'Blank pages in history should not be allowed'
The role of revolutionary intellectuals
Comrade Mzala, an outstanding political commissar of the 1976
generation, left a lasting and inspiring legacy that we should draw on
to better understand the qualities of revolutionary intellectuals,
writes Jeremy Cronin.
One of the most outstanding revolutionary intellectuals of the 1976
generation, Jabulani Nxumalo (popularly known as Comrade Mzala), died 15
years ago in London at the age of 45. He was born in Dundee, Northern
Natal in October 1955.(1) His parents were both school teachers, and
they inspired in him a life-long love for books. Mzala attended school
at Louwsburg, then Bethal College in Butterworth, and he matriculated in
KwaDlangezwa in Empangeni.
In 1972, at the age of 15, he was detained without trial for his role in
a school boycott. The following year he was arrested again and charged
with public violence for his part in student and worker strikes. Mzala
attended the University of Natal (Ngoye), where he studied law and he
was active in the South African Student Organisation (SASO). In 1976,
like thousands of his generation, he fled the country into exile.
He connected up with the ANC and received military training in Angola.
He was part of the famous June 16 Detachment of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).
In the midst of his training and organisational responsibilities, Mzala
was always intellectually active. In 1977 he was working on a simplified
book on Marxism-Leninism in Zulu. Unfortunately, The text seems to have
been lost.
He was also in the habit of writing up his thoughts and pinning them on
notice-boards for others to read and respond. His intellectual energies
were recognised in MK and already in 1976 he was political commissar for
Luanda.
In 1979 he was deployed to Lusaka, where he acted as coordinator of
commissariat structures. In 1980 he was sent for advanced ideological
and political training in the German Democratic Republic.
In 1983 he was deployed into Swaziland, disguised as a reporter
('Jabulani Dlamini'), working on the Swaziland Observer. Mzala was
detained by the Swazi police in 1983. In December of the same year, with
a new identity, he returned to Swaziland, but this time to the
Shiselweni district in the south of the country. He served as commissar
for the Natal rural machinery, a network that was later to become
central in the establishment of Operation Vula. While in Shiselweni, and
out of his own initiative, Mzala crossed over the border into Natal, and
set up an MK unit based in Ingwavuma. In 1984 he was again arrested by
the Swazi police and deported to Tanzania.
In Tanzania he worked for Radio Freedom and the Amandla Cultural Group.
In 1987 he moved to London where he worked for the international
committee of the SACP. He was deployed to Prague as the South African
representative on the World Marxist Review, but his health was now
beginning to falter, and his stay in Prague only lasted two months.
Throughout the 1980s Mzala was extremely active as a writer. He
published regular articles in the journals of our movement - MK's Dawn,
the ANC's Sechaba; and the SACP's The African Communist. He sometimes
used the pen-name Khumalo (derived from his actual surname, Nxumalo), as
well as the name by which he was known by most comrades in the movement,
Mzala. (He acquired the name, because he was fond of addressing everyone
as "mzala, mzala".) He also wrote several major articles under the name
Sisa Majola.
One of his most important and polemical contributions on our armed
struggle was entitled "Cooking the Rice Inside the Pot", and it was
signed Mzala.
When no-one responded in Dawn, he published a polemical rejoinder to his
own article! It was titled: "Preparing the Fire Before Cooking the Rice
Inside the Pot", and it was signed Alex Mashinini.
During his time in London he published (as Mzala) a book, "Gatsha
Buthelezi, Chief with a Double Agenda" (Zed Books, 1988). During the
London period, while working for the SACP's international committee, he
also contributed an excellent and regular column to The African
Communist ("Africa Notes and Comment"), under the name Jabulani
Mkatshwa. He was so prolific, it is quite possible there are other
pen-names under which he wrote, but about which we are as yet unaware.
His death in London on 22 February 1991 was a huge loss to the SACP, the
ANC, and to the African and internationalist struggle. When he wrote his
articles, or when he pinned provocative notes up on the notice-board in
camps in Angola, Mzala was not looking for admiration or praise. He was
trying to provoke engagement, responses, debate, umrabulo. There is no
better way of honouring his memory than by reflecting on the topic: "The
role and importance of revolutionary intellectuals". Jeremy Cronin
Samuel Somcuba
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