Samid
5th October 2008, 15:44
04 October 2008
Most MK veterans never knew war. Their efforts were puny and easily
defeated by the state, writes Rodney Warwick
Cape Argus
Janet Smith's article "Old war vets unite as potent peace symbol"
(Weekend Argus, September 27) deserves some reflection based upon
sounder historical analysis than the deductions of some of those she quoted.
Perhaps most obvious is the attempt by the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK)
Veterans Association (MKMVA) chairman Kebby Maphatsoe to postulate
some kind of enhanced credibility for the ANC's former armed wing that
it failed to achieve during the civil conflict in this country post-1960.
Smith also carries no weight to blandly assert: "The creation of MK in
1961 unleashed a bold new tradition in South Africa's military history
with the creation of a modern guerilla army."
A cursory comparison of MK's rather hopefully termed "armed struggle"
activities with other modern military organisations developing out of
South African history, would be hard pressed not to completely reject
Smith's view as devoid of historical substance.
For example, since when could we compare the mass involvement and
organisation, let alone any of the achievements attained by South
African forces during the world wars, the SA Air Force's operations in
Korea or, for that matter, the SADF's 1970s and 1980s operations in
Namibia and Angola, with the sketchy and often terror-oriented MK
hit-and-miss activities of the early 1960s and 1980s?
How is it even vaguely plausible to place on the same historical map
events like the 5th SA Brigade's stand at Sidi Rezegh in November 1941
or the SADF destruction of Fapla forces at Lombe River in October
1987, with MK limpet mine explosions aimed at white civilian deaths at
Ellis Park or the Church Street, Pretoria, bomb blast?
Who would try and invite to the same imaginary medal parade MK veteran
Robert McBride and Natal Carbineers member Sergeant Quinton Smyth VC,
comparing their exploits as respectively worthy of equal praise?
Other MK attempts at reinforcing its image via a more distant
historical identity are also shallow and unconvincing.
For example, their plumbing into colonial history for valiant Zulu or
Xhosa military victories, inevitably plays up the Isandlwana battle,
forgetting of course the massive casualties still inflicted upon the
Zulu army in this battle and the latter's inevitable destruction by
British and colonial forces months later at Ulundi.
One more recent attempt to provide a contrived "African" link to
modern naval vessels has been through the naming of the controversial
new SA Navy vessels.
The ANC government is using the navy to project its own style of
artificially invented "national identity" by insisting upon the new
corvettes and submarines having African names which have no relevance
to any sea tradition. Such is a repeat of the old government during
the 1950s and '60s placing Afrikaner nationalist symbolism on ships,
for example, the President-class frigates (SAS President Kruger,
Steyn, Pretorius) also in lieu of any Afrikaner naval tradition.
Of course there is nothing wrong with veterans who carried arms on
different sides in the more recent South African low-intensity civil
war attempting to find greater understanding of each other at a personal level.
But this should not be at the expense of reshaping the historical
record to rescue MK's virtually void record of military achievements,
by repeating fictitious or misleading accounts of its supposed exploits.
Indeed a better South African historical comparison for the ANC's
armed wing might be found in the activities of the Ossewabrandwag (OB)
during World War 2.
This is not comparable at an ideological level of course, where the
most extreme elements in this Afrikaner nationalistic organisation
vainly sought a kind of Afrikaner-Nazi republic during the early
1940s. MK at the time of its inception was, however, indisputably
linked directly to the Stalinist idealism of the SACP. Joe Slovo, who
was part of the High Command, assumed that an Algerian-type revolution
would sweep through Verwoerd's beleaguered early 1960s republic.
Just as the OB leaders like Hans van Rensberg had anticipated a German
victory in Europe might hasten an Afrikaner republic returning in the
1940s, so had Slovo, besides other SACP members and their ANC allies,
assumed inevitable socialist global triumphs through revolution or the
collapse of capitalism would bring victory against the white
government in South Africa.
But where indeed were MK in these heady days? The MK sabotage campaign
during 1961-63 was perhaps as effective as the OB's of 1940-42. There
were significant differences - the OB at its height claimed as many as
400 000 members, although there were probably much fewer. MK had far
fewer members, whose rudimentary training in home-made bombs was
initially under the amateur care of World War 2 white veterans like
Jack Strachan, Arthur Goldreich and Jack Hodgson, all of whom had also
been members of the socialist-inclined Springbok Legion veteran organisation.
