Conversations with a Gentle Soul: Ahmed Kathrada

AHMED KATHRADA looked at the stone prison on Robben Island in which he had spent so many hard years of his life; and then turned to me: “I remember coming back for the first time, and seeing the cell I spent so many years in, and thinking ‘how could I have survived being in this small space? It is so small!’ By the time I saw it again,” he adds, “I had got used to the big spaces of the outside world. I just couldn’t believe it.”

It was 2011, and we were both speaking at a Heritage Day event there (I had been a prison visitor to those whose families lived too far away to make the long, difficult trip).

He was the star of the day, smartly dressed, friendly, dignified.

This week we heard that “Kathy”, as he is known, one of our national treasures, had undergone brain surgery, and we were suddenly reminded of his marvellous generation of heroes, who sacrificed everything they had for the non-racial democracy they dreamed of, for whom self-enrichment was unthinkable, and whose ranks are now so sadly thinned. Ahmed Kathrada with writer Beverley Roos-Muller at a Heritage Day event on Robben Island in 2011. written by veteran journalist Sahm Venter who knows him well, has captured a series of (recorded) rambling chats she had with him in what became, she says, a “tender journey”.

This book reveals Kathrada at his most informal; the man who, though he never had children, loves them dearly. He would marry very late in life, after his 26 years in prison, to Barbara Hogan, herself also a former political prisoner.

His recollection, like so many other prisoners, is that the absence of seeing, hearing or holding children on the Island was one of the hardest things to bear.

In this book, he appeals to people to teach their children non-racialism at home. “That’s one way of combating racism. Because children don’t know colour. They learn it.”

We also remember Kathy’s extraordinary, deeply moving speech at the funeral of Madiba, his “elder brother”.

He slowly crossed the platform on that day in December 2013, and said in a broken voice, “When Walter [Sisulu] died, I lost a father, and now I have lost a brother. My life is in a void and I don’t know who to turn to… ”

There could have been few dry eyes among the millions seeing his pain.

Venter’s book includes this speech, which he wrote himself, and also the “huge step” he took last year, when he wrote a public letter to President Jacob Zuma, appealing to him to step down “to help the country to find its way out of a path it never imagined it would be on…”

Much of this book (he has written several) deals with his years on Robben Island, and the variety of issues they had to deal with, some harsh and some even funny. Sisulu was the wise “father” to all, calm-headed.

He was also very generous with his limited possessions – and other people’s. He gave freely of the little he had and, if anyone else missed something, they knew Sisulu had borrowed or given it to someone in need. He tells Venter how he had a special pen and gave it to Walter, who gave it away. “If there is such a thing as a saint, it will be Walter.”

Mandela’s greatest traits were “patience and control”, something Kathy claims he could not match. That’s selling himself short.

I recall warder Christo Brand, who became close to Mandela, saying that many of the high-ranking prisoners were not used to hard labour.

Mandela lectured the elegant Ahmed Kathrada on his wheelbarrow-pushing technique. Wardens apparently found this funny, though it was painful for those prisoners who witnessed such episodes and understood the irony, and waste, of such talent.

Kathy left the Island with four degrees and a determination to assist in seeing South Africa head into a better future, a goal he has steadfastly pursued.

This book shows a slender but intimate insight on the public figure of Kathy, though the reader needs to have some prior knowledge of his background and significance. It also felt a little chummy at times, and some of Venter’s shorter responses felt incidental.

Any book on Kathy is welcome, for he is a national treasure, as is that other frail old man, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, and we quail at the thought of their loss.

Under the powerful leadership of Mandela, Sisulu, Kathrada and others, the Robben Island “politicals” were gradually drawn into the encompassing fold of human dignity, responsibility and pride of sacrifice, which was perhaps the Island’s greatest accomplishment.

Kathy, we thank you, and wish you a speedy recovery.

To use the old Struggle slogan, “Longlive”.