Mahlangu’s ‘blood nourished the tree that bore the fruits of freedom’
THESE days we seem to know more about what US President Donald Trump is doing on a daily basis than we do about our own history.
If you ask many South Africans why two major roads in our country have been renamed Solomon Mahlangu, you are met with a blank stare. But if you ask what happened in the White House this week many will have an answer.
There may even be more people in Tanzania who know about Solomon Mahlangu than some of our own people. In 1977 the Government of Tanzania donated an old sisal farm near Morogoro to the ANC, on which a school was built named the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (Somafco).
Many Tanzanians became familiar with the name, and were keenly aware of the apartheid government’s hanging of the 21-year-old freedom fighter in 1979.
Today a major road in our nation’s capital has been renamed Solomon Mahlangu from the former name Hans Strydom – the South African Prime Minister from 19541958. I happen to live just off Solomon Mahlangu drive in Tshwane, and have grown to realise that few people living in the vicinity have any idea who Mahlangu was, or why he was honoured in such a way.
The common refrain among whites is that the city is wasting taxpayers’ money changing street names for no reason.
The same has been said in eThekwini, now that the major arterial road Edwin Swales VC has also been named Solomon Mahlangu.
But who was Solomon Mahlangu and why does he matter?
The answer to this question can be found in the recently released movie Kalushi which took a decade to make by a local movie producer.
On going to watch the movie on Human Rights Day this week, it perhaps shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did that 95% of the audience in the movie were blacks.
But the tragic story of Solomon Mahlangu is key to understanding who we are and where we have come from. Mahlangu’s story helps us understand what motivated the ranks of the freedom fighters who gave up everything for the struggle for democracy in our country.
What happened to Solomon as a young man, which compelled him to take the decision to join the armed resistance outside of the country, happened to so many blacks under apartheid to the point it almost became the norm.
Just as Mahatma Gandhi had been thrown off a whites-only section of a train in 1893 in Pietermartizburg, so was Mahlangu thrown off a whites-only train near Mamelodi in 1976. But it was the brutality with which blacks were treated by white policemen that turned a normal high school student into a freedom fighter.
Mahlangu hadn’t belonged to the ANC, but only learnt about the struggle for freedom when out of the country as part of the ranks of the freedom fighters.
It was the sheer viciousness of the apartheid system at the time that had swelled the ranks of the armed resistance, with hundreds leaving the country after 1976.
But why Mahlangu’s story became so famous was that he was hung by the apartheid regime in 1979 for a crime he never committed shortly after re-entering the country in 1977.
Three days before the first anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, Mahlangu and two of his comrades were en route to Soweto to join the impending protests when they were stopped by a black policemen who demanded to see what they were carrying in their suitcases.
Having been trained in sabotage, the group was carrying guns, grenades and pamphlets.
The three scattered with Mahlangu and Mondy Motloung running for cover in a John Orr’s warehouse. Desperately seeking Mahlangu, a panicked Motloung entered the warehouse firing shots, killing two employees.
When Motloung’s gun jammed he was brutally beaten by onlookers and then the police. Both Motloung and Mahlangu were detained in John Vorster square and severely tortured, with Motloung so badly beaten he had brain damage and was deemed unfit to stand trial.
Mahlangu was charged with sabotage and two counts of murder even though he hadn’t fired the shots. The prosecution had argued under the law of Common Purpose that Mahlangu had shared intent with Motloung, making him guilty of murder. Mahlangu was sentenced to death, and ultimately hung on April 6, 1979.
At the time various governments around the world and the UN had pleaded for his release.
Mahlangu’s famous statement prior to his death was: “My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom. Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the fight.” This became a rallying cry for the youth who proceeded to leave the country in droves to fight for freedom.
If we do not know and appreciate the story of Solomon Mahlangu, then we cannot understand our country. In honour of Human Rights Week, we owe it to ourselves.