My violent dad: former Hawks man.
That’s what former Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela thought when he heard of his father’s latest attack on his family
WHEN he heard his father had gone on a shooting spree and had shot his hal f - brother in the face, he wasn’t really surprised. Shocked, yes – and upset. But not surprised. This was, after all, the man who’d killed his mother.
“Mr Nzimande” is how McIntosh Polela refers to his father.
“He’s a father only biologically, but that’s where it ends,” the former Hawks spokesperson says. He even changed his name because he wanted to distance himself from the man he describes in his memoir as “that monster”.
The news that his 65-year-old father had opened fire on his second wife, Thulisile, and their three children at their smallholding in Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal brought all the painful memories back.
His sister, Zinhle, called him to tell him what had happened.
“There was no time for emotions,” he says. “I was shocked – it’s not something that you expect. But I felt a deep sense of ‘here we go again’.”
He’s still struggling to process what happened. His 23-year-old half-brother, Senzekahle Nzimande, was shot in the face. Fortunately nobody else was hit.
The appalling incident is said to have been sparked by an argument over the ownership of farming equipment, with McIntosh’s father accusing family members of taking his property before he opened fire on them.
Community members came to the family’s rescue and restrained the 65-year-old until the police arrived. Senzekahle was rushed to hospital but has since been discharged and is receiving counselling together with his mother and brothers.
At the time of going to print the pensioner was due to appear in the Ladysmith magistrate’s court on 1 March on a charge of attempted murder and possession of an unlicensed firearm.
Despite his experience as a television journalist and former spokesperson for the
Hawks, McIntosh says he hasn’t been able to find the words to comfort his half-brother, who’s been working in the family farming business after recently completing his studies.
“It’s hard to talk to him without feeling his pain,” he says. “When I spoke to him, he could barely talk because he was in so much pain. I’ll wait for him to fully recover and then maybe I’ll have the words.
“I mean, what kind of relationship can he have with his father after this?”
THAT’S the question McIntosh had to answer after discovering in his early teens that his father was responsible for his mother’s death. His mom, Delisile Shezi, was killed when he was just four-and-a-half years old.
ere’s one incident that’s etched in his mind. “It’s a vivid memory that I have. I was playing outside with my sister, and I looked through the door . . . I saw my father sjambokking my mother. That memory will stay with me for a very long time,” says McIntosh, who now works as a manager at an investment company.
Soon after this incident he and his sister were whisked from Durban and sent to live with relatives in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Nobody explained to them what had happened until years later.
The trauma of it – as well as the fact that his father got a suspended sentence so didn’t go to jail for killing his mother – haunted McIntosh until he tried to make sense of it by putting pen to paper.
It was during the process of writing My Father, My Monster, published in 2011, that he went looking for and attempted to establish a relationship with his father, whose first name he prefers not to mention.
“I quickly discovered that he was compromised beyond redemption and I decided to distance myself completely,” he says. “When he refused to apologise to my mom’s family, when he refused to acknowledge what he had done, I chose to cut myself off from him completely. “In doing that, I was free of him. “I don’t carry his name, I don’t have a relationship with him and I don’t have to be reminded of him.”
He was born Steven Shezi and changed his name to McIntosh Polela when he joined the police as spokesperson for the priority crime investigations unit, the Hawks, in 2010.
He tracked his half-brothers down while he was writing the book and says they too have always had a difficult relationship with their father.
“That much was clear from the stories they told me when I was doing research for my book. One of my brothers attempted suicide because he just couldn’t take it any more.” He fears the family may decide to drop the charges against his father, although he’s encouraged them not to do so. “I don’t want the charges to be dropped. Not because I hate him or because I want revenge, but because for the first time I want him to learn that there are consequences. That’s the only reason. If they drop the charges, they give him a free pass to come back and abuse them.”
THE circumstances of his childhood and his tumultuous upbringing – he and Zinhle were in an orphanage for a while – have definitely had an effect on his life, McIntosh says.
“I’m still a bit antisocial, I’m still a bit of a loner – because that’s how I grew up. I grew up trying to process what had happened to me, my sister and my mother.
“I did a lot of daydreaming. Nonetheless, it also allowed me a degree of independence. I wanted to get out of the rural area and get away from a family that treated us so badly – and that gave me the independence I have now.”
What would he say to his father if he saw him again? He’d advise him to change his life, he says.
“I’d say, ‘Mr Nzimande, you don’t know how lucky you were to have killed my mother and got away with a suspended sentence. You don’t know how lucky you are that your family has continued to treat you as family despite your terrorising them. I hope you’ll try to build some sort of relationship with your family.’ “That’s what I’d say to him.” He and Zinhle, who lives in Underberg in KwaZulu-Natal, choose not to talk about their father much. They prefer to focus on the good in their lives rather than the painful memories.
“We don’t want to be reminded of him. We want to focus on the relationship we have with each other.”
‘I saw my father sjambokking my mother’