I did not know Rashakalimphani Frank Ratshitanga when he was an ANC MP and whip, a university graduate, or a delegate on Parliamentary and Provincial visits to Zimbabwe and Uganda, among his other activities from 1995 until his passing in November 2022. When I met him in 1984, he appeared to be the janitor of Venda University, a man with a Grade 10 qualification, and I was a newly appointed English lecturer and the single mom of three sons. I wish I could recall our first meeting and our first words, but all I know is that his wisdom and depth struck me at once, and we soon became friends. He told us to call him Frank, which we did at first, but later I knew him only as Rashaka.
His gentleness and his deep voice impressed me deeply. We did “speak politics” but we spoke at my level of knowledge, which was low. I fancied myself a broad-minded sympathiser with the oppressed people of my nation, but I was the product of the sheltered, privileged lives that white South Africans led, and that most still lead. At first, he told me about his poetry, and I was fascinated. In 1973 he had published an anthology called Tsengela Tsiwana, which (I found out later) means Speaker for the Needy, and he was still producing poems. He did not translate any into English for my benefit; he said he found that impossibly difficult. But he was open to the fact that I was receptive to ideas, and indeed I listened to his beautiful voice as he talked about the history of his people, and about the film he had made in the early 1980s, called Two Rivers. It was banned in South Africa, but today we can all listen to the story of the Venda people as he tells it, with his deep caring and poetic flair. This is the link to the film, preserved in the Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/thetworivers/thetworiversreel1.mov
His call, at the end, for the streams of our country to start flowing together “as one mighty river” is still the great dream of my life, and I believe that he is one of the people that has made that day come closer.
He told me that a student at The University of the North was writing a dissertation on his poetry, and in 1983 a student by the name of Milubi at the University of Zululand wrote “The Poetry of RF Ratshitanga,” a critical evaluation of the poetry of protest.
I knew very well that he was not the starry-eyed dreamer kind of poet, because the steely grit at the centre of the man was palpable in his bearing and his words. His uncompromising integrity is best illustrated by a story written in City Press by Mathata Tsedu after his passing:
“The SA Council of Churches (SACC) had a division called Dependants Conference, which saw to the needs of dependants of detainees and political prisoners held in places such as Robben Island and Kroonstad, the latter was where women political prisoners were kept. The duty to approach the SACC fell on Rashakalimphani Ratshitanga.
‘I went and met with John Rees, who was the secretary-general, in his office. I explained to him and he simply told me there was no money. I was very angry and stood up and grabbed him by the neck and pinned him against the wall, telling him he was going to give us the money or I would beat him up.
He realised I meant business and he gave us the money. It emerged later he was actually stealing some of the money for himself.’ “
Mathata Tsedu | SA loses another fighter | City Press (news24.com)
Of course, just being in Venda was an education, because over the arbitrary border was “another country” – apartheid South Africa. From the beginning, I loved the lush green vegetation, although Rashaka told me how much land they had already lost, and that what was left was now overpopulated. I loved the language, which has no clicks, but is full of rolling ells and ems, somehow reflecting the landscape. I was told the paramount chief, who became President in 1979 on Venda’s pseudo-independence, Patrick Mphephu, was a popular man. When he died in 1988, there were persistent rumours that he had been poisoned, but one would never know, because the people who had been given power by the Nationalist Party and not by the people, would not investigate. I just became involved in my everyday life, and I feel I should digress a little to say something about what Venda was like for me and my three sons, Kurt, Julian and Philip, who were 14. 12 and 9.
Some people asked me why I was willing to teach in a university that was part of the regime’s apartheid policy, and my answer was, “I teach real people.” Indeed, the students were hard-working and interesting, and we learned from one another. I prescribed African literature, which was a freedom I did not have working in the Education Departments at “home,” and more than once some reference could be explained by a student who had once worked say in Vereeniging, or someone who understood a linguistic reference that was opaque to me. I still have the lecture notes for the anthology edited by Wole Soyinka, Poems of Black Africa (Heinemann 1975). Mind you, student participation was won slowly. One day I asked if everyone understood some distinction I was talking about, and there was a loud communal gasp when one student dared to say no. How could he be so rude to the lecturer who was clearly trying her best? I happily tried to explain again, until he was satisfied. I heard later that he had studied in Johannesburg, where he saw that one could ask a teacher to clarify a point. Once, two or three students who had been very quiet explained to me that “trust is a big word.” They wanted to discuss the political aspect of a poem, but not in the open classroom. I managed to secure a one-year scholarship to UCT for one student, and another for a year in Canada for another student, a Mr Netshivera. They both told me afterwards that the experience had been life-altering.
