1913women’s march against pass laws in Bloem-fontein, women’s role in history will be givenequal status and attention. The centenary hasallowed less celebrated heroines of the strug-gle to be remembered and celebrated forshaping the direction of the country – politic-ally, socially and economically.

The overarching aim of this focus is todraw attention to some of the less celebratedheroines in South Africa. These women haveplayed an active role in the struggle forliberation – they were at the forefront ofkey points in our history – women such asNokuthela Dube, Princess Magogo, CharlotteManye Maxeke, Victoria Mxenge, BessieHead, Phyllis Naidoo and Phila Ndwandwe.The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Arts andCulture honours all those women who havecontributed in extraordinary ways to SouthAfrican society. Those who fought for justiceand peace at the turn of the 20th century;those who did pioneering work in arts, music,

dance and poetry; the early writers of SouthAfrican history; the suffragettes who foughtfor equality and fairness; the trade unionwomen who fought for a living wage; andthe early women political activists and wo-men in other fields. The exemplary achieve-ments of all these women are certainly aninspiration for men and women today – andwill indeed be an inspiration for futuregenerations.

C.T. Msimang in his book Buzaniku Mka-bayi published in 1982 presented the fascin-ating role of Mkabayi in Zulu history and itspolitical affairs. Not only did Mkabayi shapethe political affairs through her power andinfluence, she also became a powerful polit-ical figure feared by men of great influence.She eventually became a regent when herfather, Jama kaNdaba, died with Senzanga-khona still too young to take the throne.However, such historical tales are few: hencethe need to document women’s history.

Jeff Guy wrote The View Across theRiver in 2001, but the book is not entirelyabout Harriet Colenso, but more about herplight in trying to help the uSuthu in times ofthe British invasion. The marginalisation ofwomen in history has been camouflaged bysuch undertakings, which ensure focus on afew notable women in South African history.While this is vital, there are countless womenwho are not given the necessary focus, andremain invisible. Zulu history is filled withexamples of noteworthy women, such as:

. The chiefdom of Machibise, locatedwherePietermaritzburgcurrentlystands.Uncharacteristically headed by a wo‐man, Machibise, this was before thearrival of the Voortrekkers in the region.While part of Edendale, a predomi-nately black township in Pietermaritz-burg, is named after her, she is barelyremembered (J. Wright, ‘PMB beforethe Voortrekker’, The Witness, 24 No‐vember, 2010).

. Mavundlase, iNkosi-chief of iziNkumbion the South Coast (Henry FrancisFynn’s black supporters, known asiziNkumbi). Charlie was the nephew ofHenry F. Fynn (junior), and succeededhis mother as chief of the iziNkumbi.Mavundlase is regarded as the firstNguni matriarchal iNkosi.

. King Dinizulu’s mother, OkaMsweli,who carried out the duties of

Figure 1. Bessie Head (from South African HistoryOnline, www.sahistory.org.za).

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chieftainship for almost a decadewhile Dinuzulu was exiled in StHelena. Written sources placeemphasis on Mankulumane (Dinuzu-lu’s undunankulu, or prime minister)as the figure at the helm of the chief-tainship. Dinuzulu was imprisoned in1907 on the basis of allegations that heinstigated the 1906 Bhambatha Upris-ing. His imprisonment depressed her sotremendously that she died in 1908.

The underlying presupposition of thisfocus is that structural and societal con-straints have led to the silence around manystories of remarkable women in our past. KarlMarx is aptly quoted as saying “anyone whoknows anything of history knows that greatsocial changes are impossible without thefeminine ferment.” The word ‘ferment’denotes a catalyst of sorts – and this in itselfis an ideal fit to the stock of women in thiscountry who were at times at the forefront ofthe struggle for liberation.

The bold women in our history did notmobilise simply because they were women.They mobilised against the injustices of theapartheid state, recognising that such injust-ice touched on all aspects of their lives.According to Hassim (2006), in the earlypart of the 20th century women in the countrymobilised around a wide range of issues, forexample working women’s struggles againstlow wages and poor conditions in the

workplace, local states’ attempts to regulatewomen’s economic activities, control ofwomen’s mobility by the promulgation ofpass laws, and poverty among many others.