MK sabotage of power-lines and a few minor government installations
certainly made newspaper headlines, but also brought on their heads
the wrath of Cain from the Verwoerd government, on all
extra-parliamentary dissidents, whether they advocated violence or
not. Like the OB military wing before them, MK's "war effort" was puny
and easily defeated by the state.
MK remnants continued to receive a kind of military training in the
USSR and later other Third World African countries like Algeria and Tanzania.
However, at no stage, neither in the 1960s nor 1980s, was there
anything remotely resembling an MK military threat to South Africa.
Their best "military shot" was the highly idealistic 1963-64 Mayibuye
plan, the discovery of which resulted in the Rivonia trial and saw
Mandela and others sentenced to life imprisonment for high treason.
Slovo and writers such as Shubin (ANC: A View from Moscow, 2006) have
acknowledged this paper plan of a guerilla army invading South Africa,
intended to prompt internal black insurrection and African military
intervention, was completely unrealistic in the context of the period.
But like much of MK veterans' current nostalgia and yearning for
laurels for their "liberating" South Africa from apartheid, Mayibuye
represented more of a fantasy military victory that the ANC would have
meted out to the SADF.
But of course this never happened and during the early 1990s, back
into South Africa streamed thousands of MK "veterans" who spent their
entire "war" against apartheid sitting in ANC camps in Tanzania and
elsewhere, even more bored and significantly less trained or capable
of fighting a real war than the average white SADF national serviceman.
Incidentally, those of us who did this conscription stint - up to two
years of continuous service between 1976 and 1989 - never received any
compensation for our "war", as the MK "veterans" demanded for their
fictitious service.
If we old conscripted "troopies" are also invited to join this
envisaged combined veterans association, I bet most of us will have
more plausible war stories than our MK counterparts.
Rodney Warwick is a PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town whose
research focuses on the SADF of the 1960s. He was a National Service
conscriptee in 1978/9.
Most MK veterans never knew war. Their efforts were puny and easily
defeated by the state, writes Rodney Warwick
Cape Argus
Janet Smith's article "Old war vets unite as potent peace symbol"
(Weekend Argus, September 27) deserves some reflection based upon
sounder historical analysis than the deductions of some of those she quoted.
Perhaps most obvious is the attempt by the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK)
Veterans Association (MKMVA) chairman Kebby Maphatsoe to postulate
some kind of enhanced credibility for the ANC's former armed wing that
it failed to achieve during the civil conflict in this country post-1960.
Smith also carries no weight to blandly assert: "The creation of MK in
1961 unleashed a bold new tradition in South Africa's military history
with the creation of a modern guerilla army."
A cursory comparison of MK's rather hopefully termed "armed struggle"
activities with other modern military organisations developing out of
South African history, would be hard pressed not to completely reject
Smith's view as devoid of historical substance.
For example, since when could we compare the mass involvement and
organisation, let alone any of the achievements attained by South
African forces during the world wars, the SA Air Force's operations in
Korea or, for that matter, the SADF's 1970s and 1980s operations in
Namibia and Angola, with the sketchy and often terror-oriented MK
hit-and-miss activities of the early 1960s and 1980s?
How is it even vaguely plausible to place on the same historical map
events like the 5th SA Brigade's stand at Sidi Rezegh in November 1941
or the SADF destruction of Fapla forces at Lombe River in October
1987, with MK limpet mine explosions aimed at white civilian deaths at
Ellis Park or the Church Street, Pretoria, bomb blast?
Who would try and invite to the same imaginary medal parade MK veteran
Robert McBride and Natal Carbineers member Sergeant Quinton Smyth VC,
comparing their exploits as respectively worthy of equal praise?
Other MK attempts at reinforcing its image via a more distant
historical identity are also shallow and unconvincing.
For example, their plumbing into colonial history for valiant Zulu or
Xhosa military victories, inevitably plays up the Isandlwana battle,
forgetting of course the massive casualties still inflicted upon the
Zulu army in this battle and the latter's inevitable destruction by
British and colonial forces months later at Ulundi.