I learned a lot from Rashaka and his young son Mukoni when it came to classroom management. For one year, Rashaka was appointed as a Standard Two (now grade four) teacher at the local school, despite his lack of qualifications. I felt the authorities acknowledged by appointing him that he was indeed a teacher of his people. He described his first day in the classroom like this. He asked the children what the canes lying on the teacher’s table were for.
“To cane us when we’re naughty,” they explained.
“But what if I don’t want to cane anyone? What will we do if someone is naughty?”
“I’ll cane him!” someone volunteered.
“But there will be no hitting in my classroom,” said Rashaka.
In the end they negotiated the solution that if a student made it impossible for him to teach, the others would bundle him out of the classroom until he decided to cooperate. That year, Rashaka said, he had to remind them of that arrangement just once, and the situation was quickly resolved.
Mukoni told us how his teacher once caned all the children in the class because they had failed a Maths test. Mukoni then raised his hand, and the teacher said, “What?”
“Sir, why did you cane me?”
“Because you failed your Maths test!”
“And now that you have caned me, do I know my Maths?”
I found my friends among the staff members who did not subscribe to the founding ideology. My friend in Pretoria, Tertia Zaayman, Afrikaans lecturer, had prompted me to apply for the position. Stuart Emerson was an Englishman whose marriage to Mercy would have been illegal in South Africa proper, and there were lecturers that would have been classified in various categories in South Africa, with whom I was free to talk, dine and party. I became a member of the local church and was baptised in the Levuvhu River along with a younger Venda woman. I loved our services under a thorn tree, especially the singing and dancing. The head of the English department was Prof Roy Holland, whom I married in 1986, but that is another story. At first everyone knew me as Melanie Donald.
No, not everyone, actually. Many of the parents who lived not far from our new university houses called me “Mme-Philippi.” Philip, my youngest, was the most extravert, although all three of them made friends among the local boys. “Mme-Philippi” made it clear that it was for Philip that I was recognised in our neighbouring village, although the prefix is usually attached to the name of the eldest son. I remember going for a walk and acquiring en route at least 30 little followers who all saluted me as Mme-Philippi. When we got home, they would settle down to watch some kiddies’ program on TV. Occasionally their mothers would also come to watch something. One group of young boys firmly informed us that they were the good boys and my sons should play with them. I think they were the Christian children, and they actually got their wish, mainly because they chased the others away, and they spoke a little English. In any case, there were just too many children for an objection to make sense.
Venda was hot, even in the rain, and the soil was reddish. When it rained that red soil stuck to your shoes like glue, and your feet grew bigger and bigger as you walked. So the boys often played outside in the rain, barefoot. The dirt road next to our houses was a perfect place to make a city in the mud. The children created buildings, roads and bridges for their miniature cars, and when a real car came along (which was not often) they moved out of the way for a bit and then checked to see how much of their architecture had survived. My neighbour was Prof. Piet Naude, head of the Theology department, and he remarked one day how delightful it was to watch little white and black boys playing together, who at the end of the day were all little red boys. They had to be hosed down in the garden before they came in for a bath.
I invited the deacons of the church, seven men and their wives, to come to a braai at my house one evening. It became a good example of my education in cultural assumptions. I was told in passing by one of them that “there was great interest in my invitation,” so I ran to Rashaka to ask if that meant that I would have more than 14 guests. He smiled and explained that my guests would not think that some people could be excluded, and that I would have an unknown number of guests, but decidedly more than 14. He smiled again when he saw the little grid I had prepared, and started making a fire in the garden. Together, we scrutinised all my cookware and hauled out everything that could possibly be used to roast meat. I doubled up my efforts in preparing salads and buying bread and meat. Sure enough, that evening I had 30 guests if I had one. Rashaka excused himself as soon as he saw it was going to be okay, although I asked him to stay. I remember the beginning of the speech that one of the deacons made, “They speak of history being made…” We all enjoyed the steaks and boerewors served from pans, pots and even their lids, as they came off the fire. Everyone helped – the men with the braaiing and the women with the cleaning up, and I went to bed with a song in my heart.
I saw that custom of open invitations in action again when Rashaka asked me to help him with a funeral he was responsible for organising; I think it was his uncle who had died. He had selected an ox and paid a local farmer for it, and we needed to fetch it on my bakkie and take it to his home. I was fascinated by the whole process – we drove to the farmer’s field, where an accurate marksman downed the ox. They had the hoist available, and sitting behind the steering wheel, I was rocked by the impact as the carcass was placed on the back with a thump. I needed to drive in the low gears along those rough dirt roads to Rashaka’s place, where the ox was unloaded while I got to talk to his wife, Tshililo. Rashaka explained that they had sent out word about the funeral, and that some guests would arrive the day before, others throughout the day itself, and a few even a day late, as their means of transport allowed. The ox would be roasted on a spit and the women would have the other food and drinks ready all the time. What flexible generosity! It made my invitation to just 14 people at a specific time look paltry and mean.
