La Guma a forgotten colossus

He strove for freedom and fought apartheid, writes

LATER this year, Cape Town airport will be officially renamed. Various politically expedient worthies are in contention but for me, one name on merit alone stands head and shoulders above the rest – the Mother City’s most spectacularly high-achieving, and most neglected son – the novelist and freedom fighter, Alex La Guma (1925 –1985).

Nowadays, La Guma is sadly a forgotten colossus but during his lifetime, he was one of South Africa’s leading novelists – arguably the greatest writer that Africa, let alone South Africa, ever produced.

He was the author of five masterful novels – A Walk In The Night (1962), And A Threefold

Cord( 1964), The Stone Country( 1967), In The Fog Of The Season’s End (1972) and Time Of The Butcherbird (1979).

He also wrote several short stories, all with working class, predominantly coloured protagonists fighting against the scourges of poverty, injustice and the debilitating evils of apartheid.

But he wasn’t only a prodigiously talented writer. La Guma was also an indefatigable political activist, and a valiant freedom fighter in the anti-apartheid Struggle who dedicated every fibre of his being to fighting against the pernicious, dehumanising and ignoble apartheid regime and the physical, moral and psychological wrongs against people who did not have white skin.

Born in District Six in 1925, La Guma left Trafalgar High School at 17, but as a self-taught person he read voraciously. Inspired by his father, who was a trade union leader, he was politically active from an early age and became a communist.

He worked as a factory hand and a clerk, then became a reporter for increasingly racialised world.

While fiercely proud of his coloured heritage, his principal and abiding allegiance was to the only race which is not a social construct: the human race. Yet tragically, despite his myriad achievements, he has been consistently overlooked, especially in Cape Town.

His novels touched millions of lives, yet he is practically unheard of some 30 years after his death. Even more galling, as the furore over pulling down statues continues unabated, no one has yet commemorated La Guma in his native city.

This neglect is tantamount to literary, political and racial sacrilege and needs to end with alacrity.

Furthermore, in our tawdry age of corrupt politicians and besmirched ideals, young and old are craving new heroes and yearning for someone to believe in.

La Guma was a towering moral force, as well as a literary one. A man of unimpeachable integrity and exemplary virtue, he fought to make the world a fairer, kinder and more humane place.

A titan among men, his life and work are a glorious triumph of the human spirit over adversity, as well as a timely reminder of what true greatness is.

Naming the airport after him would send a profound and powerful message to both the inhabitants of this city, and those who visit, that these are the noble, life-affirming values which Cape Town cherishes.

La Guma’s story – one of true literary prowess, boundless courage and supreme self-sacrifice – is a beacon of enduring hope amid the moral darkness of our age.

That’s why more people need to know about his incredible life and his beautifully moving novels, let alone his seminal contribution to human flourishing.

Moreover, how many young people on the Cape Flats who have never even heard of La Guma and his empowering life story might be inspired to take him for a positive role model, as opposed to gangsters and materialistic rappers, and thus ameliorate their lives, if he is brought to their attention in this way?

Symbolism is important. Cape Town still possesses a majority coloured population, which should be reflected in the airport naming. Were La Guma not selected, it would be further proof that even when the perfect candidate is in full view, coloured people are still being marginalised in the Rainbow Nation.

Airports are, by their very nature, places of expanding geographical, cultural and intellectual horizons.

La Guma represented South Africa with zeal, determination and dignity on the world stage and travelled as far as London, Moscow, Havana, Stockholm, Kabul, Seoul, Beirut, Addis Ababa and Jamaica – all in the name of freedom.

He was a man of the people whose country was the world, and whose religion was to do good.

La Guma’s message of collective action, unity and togetherness in the fight to alleviate human suffering offers us all a much needed sense of belonging and anchorage in an often discombobulating world.

La Guma’s life, work and genius are as humbling as they are heroic and transcend colour, class and creed.

With his loving, humanistic world view, his international outlook and his global peregrinations, what he stood for affirms our common humanity, not to mention our innate human dignity, and is supremely fitting for 21st century Cape Town and its place in the world.

Johannesburg airport rightfully celebrates Oliver Tambo. It is now time for Cape Town to have the Alex La Guma International Airport – a meaningful and apposite choice of a truly great writer and a truly great human being for a truly great city.

Johns is a writer, broadcaster and non-residential fellow at the Hutchins Centre, Harvard University