In establishing the patriarchal character ofSouth African society, Bozzoli (1983) informsus that the legal system, wages, access topositions of power and authority are all struc-tural mechanisms whereby a hierarchical,unequal relationship between men and wo-men is perpetuated. Abbott, Wallace and Tyler(2005) argue that women’s and men’s experi-ence of the social world are not only shapedby difference but by a hierarchical ordering ofdifference, what feminists have called the‘gender order’. The terms sex and genderhave particular definitions in sociologicalwork: sex refers to the biological identity ofthe person and is meant to signify the factthat one is either male or female, whereasgender refers to the socially learned behaviourand expectations that are associated with thetwo sexes (Andersen, 1997). The fact thatsomeone is born a female or a male does notmean that she or he will become stereotypi-cally feminine or masculine. Likewise, genderis not natural, but is created by societythrough socialisation using institutions suchas the family, the church, schools and thestate. Unequal power relationships are alsocreated by society, enabling HIStory to takeprecedence over HERstory. It is said that“history is told not as it was but as mensaw it.”

Figure 2. Seen in the foreground is Victoria Nonyamezelo Mxenge (photo from South African History Online, www.sahistory.org.za).

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Documenting women in history requiresrevisiting their ‘lived lives’. This is sorelyneeded as women’s role has been missingfrom the discourse. Such deliberate silencemeans that documenting women’s historycan only be done through life histories, hencethe need to employ oral history as a meth-odology. This approach has often beendescribed as a method that enables a voidwithin the archives to be filled, by recognisingthe previously marginalised.

Scholars of the 21st century cannot affordto downplay the role of women in shapingsociety. Evidence has shown that womenhave contributed much to our history andthus deserve to be included in the academicand public discourse. Anderson, Armitage,Jack and Wittner (1987) affirm that oralhistory supplements archival material byincorporating the previously overlooked lives,activities and feelings of women into ourunderstanding of the past and of the present.This focus piece wishes to advance this claimby stating that the purpose of oral history isnot merely to ‘fill the gaps’ in archival docu-ments that are about the biographies of menand are Eurocentric in nature: it is a methodo-logy of its own, not requiring supplementation.It creates an opportunity to create new sourcesfor HERstory and thus adding to HIStory.

Men and women experience the worlddifferently. Simone de Beauvoir (1952: 172)is quoted as saying “representation of theworld, like the world itself, is the work ofmen; they describe it from their own point ofview, which they confuse with the absolutetruth.” The act of supplanting HERstory inplace of HIStory is that HERstories are writtenfrom a feminist perspective and emphasisethe role played by women in society. Feministresearch attempts to document and describethe main social differences and inequalitiesbetween men and women. MacKinnon (1982)informs us that consciousness raising – the actof collective critical reconstitution of the mean-ing of women’s social experience as they livethrough it – is key to feminist method.

It is noted that history is a violent space; itoffers fictitious accounts, vilifying some and‘heroising’ others. It is known that the lead-ership of the struggle against apartheid inSouth Africa identifies and remembers ‘her-oes’ and forgets the rest, which includes menand women. For example, if you died in thestruggle, you are remembered; if you survived

like many millions, you are forgotten in his-tory. History is thus negotiated by power.

Princess Magogo andNokuthela DubeIn observing various oral history narratives ofwomen in South Africa there is evidence thatwomen’s accounts of events is given signific-ance by making reference to the eminent menaround these women. In the various inter-views analysed for this focus, the womenretell their stories in relation to these men.Women are not often interviewed as keyfigures but rather as subordinates in theevents. Women are not given equal statusduring the interview process; at times theyare used as a means to an end. For example,the subject for the Princess Magogo interviewwas King Solomon, her brother, and not thePrincess herself. The content of oral history isgendered towards the King, and derides therole she played in shaping history. Whilst thisis so, a glimpse into the Princess’ life isrevealed, thus presenting us with a text inneed of analysis.

Figure 3. Princess Magogo (photo from South AfricanHistory Online, www.sahistory.org.za).

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There are countless women who haveshaped history through music as a form ofdissent against the injustices inflicted onthem based on gender, race and class. Prin-cess Magogoka Dinuzulu is one such woman,who can be seen as a ‘deviant’ or ‘interfering’woman who shaped history. Born at OsuthuRoyal Homestead in 1900, during a signific-ant period in Zulu history, Princess Magogowas raised by her grandmothers and mothers(Dinuzulu’s widowed wives). Her mother,Queen Silomo, died when she was still veryyoung. As a result she endured mistreatmentfrom her ‘foster’ mothers. After Queen Silo-mo’s death the responsibility to look after hertwo brothers, King Solomon MaphumuzanaNkayishana and Prince Mshiyeni, fell on her.

