Volunteer pays heavy price for political agenda The way we were

THE NAMIBIAN politician Herman Andimba Toivo ya Toivo (Robben Island prisoner and close friend of Nelson Mandela) who died recently was one of a diminishing band of black volunteers who joined the South African Native Military Corps (NMC) during World War II.

When General Jan Smuts took our country into the war by a narrow majority in 1939, he faced a potential backlash from Afrikaner nationalists, many of whom supported Hitler. He was therefore obliged to ensure that mobilisation didn’t disturb the institutionalised racism that prevailed in segregated Southern Africa.

The 123 000 black, coloured, “Malay” and Indian troops who volunteered were not permitted to enlist in the Union Defence Force. Instead, they were marshalled into three separate units with differing pay scales, benefits and opportunities. They were supposed to fill non-combatant roles and were not allowed to bear modern arms.

Some were retained for home duty, while others served in Abyssinia, North Africa and Italy, where many coloured and some black soldiers were quietly issued with rifles. Together, they made up 37% of South Africa’s military manpower.

More than 70 000 South Africans joined the NMC, which was staffed by white officers drawn from the Department of Native Affairs. Most unskilled men served as porters, labourers and sappers, but many were trained as guards, drivers, mechanics, carpenters, chefs, medical orderlies and clerks.

Another 7 000 NMC recruits came from South West Africa (Namibia), mainly unschooled men. Most served in South Africa and were armed with spears. Toivo ya Toivo, aged 18 when he volunteered in 1942, was well educated by contemporary standards, having attended a church school in Ovamboland, followed by three years’ carpentry training at Ongwediva Industrial School.

The discrimination and restrictions which applied to the men of the non-combatant branches rankled, but most served loyally and returned home without overt political agendas.

Toivo ya Toivo nurtured a desire for education and qualified as a teacher before moving to Cape Town, where he joined various political movements and co-founded the Ovamboland People’s Congress (OPC), a forerunner of Swapo, in 1957. His support for Namibian independence attracted notice and he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment on Robben Island.

Referring to his military service in his South African trial in 1968, he recalled that he had risked his life to defeat Nazism at a time when some Afrikaners tried to sabotage their own fatherland.

“I volunteered to face German bullets, and as a guard of military installations, both in South West Africa and the Republic, was prepared to be the victim of their sabotage. Today, they are our masters and are considered the heroes, and I am called (a) coward.”