The bakkie was really useful on other occasions, too. For example, I was woken in the middle of one night because a little boy in the village had been bitten by a snake. His mother and I rushed him to the Sibasa Hospital, where he was successfully treated.
We organised an art exhibition at the university, and I bought this sculpture of a woman carrying water and a load by H Nekhofhe. I still love it.
My children’s schooling became an issue. Kurt was already at Pretoria Boys’ High School, and Venda was the place he came to for holidays, but Julian and Philip were transported to Makhado, called Louis Trichardt at the time, to attend a school during the week, and came home for weekends. They did not enjoy it, and I hated the content and the slant of the curriculum they were being taught. Julian once told me a racist joke, and I vetoed it angrily. After a while, what he learnt to tell me the jokes he heard as though they were about an Irishman instead of a black man, and I must confess, I laughed. Later, he confessed what he had done, and I took the lesson in selective prejudice. I owe Irish people an apology, although, of course, I didn’t take the jokes seriously. A number of other parents, and Rasahka, also wanted an independent, international school for their children. Rashaka and I, with Ian Raper and other academics, became deeply involved in founding Liivha School, which was free from the official South African departments of education.
Julian is behind the group with Nicholas Raper on his shoulders, and Philip is on the far left of the back row. Mukoni is fourth from the left in the second row from the back.
Eventually, we were able to interview candidates and select a principal, and we rejoiced when the children of our diverse academic and administrative members of staff were able to go to school together in a venue on the campus. There were Venda and other African children as well as South Africans and Indians. During the 1980s, when apartheid was raging even though it was, in truth, in its death throes, Julian and Philip were privileged to be in a completely open school. The principal made me very happy when she told me that Philip was sweet and popular, but Julian was the peacemaker, who helped her when students lost their tempers or tried to bully others.
During that period, Rashaka was also helping to found the Congress of Traditional Leaders in South Africa, to encourage traditional leaders and their people to support the fight for freedom. He was elected as deputy secretary. He worked discreetly for the ANC, for example, making an excursion to Botswana look like a shopping expedition for cow hides and mopani worms to sell in Venda. He offered me worms to taste, but never told me about his missions, of course. And speaking of offering food reminds me of the time my friend Inez Rautenbach, Latin teacher, came to visit me. The Ratshitangas invited us to dinner one evening, and we sat out in the balmy air enjoying our meal. They had three huts in their compound, and Inez was impressed with the number of books Rashaka owned, all housed in the hut that was his study. What I remember vividly was the dessert. Tshililo served bananas and avocados straight from the trees. She mashed them together and added nothing – it was superb.
I knew that Rashaka was sometimes an orator at funerals, but his eloquence had also helped a group of activists from all over the north on their way to Steve Biko’s funeral in September 1974, another story from the City Press obituary:
“Roadblocks were mounted near each town that we passed and reasons for our travel varied from a soccer match to a funeral in the next town.
At one roadblock, when the police wanted to see the coach, Ratshitanga was pointed to. When the cops wanted to know where the team’s uniform was, Ratshitanga quickly said they were in a Kombi still coming which had other non-technical leaders of the team. We passed.”
Mathata Tsedu | SA loses another fighter | City Press (news24.com)
Resistance grew stronger in South After the Soweto riots of 1976 and the spate of bannings that followed. For instance, the Azanian People’s Organisation was formed in 1978, and Rashaka was part of the interim committee elected at Wilgespruit, Johannesburg. His assumed name was Makhuge Manenzhe.
According to Tsedu, he also used his rural land to aid the struggle. He grew a number of crops in Tshihwengu, Ngovhela, and MK guerrillas could be hidden there. In 1981 Sibasa Police Station was bombed by a group that had been concealed there. I knew nothing of all this.
I did know well enough that the Venda security branch were watching him and his brother, Tendamudzimu Robert Ratshitanga, a very well known poet, and they were detained on multiple occasions. When Rashaka told me that his brother was incarcerated, he added that they had offered him fish in a tin that had been opened 24 hours earlier, and left to stand in the heat. His brother was too wise to eat it. His renown protected him, because they actually prepared a case against him, obviously too scared to allow him simply to disappear. Their case would involve serious charges, considering the laws restricting freedom of speech at the time. I was approached by PEN International when his trial date was approaching, to attend and let them know what happened. However, the day was uneventful, as they simply postponed the date, and soon after, they released him, which is what I reported back to PEN. There is no doubt in my mind that he was protected by the fact that people around the world were watching.
