A revolutionary teacher
Farewell to a comrade and political mentor whose influence will live on
A few days ago, I was interviewed by a community radio station on the late freedom fighter and revolutionary, Cecyl Esau.
Esau served time on Robben Island in the late 1980s and 1990s and died last Wednesday at the age of 66.
Born and bred in Worcester, Esau became a political mentor for many of us who directed student protests against apartheid, north of Du Toitskloof Pass. He was a well-read, captivating man, passionate in his argument, acutely aware from a very young age of injustice.
One picks up that abhorrence to injustice was in his DNA, if one reads his research work or videos.
I first met him in 1984 during one politically conscientisation session, as it was called then, when rallying against the Tricameral system. I fell into his conscientisation web in 1985 when I briefly studied law at the University of the Western Cape. I frequented his company, seeking it whenever possible.
The political influence he had on me was immense.
Since then, we met at least twice a year, sometimes planned, sometimes randomly, often at the most unusual places, like once, on a dusty road in the heart of the Moordenaars Karoo.
The last time I spent with him was about a year ago, just before lockdown, in his modest but modern Table View apartment.
Sitting on his stoep on a sunny Saturday afternoon, sipping rooibos tea, the discussion vacillated between his love for Afrikaans, to why an implosion of the ANC was necessary to effect the renewal of the organisation.
My position was cautionary, based on the fact that like in the Western Cape, where the ANC lost power and where it basically dwindled into an unpleasant gaseous and ineffective opposition, something similar could happen if it lost power nationally.
Esau’s response, as usual, was stronger, always testing the limits, in typical anarcho-socialist, Chomsky fashion. For him, an implosion of the organisation he loved so much, was long overdue.
“Skei die kaf van die koring!” was his eschatological reply in his staccato speech.
“Separate the chaff from the wheat!”
I was asked during the interview what I thought Esau’s advice would have been to students today, especially the Fees Must Fall movement.
The question caught me slightly off guard but after a few seconds, remembering Esau’s modus operandi during the 1980s, I came up with an answer.
Firstly, Esau would have pointed out the maladroitly approach of the movement. For him the issue should not have been confined to higher education only.
Education for him was not isolated from other social, political and economic problems but rather a manifestation of the combination of those challenges. In other words, not being able to afford varsity fees has direct correlation with unemployment, crime, hunger, abuse, violence, inequality and any other societal challenges all South Africans face.
His strategy I think would have been to mobilise not just varsity but also high school students.
His rationale would have been that students today should learn that the current unjust system that holds them in economic subjugation is no different to the system that popped up through the forced learning of Afrikaans in the 1970s, or the suppression and banning of student bodies and activities in the 1980s.
The Grade 8 learner should be made aware that when he or she reaches university, financial constraint is going to exclude them, too. To end exclusion and this economic system where the gap between rich and poor is ever growing, and where wealth distribution is diminished daily, students should act, violently if necessary, to a point of anarchy where the country becomes ungovernable. It happened once, why not again?
His second piece of advice, in my view, would have been not take anyone as your friends, especially those in the parties of cadre deployment, sheltered employment (under the guise of fit for purpose), those pharisaicalpseudo revolutionaries in their red berets, as well as those who support those political parasites to keep them in power, technocrats, faithful customers of Naamsa products and the other leeches who worship the current political hegemony and defend the oppressive political economy of this country.
One of the lasting impressions he made on me was during the time just before the ANC lost to the DA in the Western Cape.
I called him to express my concern and his reply in that brusque manner of annoyance was: “I did not join the Struggle or go to jail so that my people should only vote for one party. The people can and will vote for whom they want.”
Rest well comrade, our country lost a giant.
One picks up that abhorrence to injustice was in his DNA