Her experiences as a royal, a female anda black woman shaped her identity; she laterprojected herself as fearless and independ-ent, and exhibited a certain agency whichwas uncommon for a woman of her socialposition. This was portrayed in how sheclaimed her space in her music and in herpolitical activism. Princess Magogo was apoet, singer, composer and historian whorevealed much about her time through her

oral history recordings. She transcendedboundaries by becoming a female composerand imbogi (bard).

Through her musical compositions andinterviews she tackles taboo issues in Zuluculture and society. She observes and inter-rogates the absence of her husband in raisingher children. This is heard in the nursing songUyephina? (Where has he gone to?). Herrecordings do not only reflect various issuestroubling the nation at a point in history, butposition her as a woman actively questioningthe status quo and responding to socialchange by bringing it into the spotlight. Shealso played the role of safeguarding music bybeing the last known player of ugubhu (astringed bow and calabash instrument). Shebecame known as an authority on Zulu tradi-tions and music; experts in these fields oftenconsulted her and she taught many. Withouther a great deal of traditional music wouldhave been lost.

Nokuthela Dube is another such heroinewho shaped history through music and edu-cation. Nokuthela (née Mdima) was born atInanda Mission School in the early 1870s. Atthe age of 11 she attended Inanda Seminary,the prestigious girls’ high school that wasestablished by the American Zulu Mission in1869. According to Healy-Clancy (2013: 67)Inanda missionaries contributed 32 cases ofyoung women who had come to evade‘forced marriages’, which forced many younggirls in the area to run away from home andothers to commit suicide.

Nokuthela grew up in this era; observingsuch cases contributed immensely in shapingher character as an independent woman.After completing her schooling she took toteaching young girls. In 1894 she marriedJohn Langalibalele Dube and thus became amember of the most prominent Christianfamily in Inanda. John and Nokuthela Dubewere sent to study in America from 1896 to1899 at the Union Missionary Training Insti-tute in Brooklyn, New York. Nokuthela studiedmusic education and home economics. It isknown that her musical performances abroadassisted in funding the building of the firstAfrican independent school in Inanda. OhlangeIndustrial Institute is ‘known’ to have beenstarted by John Langalibalele Dube, the firstPresident of the South African National NativeCongress (SANNC – became the AfricanNational Congress (ANC) in 1923). The vitalrole she played in the formation of the school is

Figure 4. Nokuthela Dube (photo from South AfricanHistory Online, www.sahistory.org.za).

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often overlooked. Nokuthela and John Dubecollected funds through talks they gave, andNokuthela’s musical performances abroad.She is not given the same recognition as herhusband John Langalibalele Dube, who is oftengiven the solitary role of funding this school.Nokuthela was fearless in taking bold deci-sions; this was clear later in her life, when sheabandoned Dube after his extramarital affair.This also showed how strong her religiousconviction were.

Nokuthela’s story has only come to lightrecently. A US-based academic of Africanorigin, Professor Cherif Keita, discovered herunmarked grave that had remained forgottenfor 93 years. On 24 August 2013 the Depart-ment of Arts and Culture, in collaboration withthe KwaZulu-Natal Office of the Premier andother stakeholders, held a memorial lecture tocontribute to the work of reinstating thelegacy of this remarkable woman into SouthAfrican public life. The unveiling of her tomb-stone was held on 31 August 2013.

The unearthing of such a remarkable wo-man almost a century after her death leadsthe authors to question whether there may beother forgotten heroines of this land still to bediscovered. Nokuthela cofounded the IlangaLase Natal newspaper in 1903 (which is stillin circulation), Ohlange Institute and NatalNative Congress (the forerunner of theSANNC) with Dube – but she is not men-tioned at all.

Women’s emancipation througheducationThe ‘makeup’ of the heroines in our historyreveals that many were educated, either atmission schools or through life experience;they were fearless; they were selfless; andthey had the audacity to challenge the sys-tem. Women intellectuals like Nokuthela Dubeand Charlotte Manye Maxeke were educatedabroad; they knew no boundaries and wereinternationalists. As previously mentioned,Nokuthela started the first African schoolindependent of state control, and it wasfeared by the colonialists that this wouldassist in the emancipation of the black major-ity. Nokuthela has also recently (2013) beencredited for the instrumental role she playedin the success of John Dube. Charlotte iswidely known to be the first South Africanwoman to get a degree, which she received in

the United States of America; she led the1913 Women’s Anti-Pass Campaign in Bloem-fontein, and was one of the selected fewallotted membership into the SANNC.

