Zwelethu: Our Land — A story of struggle, conflict and family

“You could have said my life was cast in stone. I knew that I was certainly going to acquire a degree at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, become a teacher or train for the priesthood, but certainly become a professional. Raise a family. Live happily ever. Then the student uprisings of 1976 happened. I was shaken out of my reverie. I realised that history had a mission for me,” writes Jakie Seroke in his memoir, Zwelethu: Our Land. 

A calling and an unavoidable mission are how Seroke, a Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) anti-apartheid activist, described why he joined the fight against the regime. 

“With this book, I wanted to write about the ordinary people who were in the struggle. Many people made many sacrifices and I wanted to document that,” said Seroke about his first book. 

The book traces Seroke’s life from his childhood in Soweto to the 1976 Soweto uprising, to his work at Raven Press and other arts organisations, his arrest and how he navigated trying to build a family while doing political work.

Growing older and understanding the socio-political context that Seroke lived in led him to conclude that “ours was a wretched rat’s life”.

As a young, black boy, growing up in apartheid South Africa, Seroke writes that he felt that his future was bleak. All he had to look forward to, if anything, was a life of servitude to white people, of being inferior and constantly violated. 

In the book, Seroke is candid about his dedication to anti-apartheid activism and his desire to have a healthy, fulfilling romantic relationship. 

“A lot of the time our work was done secretly. Often, our families and our partners were under surveillance. Sometimes, it felt like being in the struggle meant you had to put aside your interest in raising a family which was a difficult thing to think about,” said Seroke. 

Seroke writes about his comrade, Thami Mnyele, and how he saw Mnyele’s relationship with his partner, Naniwe, as what millennials today would refer to as “relationship goals”. 

Their relationship made Seroke believe that a good, functional relationship between two black people was possible in the depraved world they lived in.

But political activism meant that many sacrifices had to be made. Seroke writes about witnessing Naniwe arriving home to a letter from Mynele informing her that he’s left the country because his work had been compromised by the authorities.

Reading the passage, one is transported to that moment. The day starts out as ordinary as any other but ends with Naniwe’s life being dramatically altered. It serves as another example of Seroke witnessing the difficult sacrifices anti-apartheid activists had to make to further the political cause. 

Being in the liberation movement came with severe challenges, ranging from internal squabbles among activists, personality clashes, and cases of people being tortured before becoming police informants. 

Seroke writes in detail about the shock and betrayal he felt whenever he found out someone he thought was a comrade was actually in cahoots with the police. 

At this point, Seroke was part of the PAC, which he believed aligned more with his politics than the ANC. Seroke was also invested in using the arts as a form of anti-apartheid activism. 

“The contribution of the arts was undermined by liberation movements and they often had a tendency to say the arts didn’t contribute a lot. Poetry performances, literary journals and theatre were way more powerful than soapbox speeches when it came to connecting to people and teaching them about our cause,” said Seroke.

Although being an anti-apartheid activist required Seroke to frequently travel to secret meetings and cross borders — for which he was often detained, this didn’t stop him from wanting to settle down and have a family life. 

“We were in our youth,” he says with a chuckle, “you’d fall in love and you can’t stop that from happening. You also had your family asking you about marriage and kids. My peers were also getting married so I, also, got to a point where I thought I had to settle down.” 

He eventually met and later married Dikonelo, in 1985. However, the bliss of his new marriage was cut short in 1986 when, at the age of 27, Seroke was arrested. He was charged for engaging in terrorism and belonging to a banned organisation.

A general view of Robben Island. (Photo: Gallo Images / Netwerk24 / Jaco Marais)

Police Minister Bheki Cele. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

Former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke. (Photo: Gallo Images / City Press / Tebogo Letsie)