Soweto lies on ”the other side” of Johannesburg. From the airport to the home of Albertina Sisulu in Soweto, the drive takes more than an hour. But even without an exact address, it is not difficult to find her home.
Above the house, the flag of the African National Congress (ANC) flaps in the wind. A high concrete-block wall surrounds the house, which has been Sisulu`s home for 42 years. The security gate is unlocked by a young man.
”Mama,” a term of endearment and respect, greets visitors with a warm smile, a hug and a kiss.
”Before we start,” she says as she ushers her guests inside, ”what will you drink? . . . you must eat something.”
New curtains frame the windows and healthy pot plants decorate the rooms. On the wall hang two Sue Williamson portraits-one of veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Joseph and one of Albertina. A framed portrait of Nelson Mandela has prominence in a display cabinet. So, too, does a plaque inscribed ”Newsmaker of the Year 1986-1987,” which was awarded to her son, Zwelakhe, editor of New Nation and a former Nieman fellow at America`s Harvard University.
”We cleaned and prepared the house for Walter,” she says of her husband, who was released from prison late last year. There is an exercise bike standing in one corner. Nodding toward it, Sisulu said, ”The old man uses it.”
”How old are you, Mama?” I asked.
”Seventy-two,” she replied.
”And you call your husband `the old man`?”
She laughs, crinkle lines at the corners of her mouth, her face belying her years. ”Yes, he gets up at 5 a.m. and pedals away on his exercise bike, whistling as he goes.”
Bitter memories
Sisulu was born in the Transkei district of Tsomo and orphaned in her teens. ”I lost my mother when I was 15 and my father when I was 17. My father got double pneumonia. I must say that when I think of their unnecessary deaths I feel bitter. If we had had access to medical facilities in the Transkei, both of them would have lived.”
Brought up by her grandparents, she was educated by Roman Catholic nuns who made arrangements for her to train as a nurse. Her starting salary was one British pound a month. Even after she qualified, she earned only 15 pounds-compared with white nurses who, after the same training and the same examinations, earned three times as much.
Albertina first worked in the Johannesburg Native Hospital and then Baragwanath, where she became a senior nurse. Her active political involvement led to banning orders and subsequent house arrest. The police wanted to impose a 24-hour house arrest, but the Nursing Council made representations on her behalf and she was allowed to leave her house between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Even though she was in line for a promotion, the restrictions prevented her from becoming a matron at Baragwanath Hospital. She could not be considered because the post required day and night duties.
How did she cope with such a strenuous job while reporting to the police every day?
”When I was at work, Walter, who was also restricted, did all the housework, the washing and the bathing of the children,” she said.
She retired from Baragwanath and was later asked by Dr. Abu Baker Asval, an anti-apartheid activist and health secretary of the Azanian People`s Organization, to work for him at a surgery he had opened in the township. It was there that she experienced the horror of seeing him murdered before her eyes. It still gives her nightmares.
”He was such a good man,” she says. ”He never turned a patient away if they could not afford to pay him. Hundreds of people in Soweto still owe him fees.”
Giving evidence in the subsequent murder trial added to Albertina Sisulu`s trauma. It was but one of the many crises that have dogged her life. Albertina met Walter when she was 25. ”I was staying in a nurses`
hostel. Walter`s cousin, Evelyn, Nelson Mandela`s first wife, was also training there. Walter would come and visit. I had refused all offers of marriage from `home boys` because I didn`t consider myself to be marriage material.
”My aim was to work and help educate my brothers and sisters and eventually provide a home for them all. A powerful force within me would not allow me to rest while, all around, I saw others suffering.
”I noticed that Evelyn was forever making excuses to leave me alone with Walter. It didn`t take me long to realize he was as strongly motivated as myself.”
There were objections from family and friends to a proposed marriage as Walter was of mixed race-the son of a Xhosa woman and a white road-building foreman, who abandoned his black family soon after Walter`s birth. But when Albertina was 27 they were married in Soweto`s Holy Cross Anglican Church and have been practicing Anglicans ever since. After her marriage, Albertina, the good daughter-in-law, insisted that Walter`s mother stay on in the house. ”I loved her very much. She lived with us until her death in 1962.”
The Sisulus have five children of their own and have adopted another three, the children of Albertina`s brother who was disabled and unable to support them. Of these children, two are in exile and one is serving a five-year-sentence in jail. Another is studying at the University of the Western Cape and her eldest daughter, Linda, is completing a doctorate in literature in England. Zwelakhe, detained without trial for 720 days from late 1986, was released in 1989 and subjected to heavy restrictions that only recently were lifted. Added now to the large family are many grandchildren.
In 1964, after the Rivonlo Treason Trial, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and six other ANC leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting sabotage and planning to overthrow the government. But prison did not dim the Sisulus` relationship, although their only contact during the first 18 years of his incarceration was by telephone separated by a glass panel. Not until 1982, during visits to Polismoor Prison, was Albertina allowed to touch her husband.
”Walter is a very sweet person,” she says.
Albertina feels she can`t make up for the years that have been lost. She can only treasure the time they now have together. But that doesn`t change who she is.
”I was always very independent and the `breadwinner` in our family. Even now I sometimes find myself walking out of the house without saying anything to go to a meeting, and Walter will softly inquire, ”Are you going out, my dear?` ”
The news media hype that surrounds her and Walter hasn`t changed her. She has never lost touch with her roots. And she is unawed by the powerful political leaders she and Walter have met overseas.
