Reg tackled the role of race

THE letter dated September 3 1977 was addressed to Oliver Tambo (OR). Its author was Reg September and the association between the two dated back to 1956 at the time of the Treason Trial.

While out on bail, OR had married Adelaide Tsukhudu, a parishioner of Father Trevor Huddleston, a few days short of Christmas.

Reg had been invited to the wedding, and as a 33-year-old Capetonian he admitted to feeling “quite overawed by the wedding, the trial, the meetings, and the company. Such warmth, such comradeship”.

While imprisoned in Braamfontein’s Old Fort Prison Reg became familiar with OR’s prowess as a choir conductor. A group of prisoners were singing Ten to Ten – the ballad of a mother seeing off a young man on a journey to the mines. In response OR constituted a choir of his fellow Treason Triallists. Their relationship deepened over time and Reg would accompany OR on solidarity visits to Russia, India and China. He was also a pall-bearer at OR’s funeral.

At the time of his writing the letter Reg was still the ANC’s London-based chief representative in Western Europe.

His appointment to that position by the national executive committee (NEC) of the ANC was an outcome of the Morogoro Conference. “Non-Africans” were unbound from the multi-racial structures of the Congress Alliance and were admitted into the externally based ANC. They could not, however, serve on the NEC.

But this decision brought its own problems in the form of a group led by a former treason triallist, Tennyson Makiwane.

Often when recounting an incident between those who became known as the “Gang of Eight”, Reg gives an indication of how he preferred to self-identify.

At a meeting convened by OR the identity of the chief representative was referred to as undermining of the ANC’s African image: “Well, we all know that Reggie’s not an African.”

Reg’s tart response, “So, am I Chinese or French?” suggests his confidence in his place in the movement and his denunciation of his non-anything status.

The Morogoro delegates who argued for the inclusion of all South Africans into the ranks of the external mission of ANC consistently referred to the notable presence of non-African within MK ranks. This view was premised on the call for a “unity in action between all the oppressed groups”.

The political and morale significance of the Wankie Campaign was apparent.

The fallen martyrs of the first decisive, albeit controversial, attempt to reach the home front were resurrected in the call for the inclusion of the communities from which they came.

“It is a matter of proud record that amongst the first and most gallant martyrs in the armed combat against the enemy was a coloured comrade, Basil February”.

Reg’s letter indicates that eight years on, the place of minority groups remained a matter of deep concern. He and OR had discussed the issue and the letter distilled Reg’s view – and seemingly the views of others – on this matter. It would be the basis of discussion between Yusuf Dadoo, Mac Maharaj and Alex la Guma, representative of the Indian and coloured congresses and the Communist Party. Reg was at pains to emphasise that “under no circumstance would I like it to take on the characteristic of a campaign”.

He elaborates on “the new opportunities and responsibilities” presented by the national uprising of 1976. These were exemplified in the resurgence of the labour movement and the growth in community-based organisations.

He further noted: “New public movements are springing up all the time and within each of them they face the insoluble problem of how to relate to the armed struggle.”

It was not the first time Reg has expressed this view. In a memo dated April 24, 1972, to Alfred Nzo at the ANC’s Lusaka Mission Reg observed that “in wide layers of our movement there still exists the mistaken idea that we are going to liberate SA from the outside”.