An Unsung Hero whose Blood Watered the Tree of Our Freedom)
The 4th of June 2023 will mark forty-three (43) since the brutal killing of my childhood friend and brother Patrick Monageng Xoliso Mmakou in Manzini, Swaziland. According to the transcript of the Human Rights Violation Hearings conducted on 8 May 1997 in Mabopane, Monageng was killed by a bomb. https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=55594
For the first time since his burial in June 1980 at the Temba Cemetery – amidst a heavy police presence – the Temba community will host the Monageng Mmakou Memorial Peace Walk in his memory on Friday 16 June 2023 in Temba Township. The route of the procession will start from Tshwane North College Temba Campus to the Temba Stadium in Unit D, Temba. The procession will symbolically pass at his home at 1932 Manyeleti where wreaths will be laid in his memory.
The Temba Education Investment Fund (TEIF) in partnership with the City of Tshwane Heritage Department will also host the Monageng Mmakou Memorial Dialogue from 14:00 to 18:00 on Saturday 17 June 2023 at the Cliff`s Café in Temba. The event is designed to create a platform to educate the community about Monageng Mmakou and the role he played in quality education and towards the liberation of South Africa.
Monageng Xoliso Mmakou was born on Friday 4 May 1962 to his daunting parents Louis Mogongwe Mmakou (1924-2007) and Franklina Nobambo Mmakou (1932-2000). He shared his birth date with his late father Louis Mmakou who was born on 4 May 1924. So, one could imagine up to this day, what his birthday could have meant to his family – as a day that always called for a double birthday celebration of a father and son.
At the time of his birth in May 1962, Temba had just turned 20 years old since it was first established around June 1942. So, his birth was probably a homebirth through the assistance of one of the first professional midwives, the late Dorah Biki Mashiane (1914-1991), a pioneer nurse who established the first home clinic in Temba Township at house number 267 Q Block. The home clinic was located next door to her family house at 268 Q Block in Oudstad, Temba Township.
It was from the home clinic at Q-217 Clinic that Dorah Biki Mashiane consolidated her community service through health care. She used her bicycle to respond to house calls and conducted home-based births to many children in the community. https://moreteletimes.co.za/2019/02/12/tribute-to-dorah-biki-mashiane-a-pioneer-of-nursing-in-temba/
It was true the act of humanitarian ingenuity of Monageng, that the Mmakou family became our first family friends after our relocation to Temba Township in January 1971. I remember with fondness that it was Principal Dammie (1924) and my late primary teacher Olvina Xoliswa Mohajane (1934-2012) who approached Monageng to become my friend and look after me at Lefofa Primary School where we were both enrolled as Standard 1 pupils. https://moreteletimes.co.za/2019/03/02/our-family-heritage-footprints-in-temba-a-tribute/#.ZFazu3ZBzIU
After school on that day, Monageng offered to walk me home where we lived at the then Bantu Investment Corporation (BIC) Business School Campus (at the current Tshwane North College Temba Campus). Monageng briefly met my parents before dashing off to his home at 1932 Manyeleti. Around 6 pm that evening, Monageng had brought along his whole family: his father & mother, his two brothers and three sisters to meet our family.
By sheer coincidence, my late father Sephiri William Sebokedi-Phetlhu (1927-1990) and Monageng`s father Louis Mmakou (1924-2007) were roommates at Kilnerton College during the late 1940s. What connected my late mother Novintombi Grace Sebokedi-Phetlhu (1933-2008) and Monageng`s mother was that both were Xhosa-speaking. So, you can imagine the sound of the Xhosa “clicks” in the living room, as my father was excitedly catching up with Monageng`s dad about their college days at Kilnerton College.
My late brother Oupa Sebokedi-Phetlhu (1956-2012) became an instant bosom friend with Monageng`s eldest brother Big Shot (1956). They later studied together at Boitsenaape Technical College in Montshioa, Mahikeng. My aunt Tanana Mathumbu-Molefe (1956) became a close friend with Monageng`s eldest sister Ausi Tshidi (1956/7).