Missionary education in South Africa dur-ing the 19th and 20th centuries was the firstof its kind to prepare women for a better life insociety. Women like Talitha Hawes and DalidaIsaac were among the first to be educated atInanda Seminary. The influence of missionaryeducation on women was more positive thannegative, and women like Bessie Head standout as typical examples of its positive influ-ences. Her access to missionary educationfreed her of South African oppression anddiscrimination, exposed her to a wide range ofliterature and allowed her to become one ofthe most well-known African women writersin South African history. Her works deal withissues of discrimination, refugees, racialism,African history, poverty, and interpersonalrelationships in apartheid South Africa. BessieHead had a strong belief in the importance ofeducation; she was formally educated, andher life’s work was aimed at educating others.Her life demonstrates an interesting departurefrom what was generally perceived to be the

Figure 5. Charlotte Manye Maxeke (photo from SouthAfrican History Online, www.sahistory.org.za).

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status and role of women in her society,especially at the beginning of the 19th and20th century.

Through the work of women like BessieHead, who were agents of change, women’sroles in society and opportunities in theeducational sphere improved dramaticallyover the years. Today a large number ofwomen are teachers, health workers, activistsand intellectuals, artists and entrepreneurs.Women also participate in key positions ofpower; in parliament and government, asvoters, legislators, members of the judiciary,members and leaders of political parties, civilsociety activists, political analysts, mediaagents, public servants, public intellectualsand more generally as citizens exercising theiragency in the broad spectrum of their dailylives and that of South African society.

Political participation and politicalactivismSouth African women have been politicallyactive throughout history. Political participa-tion is referred to as activity that has theintent or effect of influencing governmentaction, either directly through public policyor indirectly by influencing the selection ofpeople who make those policies (Verba,Schlozman & Brady, 1995: 38). Political act-ivism, on the other hand, refers to the use ofdirect, confrontational action toward a cause.Women have been active within the ANCsince its existence. Frene Ginwala (1990), in

a paper titled ‘Women and the AfricanNational Congress 1912-1943’, published inthis very journal, mentions that for the first30 years of the existence of the SANNC/ANCthe exclusion of women from full membershipin the constitution contrasted with the parti-cipation of women in the deliberations,decision-making and campaigns of the orga-nisations, although not in the leadership.Ginwala (1990) asserts that this apparentcontradiction stems from the actuality ofAfrican women’s involvement in resistanceand the irregular structure of the ANC, whichallowed for ways in which women couldparticipate. Ginwala (1990) goes on to men-tion that this exclusion of women was neithersurprising nor exceptional for the time, in thatSouth African society was patriarchal in formand male-dominated.

Ginwala (1990) says that in 1912 govern-ment and politics in the country were gener-ally considered to be within the exclusiveprovince of men, and at the time womenwere denied the franchise. According to Gin-wala (1990) the absence of women frompolitical institutions does not necessarilylead to their absence in the political arena.Because women chose to engage in issues ofimmediate and direct relevance to their dailylives, they found it easy to mobilise supportand mount campaigns. An example of this isthe 1913 anti-pass campaign in the FreeState, where women mobilised supportagainst the extension of passes to womeninstituted by the government. The solidaritythat women displayed during the 1913 march

Figure 6. Phyllis Naidoo (photo from South African History Online, www.sahistory.org.za).

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in Bloemfontein ultimately forced the SANNCto recognise women within its structures.This led to the formation of the BantuWomen’s League, forerunner of the ANCWomen’s League in 1918, the first politicalbody of black women at national level.

2013 marked the centenary of the 1913anti-pass campaign and the 1913 Satyagrahamovement. These events are not as highlypublicised as the 1956 protest. This high-lights women’s resistance at the turn of thecentury, and also racial cooperation and res-istance against unjust laws and oppression.Another example, close to home, is the similaranti-pass campaign which took place in Natalin October 1959, in Ixopo, where Dr MargaretMncadi mobilised 500 women from surround-ing districts and they marched to towndemanding to see the Native Commissioner.This was after they had submitted theirgrievances 2 months earlier and received nopositive feedback. The Native Commissionerresponded by telling the women to returnhome and give their demands to their hus-bands, who would then take the matter to thelocal headman. The women refused to dis-perse until they could speak to the NativeWomen’s Commissioner.