On Margaret Thatcher she says, ”The Iron Lady! We tamed her. I think she wanted to tell us how to run the struggle. But when we left she said she had been looking forward to meeting us.”
The worst time
Albertina related better to President Bush. ”I felt he was really friendly and wanted to know about our struggles. He was shocked when I told him of my own life. But what really horrified him was what I told him about my daughter, Linda.”
Linda was caught up in the 1976 Soweto uprising, which erupted over the compulsory use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in the schools.
”It started right here in this district,” says Albertina. ”Linda was arrested. The police refused to tell us where she was. I was under house arrest, so my son went to Pretoria Prison, as we had been told she might be there. He stood at the wall and shouted her name. For that he was arrested and sent to solitary confinement for 90 days.
”After 11 months Linda was released, but, in all that time we never knew where she was. She had been thoroughly tortured and was severely mentally disturbed. She would wake in the middle of the night, screaming to me to save her from the police. Later we had to send her out of the country for treatment. President Bush asked me how old she was at the time and was really shocked when I told him 16.
”This was the worst time of my life. Walter was in prison; Linda and my son, Max, in detention. Then I, too, was detained, and my other children were left to fend for themselves. Eventually we had to send them to Waterford School in Swaziland, because it was impossible for them to study.”
Despite the upheavals that have turned Albertina`s life upside down, she found the strength to carry on. She never lost sight of why this was happening to her and was driven by her conviction that she was struggling for a better society. ”This is the price I`ve had to pay for freedom. Remember, others have paid with their lives.”
Do her children resent having to live in exile? ”No, I don`t think so. All the children are politically involved.” But Albertina did find the separation particularly painful, especially as she comes from a culture that values the extended family.
Letters and phone calls kept family ties intact, but what really helped the Sisulu children survive was the strong foundation of love and security that had been laid down during their formative years when the family was still together. It was only recently that Albertina was reunited with two of her children.
”Do you know that, until recently, I had not seen Max (an economist with the African National Congress) since 1967? And it was only a few months ago, on my way to America, that I saw Linda for the first time since `76.”
Leading the way
Albertina remains active as president of the United Democratic Front. She also is in the Soweto Civic Association and is the coordinator of several community projects that include four sewing co-ops, 17 creches and eight pre- primary schools. But what does tire her these days is all the traveling that is now part of her leadership role.
Among her most recent engagements have been trips to Lusaka, Sweden and Norway, and Namibian independence celebrations in March. Her schedule is so hectic that she does not know when she and Walter will get time for that second honeymoon.
As far as Albertina is concerned, she and Walter are at the disposal of the people. When asked whether she had ever entertained the possibility of one day living in a ministerial mansion, she laughs loudly, ”No, darling, I will stay here in Soweto. My roots are here and my inspiration comes from this place.”
Despite safety precautions such as bullet-proof windows and guards who live in the house (there have been death threats against Walter recently), she doesn`t feel cut off from the community. She has spontaneous empathy and you know she means it when she calls you ”sister,” ”child,” ”mama,” or
”sweetheart.”
Does she feel, or has she ever felt, bitterness toward whites?
”No I don`t feel bitter. As a child in the Transkei we never hated white people, but we were scared of them. From the time I became politically involved, however, I met whites who were supportive of our cause. Helen Joseph has stayed in my home.
”My white sisters have nothing to fear from us blacks. We are Christians and we will not take revenge for all the wrongs that have been done to us. Now is the time to bridge the gap, not widen it. We must all work together to overcome the barriers of apartheid so that our children can grow up together as one big South African family.”
The biggest problem Albertina sees in a post-apartheid society is the restructuring of the economy to provide jobs and a better standard of living for all. She expresses anger at some white women who pay domestic workers low wages. ”Don`t they stop to think” she says, ”that it is not possible to feed and clothe a family with 150 rands (about $59)?”
Still helping others
Mama Sisulu is working to help people find a way of earning a better living. She has helped organize a sewing group co-op for unemployed women. The group specializes in dresses, shirts and bags. Key people are sent for training as cutters and designers, sales are advertised and goods sold from tables in the local shopping center.
”Everything sells like hot cakes,” says Albertina. ”Prices range from 40 rands (about $10) for a hand-woven bag to 80 rands ($20) for a dress. We make enough money to pay the rent, buy material and pay the members of the co- op a modest salary.”
Albertina is unhesitant when asked about her happiest moment. ”We were consulting with Nelson at his prison house,” she recalls, a smile lighting her face, ”when he said that there would be some interesting news on the TV that night. We all gathered in his lounge (den) and soon heard the
announcement that Walter and the others were to be released.” (Sisulu, 77, Mandela`s closest colleague, was freed in October after 26 years in prison.)
”That was the happiest moment of my life. We were too excited to continue the conference. I wanted to go home right then to prepare for Walter`s homecoming.
”We drove straight to the airport, but we could not get a flight. So there and then we hired a car and drove through the night to Soweto. It was sad to leave Nelson behind, but I was comforted by the sure knowledge that if the others were released, he, too, would soon be out.”
Walter`s release was a joyous occasion. And although since then they have not been together as much as they would like, their relationship is typical of a long-married couple. Both display a closeness that belies a quarter of a century of separation. As daughter-in-law Sheila Sisulu remarked of their reunion, ”They`re like a honeymoon couple.”