Monageng`s other elder sister Ausi Nkgalake (1958) found herself a new friend with my elder sister Ausi Misisi Mahlangu-Sebokedi/Phetlhu (1958). Our younger sisters Lydia & Happy (1967) also found friendship in each other, instantly so. Our friendship endured throughout our primary school years until he went into exile for military training.
That evening Monageng Mmakou demonstrated and exhibited a rare but genuine sense of pure African humanity, Ubuntu – through his instinctive initiative to connect our two families. This act of humanity was the earliest sign of his sense of community and selfless activism of love, a percussor to his natural intuition of service to others as an innate human virtue.
What cemented our friendship during our childhood years, was that our families also worshipped together at the local St John`s Anglican Church under the staunch and conservative spiritual stewardship of Rev. Manaswe. We both served as altar boys for the St-John`s Anglican Parish that also served many other satellite churches spread across many villages around the greater Hammanskraal.
This meant that after every morning service (7 am-8.30 am), we travelled with Father Manaswe to at least three to four different villages to administer the holy sacrament to satellite churches without a permanent ordained priest. Hurdled together in the back of Father Manaswe’s van, we would endure our Sunday travel – week after week – only to arrive home late on Sunday afternoon utterly exhausted.
In many ways than not, the Anglican Church was a spiritual home that exposed us from childhood, the injustices of the Apartheid system through the preaching of our clergy like the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The fact that the Temba community was close to the Catholic Church`s St Peters Seminary, also exposed us through subliminal consciousness to the emerging philosophies of the black theology ideology.
The St Peters Seminary (located behind the new Jubilee Crossing Mall) and the Lutheran Church Seminary (located at the SASSA Offices next to Jubilee Mall) were both established in the 1960s to offer theology training for Catholic and Lutheran church priests. The two institutions attracted a new breed of clergy from all over the country who started questioning the religious justification of the Apartheid system. The St Peters Seminary produced the clergy like Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa – who later played a pivotal role to assist the Mmakou family with the repatriation of the mortal remains of Monageng Mmakou after his brutal killing in Manzini, Swaziland.
The late Noko Mamarege (1958-1988) and other local students from Temba who studied at the University of the North Turfloop during the early 1970s also played a role in the political conscientization of youth leaders like Monageng Mmakou. Our interaction with the local students from Turf introduced many of us to the politics of Black Consciousness and organizations like the South Africa Student Organization (SASO) and the Black Peoples Convention (BPC). Both organizations hosted their congresses during the early 1970s at the St Peters Seminary in Hammanskraal. https://moreteletimes.co.za/2019/02/07/black-history-month-series-the-sad-vandalism-of-heritage-and-memory-of-temba/#.ZFeaP3ZBzIU
But it was ultimately the events in 1974 that precipitated the rapid political conscientization of youth leaders like Monageng Mmakou. It was when Afrikaans was made a compulsory medium of instruction in 1974 that Black students began mobilizing themselves to fight against the repressive Bantu Education system.
Although what became to be known as the June 16 Youth Uprising started in Soweto, the protests spread all over South Africa to influence many Black youths to join the armed struggle against the unjust Apartheid system. Monageng Mmakou became one of the recognizable youth leaders in Temba to provide political leadership for the student protests that ultimately led to his decision to skip the country in 1977 to join the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) military training in Swaziland.
For many youth activists in Temba, 1977 was always going to be an untenable year, especially with the advent of the quasi-independence of Bophuthatswana that brought with it the repressive regime of Lucas Mangope. The day after his funeral in June 1980, the Mmakou family was visited ad harassed by Bophuthatswana security police to inquire about his MK activities in Swaziland. And many of his friends and comrades who defiantly attended his funeral to give him a hero`s send-off were forced to seek temporary refuge at the nearby townships like Atteridgeville and Mamelodi to evade the arrests y the Mangope security forces.
So, it is only befitting that on the morning of 16 June 2023, the Temba community host a peace walk in his memory to pay homage to this unsung hero whose innocent blood has watered the tree of our freedom.
