The tortured past that we try to ignore
What prompted you to write about the turncoat Glory Sedibe?
There were two prompts: the first was my fascination with the bizarre tale of Sedibe, a senior ANC operative who switched political sides and became, it seemed, as committed to working for the apartheid security forces as he had been to serving MK. The second came from the deafening silence about collaboration. Apartheid could not have functioned, certainly not as long as it did, without the collaboration of many South Africans, black and white, but we have yet to talk about this tragic fact — we have yet to see writers other than novelists dealing seriously with the theme.
What is it you are challenging about current beliefs around collaboration and resistance?
It is one of the ironies of post-apartheid South Africa that, despite our deafening silence about collaboration, some South Africans have no qualms about denouncing this or that person as having been a collaborator under apartheid. There was the Bulelani Ngcuka saga, the business with Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza, and now, most recently, the whispering campaign by some in the ANC against Thuli Madonsela. None of these is a sincere attempt to deal with collaboration. They are character assassinations. I wrote Askari to challenge the easy and sometimes cynical beliefs that we know a collaborator when we see one, or that only cowards collaborated. Many socalled heroes of the struggle collaborated. The challenge is not to denounce individuals but to understand why and under what circumstances they did what they did.
How did you go about the research for the book?
The primary sources, by which I mean archival material, came from various state and non-state archives in South Africa, the UK and the US. The secondary sources came from materials from around the world concerned with the business of collaboration. The TRC was an invaluable resource.
Many scholars and commentators have put down the TRC as a failed “nation-building” project. None, as far as I know, has bothered to look at the TRC as an “archivebuilding” project. (Antjie Krog, Kopano Ratele and Nosisi Mpolweni are the honourable and pioneering exceptions.)
What new insights did your What was the most difficult part of writing it?
The part I thought would be most difficult (speaking to Sedibe’s family) turned out to be relatively easy. The family were so generous with their time, ready with their hospitality, that talking to them helped me gain better insight into Sedibe. The part I assumed would be easy (talking to his former comrades in the ANC about him and about collaboration in general) turned out to be the most difficult part of the project. Why would ANC members, especially Siphiwe Nyanda and Solly Shoke, not want to talk? I would love to know the answer.
Would you call your book a biography?
To the extent that it tells the life story of Glory Sedibe, it is certainly a biography. But the book is no ordinary cradle-to-grave account of Sedibe’s life. It is also a book about contemporary history. To borrow the words of archivists Verne Harris and Sello Hatang, the book is about the secret, the taboo and the disavowal in South African history.