Makhosi Khoza’s no pushover
Politicised at 12, arrested at 14, the lady is a fighter
BORN to a “very rural woman and a factory worker and salesman”, Makhosi Khoza learnt to be critical and vocal through the teachings of her blind grandmother.
Now Khoza finds herself having to defend her character from people she “trusted and a party that has been my political home from a young age. But nothing that is happening here is new to me, I’ve been here before when I was 13-years-old”, she said.
MP Khoza serves on the parliamentary standing committee on finance and is a former chairperson of the standing committee on public accounts and finance in KwaZulu-Natal. According to the People’s Assembly, she has more than 20 years of collective experience at public and private sector institutions.
Khoza was born in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg, in Harewood. “I grew up very poor and the person who was very instrumental in moulding and building my character was my paternal grandmother. She was blind but she did everything for herself, from knitting bedspreads to cooking.”
Khoza and her siblings had to eat from the same bowl, a symbol to her of unity and ubuntu.
“Growing up we did everything together, we couldn’t eat until everyone was there. We used to eat in this big basin but we all got the same portions. That was about sharing and being considerate, survival was interdependent,” she said.
Sitting across from this amazing woman in a buzzing restaurant in the CBD, it was hard not to be fascinated as she narrated the story of her life. A man sitting at a table across from ours got up from his chair to shake Khoza’s hand and commend her for her fighting spirit. She smiled gracefully as she welcomed the appreciation.
Though her family was not political, her grandmother conscientised her from an early age to a point where she became an activist at 12, before leaving home at 13. According to Khoza, who at the time was also a young entrepreneur, selling fried fish and popcorn at school and in the neighbourhood, even with all of her grandmother’s teachings, her political turning point came after a friend told her of a place in the city where she could get her fish cheaper.
“When I went into the city, I saw these white kids who were not barefoot like me. They were riding bicycles, they had nice houses and suddenly I saw the children were swimming in a sparkling blue pool and here I was swimming in the river, the dirty water.”
In search of a balance between the “injustices” she believed were enacted upon black people, Khoza became involved in the youth movement.
“I was very inquisitive, then I joined a youth movement called DCO Matiwane before I became part of the Edendale Youth. I was 12 and that is when I came across the Freedom Charter, which was the first political document which made sense to me.
Founder
“It began to sensitise me that actually I was not getting the same education as those people; it was the beginning of talk about racism and that we need to have a non-racial society in South Africa and that is how I became associated with the ANC.
“I became the founder and leader of the Young Natal Organisation of Women and recruited a lot of young girls. Then I started questioning things at home, like why I was the one who had to go fetch water and I started protesting.
“At 14 I was arrested. I was one of the speakers at the funeral of workers of the Transport Allied Union in Mount Fletcher, I was wearing my United Democratic Front T-shirt and at that time they had never seen such a young person with so much energy, so political and with such spirit.
“We had about 10 buses that moved from Maritzburg to that funeral because two of our union members were killed in the boycotts in 1983. I delivered the speech telling the youth why they should stand up and why these comrades’ deaths could not be in vain. On our way back we were stopped by the security forces.
“They were clearly looking for me and I was arrested with another boy but he was released soon after.”
Khoza was detained for three months. “I was locked in solitary confinement, I started playing with ants because there was nothing else to do.
“There were older people who spoke at the funeral but they were never arrested. What is happening to me now is the same thing that happened then.
“I am now being charged for sending a message to other MPs. (Police Minister Fikile) Mbalula set the tone that I should be punished and that is why I am being charged. The ANC Women’s League has portrayed women as somehow having inferior intellect, subservient. There is a perception that if a woman says something or a child says something, get her back in her place.”
In 1986, Khoza was almost killed by her own comrades when she tried to save the life of another young woman.
“I was going to the comrades’ stronghold called Moscow and, when I got off the taxi I saw this crowd of people and a flame and I saw the comrades burning this girl. I didn’t ask questions but I tried to put out the fire and my comrades wanted to burn me too because they said I was a spy.
“Now I am feeling betrayed again by my comrades and it’s for choosing the people over Jacob Zuma. We are talking about somebody who has repeatedly brought the party into disrepute, we are talking about somebody who has been taking decisions that even the ANC leadership has disowned.
“And they have the audacity, even after a march by South Africa, the leadership came and told us to vote for and to defend Zuma. To me, that was an insult.”