Mandla Langa: literary activist

Abstract

Mandla Langa is one of South Africa's most highly respected cultural activists and novelists. He was among the first people behind the idea of using culture as an instrument to defy apartheid and to build support for the South African liberation struggle. Langa was born in 1950 in KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal. The entire family, including his brothers Bheki, Ben and Pius (the late chief justice), was highly political. The family moved to KwaMashu, about 20 km north of Durban, where Langa undertook his schooling at Gardner Memorial School and Sibonelo High School. He enrolled at the University of Fort Hare after completing high school and became a member of the South African Students' Organisation (Saso) that had been established by Steve Biko and others in 1968. Despite a turbulent final year at the university, including the mass walk-out of students from campuses around the country after Abram Ongopotse Tiro was expelled from the University of the North (Turfloop), Langa graduated with a BA in philosophy and English in 1972. For the next two years, he worked as a teacher at Nhlakanipho High School in KwaMashu. Langa was elected to the leadership of Saso in Natal in 1974, and held this position until he was arrested while attempting to flee the country during the 1976 Soweto uprising. It was during this period that he encountered Alan Paton, Mewa Ramgobin of the Natal Indian Congress, Norman Middleton of the Labour Party, and Paul Pretorius, Natal University SRC President, in the Committee for Clemency. The Committee campaigned for the release of political prisoners and clemency for those people who were banned, banished and in exile. This was the period of the 1974 'Viva Frelimo' rallies, which took centre stage in Durban where he was based, as well as the arrests of Saso leaders throughout the country during 1975. The outbreak of the uprising and the leadership role he played in the Black Consciousness-aligned student organisation made Langa a target of the security forces. He was arrested while attempting to flee the country. and spent about three months in detention.