Just like the women of 1913 and 1956,these women marched to the town centreopposing pass laws. They were also willing togo to jail for the cause, but the strategy theyadopted differed. When confronted by theauthorities and told to disperse, theirapproach was to go down on their knees inprayer. That resulted in arrests with fines orimprisonment. As seen in other areas, policewould always respond to women’s demon-strations in a similar fashion. Issues of genderinequality were evident during this period, asauthorities refused to succumb to women’sdemands. The implications of acceptancewould have meant that women and menwere equals, which threatened the funda-mental social and political assumptions. Mar-garet Mncadi eventually became the firstPresident of the ANC Women’s League inNatal.

Another woman in our province with apowerful story is the late Victoria Nonyame-zelo Mxenge, who was brutally assassinatedduring the turbulent 1980s. Mxenge wasactive within the structures of the UnitedDemocratic Front (UDF) and was also one ofthe founding members of the Natal Organisa-tion of Women. As a lawyer Mxenge was

unafraid to challenge the system. Shebecame politically active after her husband,Griffiths Mxenge, was murdered by theNationalist Party government. Mxenge waspart of the defence team for the UDF andNatal Indian Congress during the Pietermar-itzburg Treason Trial. She was assassinatedshortly before the trial, on 1 August 1985 inthe driveway of her home in Umlazi, Durban,in front of her children.

Women like Victoria Mxenge, MargaretMncadi and Nokuthela Dube should not onlybe names we see on buildings or as renamedstreets – they should be as synonymous withthe struggle as are their male counterparts.

Audacity, sacrifice, death and near-death experiencePhyllis Naidoo, a remarkable woman whorecently died, is remembered for the pivotalrole she played in the liberation of this coun-try. When Phyllis Naidoo’s underground net-work was arrested in Durban, she received aninstruction from ANC leader Harry Gwala toleave the country since she faced the dangerof being detained. She sneaked out of thecountry to Swaziland and joined the ANC inexile. She crossed via Lesotho, alone since alarge group of escapees would attract atten-tion from the authorities.

In 1982 Phyllis Naidoo had a close shavewith death when the South African DefenceForce (SADF) raided Lesotho at night, leaving42 people dead (30 South Africans, mostlyANC members, and 12 Lesotho nationals).This is known as the Maseru Massacre. Hersecond near-death experience was when shewas bombed in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Atragedy befell her when she lost her sons –the first, Sahdham (Sanna) was killed bySouth African agents in Tanzania in 1989.According to Phyllis, Sanna knew the penaltyof being politically active. Sha, her secondson, died in 1995. Later she lived in Zim-babwe, where she taught at the University ofHarare. Life in Zimbabwe was still unsafe, ascomrades would be killed and sometimes hadto run into the bush to hide from the Zim-babwe Defence Force, which often raidedtheir place. It was a life of anxiety, panic andendurance, which was the sacrifice of beinginvolved in a political struggle. Leaving home,family, friends and relatives was hard; equally

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so was the danger posed by raiding SouthAfrican forces and their allies.

It is fascinating if one looks at how Phyllis’attention was drawn to the race problem inSouth Africa. According to Phyllis, she receivedher first lesson in politics at the age of tenwhen accompanying her father to a liberals’meeting. Awoman at the meeting asked her togo and call the ‘boy’ outside. She discoveredthat the ‘boy’ referred to was a grown-up manwho deserved respect and dignity. The replyshe received from the wife of the man rattledher: “That ‘boy’ you are looking for is myhusband!” It was a turning point in her life. It

was a time of developing a political acumenthat shaped her political life throughout.

Racial oppression affected black SouthAfricans of different ages, which triggeredtheir desire to be involved in politics. Such anundertaking was sometimes costly. One suchexample was that of Phila Portia Ndwandwe,who was a student at the University ofDurban-Westville when she abandoned herstudies and skipped the country to Swaziland.People close to her at campus rememberedher as smart, gentle, friendly, and a goodcommunicator who was comfortable in anycompany (Naidoo, 2009: 36). She had been

Figure 7. A telling headline: story about Phyllis Naidoo from the Sunday Tribune in 1971.

