The Making of a Troublemaker
BORN and raised in Chatsworth. Shaped around the world. Activist Kumi Naidoo is a global citizen. But his heart is deeply rooted in Chatsworth, south of Durban, and in his community, family, friends, and comrades from the township whose influence he has not forgotten.
Chatsworth, his place of birth, gets pride of place in Naidoo’s poignant memoir, Letters to my Mother: the Making of a Troublemaker, launched at several venues in Johannesburg last week.
The roadshow, which kicked off in Rosebank, Melville and Pretoria, continues in Durban this week as Naidoo’s book drew widespread praise. His mom took her life when he was 15. And in a twist of fate, while working on the book in Berlin, Naidoo received news from his partner Louisa on 23 February this year, that their son, hip hop musician Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado, had taken his life. He was 35.
His and Louisa’s efforts to deal with grief over Riky is described in detail, inspiring hope that others may deal with mental health issues before it is too late.
Naidoo’s letters to his mother was a key part of his coming to terms with her death in 1980. His story is simply about how the death of his mom sparked his journey into action against apartheid.
“Bookended by two unspeakable tragedies, the suicide of a mother and of a son, Letters to My Mother offers one of the most compelling accounts yet of the making of an anti-apartheid activist,” says one of the country’s foremost academics, Professor Jonathan Jansen.
“Once you’ve read this book you will never be the same again,” says Noel Daniels, the chief executive of the Cornerstone Institute founded in 1970 on the Cape Flats at a time when prospective black theologians were excluded from attending universities reserved for whites in South Africa.
Poet, playwright, performer, and producer, Siphokazi Jonas, adds: “Through his vulnerable remembering, he shows us that when we are ready, we must face ourselves and our untold stories.”
Naidoo’s grief made him determined to free South Africa and help to shape a better world. But three decades after the end of apartheid, for which he and many others struggled and some gave up their lives, Naidoo says his stepson made it clear that the struggle for a better life for all was far from over. That is why he and Louisa are planning to launch the Riky Rick Foundation to spread love and hope, the importance of family – and roots.
Naidoo, 57, devotes a chapter to his hometown, describing how he along with 600 other pupils got expelled from Chatsworth High School while taking part in anti-apartheid protests, and how he was seen as someone squandering his own life chances, and even worse, leading other kids astray.
It was the start of his political education as they fought along with parents of children from schools in Merebank, Wentworth, Tongaat, Verulam and Phoenix to get reinstated following their expulsion. At a community meeting, joined by civic leaders, including the late lawyer and hotelier Rabbi Bugwandeen, anti-apartheid activist and lawyer Archie
Gumede, and civic leader Virgil Bonhomme, among others, the Indian and coloured politicians working with the apartheid government were criticised.
“For us, it was really exciting to be part of something like this.
“After that mass meeting, a committee of parents and expelled pupils was formed to co-ordinate action, and I was selected to represent Chatsworth High on the committee. We did not have immediate success in gaining reinstatement, but later in May 1981, and again in September, parents brought cases to court successfully challenging the validity of the Indian Education Department’s mass expulsion of protesting pupils.
In the final judgment, the judge was at pains to point out that he was not passing judgment on the merits of the expulsions, but rather on the Education Department’s failure to follow its own procedures, and he ruled the expulsions of the pupils invalid.
“Parents wasted no time in getting pupils fully reinstated into the next school year and made sure we were allowed to write the current year’s exams, since, they argued, this would make it easier for us to reintegrate. Special exams were set up for the Chatsworth High pupils at Protea School. “This condition was set by the Education Department to make sure we would not cause any more trouble that year and to discourage us from returning. We knew that if we got through these exams, we could go back to school as normal the following year and start preparing for our matric.”
The reinstatement was a victory. “My involvement in the process triggered much deeper involvement in community and political action over the next few years, setting the course for the rest of my life.” But after winning the battle to return to school, Naidoo recalls feeling abandoned and alone, “missing Ma more than ever”. “Our house now felt foreign to me; it was as if its heart and soul had been ripped out. I would pace up and down my room, counting the steps from side to side as I marched, trying to block out my feelings,” he recalls. But his mind was occupied when he, along with his brother, Kovin, an optometrist, and internationally celebrated public health leader, got involved in protests against the South African Indian Council elections in November 1981.
Under the guidance of more senior activists like the late Roy Padayachie and Shoots Naidoo, the brothers were introduced to other comrades who were to greatly influence their development as activists, including a young lawyer called Saroj Pillay, and a student couple, Maggie and Charm Govender.
“Our political education started in earnest, and encompassed every aspect of campaigning, from learning how to screen-print T-shirts and posters, to advanced political theory. Shoots and Charm also widened our horizons
by introducing us to grass-roots struggles in other parts of the world, sharing videos that had been smuggled into South Africa about the US’S war in Vietnam and martial law in the Philippines.
Asia seemed far removed from our struggle, but I did start to get a sense of global solidarity.”
Naidoo said he began to understand that the struggle in South Africa was not only about race; it was also about class. Inevitably, he became involved with the ANC.
Having been arrested multiple times, and with a price on his head, Naidoo left South Africa for the UK in 1987 getting a place at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, remaining in exile until 1990.
On his return to South Africa, Naidoo played a key role in the establishment of the Independent Electoral Commission ahead of South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.
Between 1998 and 2008, he was secretary general and chief executive officer of Civicus: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, a network dedicated to strengthening civil society around the world.
In 2009, he became executive director of Greenpeace International.
Moving on, in 2015, Naidoo established the pan-african civil society movement Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity.
From 2018 to 2020, he was secretary general of Amnesty International, stepping down due to ill health. Naidoo now serves as special adviser to the Green Economy Coalition.
The activist from Chatsworth holds honorary doctorates from the Nelson Mandela University, the University of Kwazulu-natal, the Durban University of Technology, the University of Johannesburg and the University of Adelaide.
But his work is far from finished because the “struggle is not yet over”. — © Higher Education Media Services