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It was luck, I guess, and as they say, “in the long run, it is better to be lucky than good”. My luck started when I found a radio on a rubbish heap; someone had thrown it away. You could see by the way it looked that it had delivered more than its fair share of good and bad news. The cassette player was broken and the antenna was a little loose.
I took it to my dormitory at Turfloop, in what is today called the University of Limpopo. I connected it, and voilà, it worked. And, it had an added advantage, because it had shortwave one and two, which meant I could listen to far-flung radio stations and could get the news beyond what the SABC was offering.
It was on that radio I first heard that the apartheid forces had invaded Angola and things were going badly for them at Cuito Cuanavale.
Meanwhile, the SABC propaganda line was that they were winning. But, according to my radio, 32 Battalion took heavy casualties from Cuban and Angolan forces.
The Cuban air force added insult to injury by distributing pamphlets, advising black members of the SA Defence Force (SADF) to desert, because the war was to liberate them.
The members of Battalion 32 got the point, as higher ranks were reserved only for white soldiers. They rebelled. The SADF dismissed them but the SABC reported differently, accusing them of being cowards.
My new radio offered more than just politics. I used to listen to a programme called, “Words of Faith”. On Friday an imam gave the sermon; on Saturday it was a rabbi and Sunday it was a Christian minister. It was on this show that I first heard about gay rights and pro-choice. I guess I was lucky, because I heard arguments from a positive perspective of life, erroneously called “The Left”, which meant freedom and people living together in peace and harmony.
It was on my little radio that I first heard that Govan Mbeki had been released, even before it was reported by the SABC. A UK journalist asked Mbeki if he was bitter. “It is history,” he replied. “How can one be bitter with history?” he said – something to that effect. I remember running up to Themba, my good friend and an activist from Daveyton, to tell him that Mbeki senior had been released. Themba and I called each other S’bali. His roommate, Mphefu, also a comrade, was present, and he marvelled at this piece of amazing news. No one had expected it. Today when something bad happens to me, if I cannot change it, I try to remember Mbeki, and say: “It’s history. How can I be bitter with history?”
The big pay day had come a year earlier. South Africa was in the grips of the state of emergency. Soldiers were occupying our campus. It was a cold Saturday and I tuned in as usual. I couldn’t believe my luck: we caught the Nelson Mandela 70th birthday tribute concert at Wembley Stadium. There were various artists.
We caught Sting, Whitney Houston and Hugh Masekela, among others, but the day belonged to a little-known woman at the time, Tracy Chapman. When Stevie Wonder refused to play, she came back and wowed the crowds. Stevie later came back.
S’bali and I danced in the corridor of the dormitory, repeating what the crowds chanted on my little radio: “Set them free! Set them free!” S’bali has since passed on. How lucky we were to witness history unfolding like a bud, right in front of our eyes.
* Muzi Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive, an advertising agency.
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