Rashaka himself was detained in 1984, not for the first time, but it was the first time since I had met him. A student had described to me the kind of torture he had been subjected to in detention, like being given electric shocks in his eyebrows, where scars would not show, and worse. I was frantic with worry, and for good reason. After his release, Rashaka told me that they simply withheld drinking water, which was severe torture in the heat.
I was supposed to be a temporary sojourner in Venda, but of course it was an open secret that being white was a weapon, so I made phone calls – many of them. I kept calling the police stations, and every time I was the one who was interrogated. I would ask about Rashaka and on what charge he was being held. I would want to know if he was well, but all I got for answers were questions, so I had to state my name multiple times, and my business in Venda, but I got no information.
One day I was driving in Sibasa when the strange behaviour of a passenger in another car caught my eye. A man was hanging far out of the rear window – then I saw it was Rashaka! He’d recognised my bakkie and was waving frantically. I was able to wave too before they yanked him back into the car. It filled me with hope to have seen him. I wondered where they were transferring him to, and why.
I baked a chocolate cake and took it to Tshililo to see how the family was managing. Imagine my joy when the one who rose to meet me from the circle of seated people was no one other than Rashaka himself! We all hugged one another, and happily ate the cake as a celebration instead of cold comfort. The security police had brought him home just a few minutes before my arrival. He told me that I would never know how much me phone calls had meant. Once, he was being interrogated by a colonel when they were “interrupted” by a call. When Rashaka heard the colonel repeating my name and demanding to know why I was calling about Ratshitanga, his heart leapt with hope. He said he made a mental note that one must not underestimate what the women could do in the struggle. I was just glad that those calls had not really been made into a vacuum.
I was married to Roy Holland, who had become the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, when the security police started harassing Mukoni, to our outrage. Mukoni told us that he was distributing pamphlets for an independent school in Johannesburg that offered an alternative education to the official brainwashing, when the police caught him. They warned him of dire consequences if he did not stop immediately. We all agreed that he should come and stay with us, again using our whiteness as easy protection. The Venda puppet regime was ruthless, but did not want to offend Pretoria. Mukoni and Phil enjoyed being together, but even when Phil went off to Kimberley Boys’ High (Liivha could not offer high school courses yet) Mukoni stayed on, for a total of about 3 months. We advised him to take a different route walking to school each day, to make it harder for the police to observe or ambush him. We also bought him a radio for company, and from time to time he used to come and tell us what the reprehensible Venda government was asking the people to believe now.
I left Venda in 1988 when Roy wanted to retire to a quiet country town in South Africa to write full time. Saying good-bye to the Ratshitangas was the hardest thing, but Mukoni and Philip kept in touch, and after a period of no contact, Rashaka and I started calling each other. I loved hearing his deep voice again, and we caught up with each other’s news. He was still modest and quiet about his achievements, preferring to tell me, for example, why his goats were such good company! He told me how grateful he was for his wonderful daughters and Mukoni. He complained bitterly about the ANC, in which he was deeply disappointed. One day Rashaka startled me by inviting me to come and visit him in Venda and saying, “You know we love each other,” but I knew immediately that it was quite true. The love between friends was no longer just that. After that, we would end our conversations with “I love you.”
When I mentioned a possible trip to Venda to Philip, he liked the idea of driving up there again, but nothing definite was arranged. Rashaka said we should visit the Kruger National Park together while I was there, and I started imagining how delightful it would all be. Everything had changed. We would be able to travel and stay together without dangerous secrets to guard and without whispers about spies and assassinations. We had both been widowed. Was it foolish of me to dare to imagine a life with him? Probably, but it gave me the chance at least to dream of how we might share our love and our passion for social justice in our everyday life.
But fate was not kind. Rashaka told me that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but he was quite determined to beat it. He consulted doctors in Johannesburg, when he would stay with Mukoni, and we continued to talk, although there were times when he sounded tired and dispirited. Then, one terrible day, he called and told me that he had to admit to himself that this disease was too strong for him. He would not recover. He would not listen to any contradiction, and it was only after we had said goodbye that I realised that he had really said goodbye. The next time I called, he did not answer the phone. I decided to respect his wish, because I knew he did not want me to hear him deteriorating and complaining about increasing pain. He was the perfect gentleman to the end. As a result, when I heard through Mukoni that he had passed away, it was not a great shock. It was a great loss, and always will be.
Rashaka, you enriched me beyond words, and you have my unqualified admiration and my love as long as I live.
Melanie Steyn: Another New Life 