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arrested with a group of activists by BrightonBeach Police in 1985, and released aftermaking a statement, since they hoped toturn her into a state witness. The man incharge of the investigation was furious withhis colleagues for releasing her, and it wasafter this that she escaped to Swaziland.

In Swaziland she joined Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) and built a reputation of beingbrave and trustworthy. She was a brave, dedic-ated cadre, which explains why she was taskedto be a commander of the Durban undergroundnetwork under ‘Operation Butterfly’, a resolu-tion taken at the ANC Kabwe conference in1985. Military intervention had been fruitlessfor MK, hence the need to revive the strategy.Under Phila’s command the network suc-ceeded in several missions, with bombs goingoff in several locations in Durban. The attentionof the Durban Security Branch then refocusedon Swaziland and Durban; they interceptedcalls of the unit, and Phila was identified as acommanding figure of the network.

One bomb in Wentworth in Durban hadkilled Colonel Robert Wellman in 1984; he wasnotorious for his interrogation of witnessesand covering up of evidence, and heading theBrighton Beach Police Station unit investigat-ing MK and other political activities in Durban.The bomb that killed Colonel Wellman wasplanted by Robert McBride, who said that theyplanted two bombs ten minutes apart, know-ing that the police would come to inspect.

Colonel Andy Taylor took over from Well-man and was tasked with neutralising theDurban network as its activities had reachedcritical point. Taylor devised a plan and taskedan askari to contact Phila Nwandwe, posingas a member of the ANC tasked to pass heran important message. She was then kid-napped in Swaziland, and taken to a farmoutside Pietermaritzburg. The aim was to turnher into a police spy. When her abductors sawthat she could not be ‘turned’, she was killed,execution style.

The demeaning circumstance under whichshe died is indicative of the brutality of theSecurity Branch members. When her bodywas exhumed to be given a proper burial, shehad only a piece of plastic to cover her privateparts. While she had tried to protect herbodily dignity, throughout her life Phila main-tained her political dignity.

Women soldiers were exposed to the samedangers as men, and suffered the same fate.

Women were therefore decision-makers,knowing individuals, fully aware of the dangersand yet still opted to continue to work indangerous spaces. This shattered the myth ofwomen always needing protection, and showsthe agency apparent in women in our history.

During the Truth and Reconciliation (1998)hearings the defendants in Phila’s assassina-tion were granted amnesty. Phila has sincereceived recognition from the government forher courage and sacrifice. Oral narratives andtestimonies assisted in resurrecting her story.Phila grew up during the time of conflict justfive years after the Sharpeville Massacre. Shewas 11 during the Soweto Uprising, and wouldhave listened to the ANC’s Radio Freedom. Assomebody who stayed with her stepmother,her daily life was a struggle since she did nothave a good relationship with her. In her daysat the University of Durban-Westville, Phila didnot take up leadership roles in student politicsas she wanted to avoid drawing attention toher political activities. It is this deep nature ofunderstanding her role in the ANC thatdeserves praise.

ConclusionIt can be said that women in South Africa areregarded as storytellers, yet they suffer insti-tutionalised silencing in history (Hofmeyer,1993). This focus is an attempt to deal withthe silences of some of the less celebratedwomen in our history. Silences such as thataround Nokuthela – absent from the historybooks despite the pivotal role she played inco-founding Ohlange Institute, Ilanga news-paper and the Natal Natives Congress (fore-runner of the SANNC).

This focus does not provide a compre-hensive account of the aforementioned wo-men and their achievements, but doesattempt to add to the narrative of women’srole in South African history. Much workneeds to be done in the field to documentthe life histories of Mavundlase, Machibise,OkaMsweli, Phila Ndwandwe and many more.It is hoped that the national initiative to recordoral histories spearheaded by the NationalDepartment of Arts and Culture is going toaddress some of these challenges.

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THE ORAL HISTORY UNIT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ARTS ANDCULTURE is newly established, and responsible for safeguardingintangible heritage by collecting, recording and archiving mem-ories of community members from different parts of theprovince. This research was conducted by Muziwandile Hadebe(Deputy Manager: Repository and Oral History Management)with Calda De Vries, Nozipho Manqele, Thato Molefe andMthunzi Zungu (Researchers for the Oral History Unit). Email:DevriesC@kzndac.gov.za

From left to right: back – Mthunzi Zungu, Calda de Vries, Muziwandile Hadebe; front – NoziphoManqele, Thato Molefe.

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