One more recent attempt to provide a contrived "African" link to
modern naval vessels has been through the naming of the controversial
new SA Navy vessels.
The ANC government is using the navy to project its own style of
artificially invented "national identity" by insisting upon the new
corvettes and submarines having African names which have no relevance
to any sea tradition. Such is a repeat of the old government during
the 1950s and '60s placing Afrikaner nationalist symbolism on ships,
for example, the President-class frigates (SAS President Kruger,
Steyn, Pretorius) also in lieu of any Afrikaner naval tradition.
Of course there is nothing wrong with veterans who carried arms on
different sides in the more recent South African low-intensity civil
war attempting to find greater understanding of each other at a personal level.
But this should not be at the expense of reshaping the historical
record to rescue MK's virtually void record of military achievements,
by repeating fictitious or misleading accounts of its supposed exploits.
Indeed a better South African historical comparison for the ANC's
armed wing might be found in the activities of the Ossewabrandwag (OB)
during World War 2.
This is not comparable at an ideological level of course, where the
most extreme elements in this Afrikaner nationalistic organisation
vainly sought a kind of Afrikaner-Nazi republic during the early
1940s. MK at the time of its inception was, however, indisputably
linked directly to the Stalinist idealism of the SACP. Joe Slovo, who
was part of the High Command, assumed that an Algerian-type revolution
would sweep through Verwoerd's beleaguered early 1960s republic.
Just as the OB leaders like Hans van Rensberg had anticipated a German
victory in Europe might hasten an Afrikaner republic returning in the
1940s, so had Slovo, besides other SACP members and their ANC allies,
assumed inevitable socialist global triumphs through revolution or the
collapse of capitalism would bring victory against the white
government in South Africa.
But where indeed were MK in these heady days? The MK sabotage campaign
during 1961-63 was perhaps as effective as the OB's of 1940-42. There
were significant differences - the OB at its height claimed as many as
400 000 members, although there were probably much fewer. MK had far
fewer members, whose rudimentary training in home-made bombs was
initially under the amateur care of World War 2 white veterans like
Jack Strachan, Arthur Goldreich and Jack Hodgson, all of whom had also
been members of the socialist-inclined Springbok Legion veteran organisation.
MK sabotage of power-lines and a few minor government installations
certainly made newspaper headlines, but also brought on their heads
the wrath of Cain from the Verwoerd government, on all
extra-parliamentary dissidents, whether they advocated violence or
not. Like the OB military wing before them, MK's "war effort" was puny
and easily defeated by the state.
MK remnants continued to receive a kind of military training in the
USSR and later other Third World African countries like Algeria and Tanzania.
However, at no stage, neither in the 1960s nor 1980s, was there
anything remotely resembling an MK military threat to South Africa.
Their best "military shot" was the highly idealistic 1963-64 Mayibuye
plan, the discovery of which resulted in the Rivonia trial and saw
Mandela and others sentenced to life imprisonment for high treason.
Slovo and writers such as Shubin (ANC: A View from Moscow, 2006) have
acknowledged this paper plan of a guerilla army invading South Africa,
intended to prompt internal black insurrection and African military
intervention, was completely unrealistic in the context of the period.
But like much of MK veterans' current nostalgia and yearning for
laurels for their "liberating" South Africa from apartheid, Mayibuye
represented more of a fantasy military victory that the ANC would have
meted out to the SADF.
But of course this never happened and during the early 1990s, back
into South Africa streamed thousands of MK "veterans" who spent their
entire "war" against apartheid sitting in ANC camps in Tanzania and
elsewhere, even more bored and significantly less trained or capable
of fighting a real war than the average white SADF national serviceman.
Incidentally, those of us who did this conscription stint - up to two
years of continuous service between 1976 and 1989 - never received any
compensation for our "war", as the MK "veterans" demanded for their
fictitious service.
If we old conscripted "troopies" are also invited to join this
envisaged combined veterans association, I bet most of us will have
more plausible war stories than our MK counterparts.
Rodney Warwick is a PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town whose
research focuses on the SADF of the 1960s. He was a National Service
conscriptee in 1978/9.