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Penuell Maduna Constitutional Court Oral History Project Int This is an interview with Dr. Penuell Maduna and it’s the 3rd of February 2012.

Dr. Maduna, thank you so much for taking the time to participate in the Constitutional Court Oral History Project. We really appreciate the generosity of your time and your patience!

PM (laughter) Int I wondered if we could start at the very beginning, early childhood memories,

where you were born, a bit about family background and what were some of the key experiences of social injustices that may have prompted you to take the life path that you took?

PM I grew up in Soweto, in a place called Rockville; I was actually born here in

Johannesburg. I grew up in my grandmother’s house. That was her house and eventually of course, my uncle, the main man in the house, Richard Maduna, took over, ja. My grandmother, though a domestic worker like my mother was quite politically active and conscious. She had a banned friend, we used to call Gogo Ntombela, grandmother Ntombela and I used to do errands for the two of them. So, as a banned person and my grandmother was also known to be quite conscious and quite active, ja. So, obviously, the two of them were seen together, the system, as we used to call it were able to put one and one together and the two of them would be detained. So, I would do errands and I became aware of what was happening. But besides my grandmother died a card-carrying member of the African National Congress. It was one of her prized meagre possessions. Card signed in 1958 by the late Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu and even when the ANC was banned in 1960. She decided look, I am not going to part with this one. And of course, you have asked how I became personally politically, politically conscious….

Int Sure… PM In that environment, where politics and political developments used to be

discussed, you know, literally everyday. My grandmother used to read all newspapers, you know, especially, the Sunday ones. She used to wear the loose, round glasses and she would sit and just go through, if it was not the Bible, she would read all the newspapers. Right, so the Star, then Rand Daily Mail, the Sunday Express, etc. So, I was exposed to all those and then in 1961, the government issued coins, and in my school, we got bronze ones. And my uncle, Richard Maduna, said look, these don’t belong here and he instructed my elder brother and me to throw them away and we went out at dusk to….do that. As a little boy and the…you know, twelve years younger

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than my elder brother, I may look old now, I couldn’t understand what was happening. But I accepted the instruction nonetheless, because I mean, what else could I do, I lived in the man’s house. He didn’t give us any reason but ten years later in 1971, I was part of the student body when we were campaigning against the celebration and commemoration of the Republic of South Africa, the birth of the Republic of South Africa, the tenth anniversary and we were saying no, we are not part of it. I was then aware that in fact, we were victims and products of a, a Union dating back to 1910, which had not unified the people of South Africa. We were victims of the system of apartheid, an offshoot of British colonialism, so I was aware of all that and we were campaigning against that. Then of course, I was influenced heavily so by the South African Students Organisation, which was led by the likes of the late Steve Biko and Mthuli ka Shezi and people like those when I was at varsity, the late Abram Onkgopotse Tiro who died in a bomb explosion. In fact, yes, on the 1st of this month (February), two days ago, we were commemorating yet another anniversary of his demise. Those were great influences on some of us. I became a leader of the South African Students Organisation myself at the University of Zululand and in 1976… Oh ja, let me walk a step back, we, in 1974, we were involved in what we called the Frelimo Rally. We…you know, we marked the victory of the struggle of the people of Mozambique, led by Frelimo, right, when former President Chissano landed in Mozambique with a delegation, etc, after the fall of the Quitano regime in Portugal. So, we were participating in all those, of course there were the 1973 labour strikes as well, that started in Durban, we were conscious of them and we were doing quite a lot of creative and innovative things as student activists, in solidarity with the workers, right and Frelimo Rally, in 1974, ’76 I was eventually detained because we responded to the…19…to the events of June 16th, which started here in Soweto, right, we responded as a student body and I was captured on the 25th of June and I was detained. Actually, when we came before court, the case was…the case of the State vs. Maduna and others. I happened for all my sins to be that Maduna and we were prosecuted. We were defended by the great…one of whom became our first black Chief Justices, that is Ismail Mohammed, who is late. He was assisted by Andrew Wilson and Judge Skweyiya, who is the Judge of the Constitutional Court now right. They were instructed by Nyembezi, Aubrey Nyembezi in Durban and needless to say at the end of the State’s case, we were all discharged because the State couldn’t make a good case against us. And after that, immediately, well not immediately but couple of months later, I was detained and you know, eventually appeared before court again and quite a number of very interesting things were happening there, including, you know, a riot inside court, when the judge, a Greek of Pietermaritzburg then was presiding and at the end of the day, he had decided, look he was not going to hear the matter because really things had happened. We had fought the members of the Security Branch right in court and we were then separated, those of us who were having a reputation of being activists, were separated from the rest and we were tried in Durban. As luck would have it again the State didn’t make a good case against me and I was acquitted but two of the advocates who defended me were indeed the former Chief Justice, Pius Langa and Moremo Morane,

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who is still quite active in the legal profession in Durban. He is based in Durban and wonderful time right. Acquitted, once again and the ANC decided look you better come out because otherwise the next thing they are going to shoot you. Indeed, an attempt had been made on me in my township in Rockville but again they had failed, right. I worked for a short while for Priscilla Jana and Associates, which was quite high profile among lawyers in Johannesburg, right. And I have fond memories there with the likes of Elon Kleinschmidt and people like those, right. And I had to go into exile, as I have said. Spent time in exile, went really all over. I suppose my high-powered activism made me noticeable among leaders of the ANC. I lived for a short while with Judge Albie Sachs in Mozambique and Maputo in his place, in this apartment with the late Chris Hani, we were sharing everything, including the bathtub, the kitchenette and whatever, right. And great moments may I say, right. Lived together there. Then I got an opportunity to go to New York to work with Jack Greenberg, who had featured prominently in the, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954 with the late Thurgood Marshall, and I got exposed to all those things, right. People like Judges Leon Higgambotham, got exposed to them from you know, Howard University in Washington D.C. So, it was a pleasant moment for me and the ANC recalled me to Lusaka because they thought that they needed quite a number of people with my skills and you know, to exposure to work on focusing on the way back home and indeed I was quite privileged because I worked with some of the finest of South Africa’s leaders; the late Oliver Tambo to name but a few, Nzo, Alfred Nzo, Thomas Godi, Thabo Mbeki himself, right, Pallo Jordaan. Together we worked a whole lot of things, including for instance the anticipation of the so-called Rubicon Speech, you know, which happened post-Gabwe, right. Very interesting times. Great debates even about whether or not, the ANC should begin thinking about negotiation and negotiated settlement and especially after the May 20th bombing blast in 1983 and they met the agents of the Tri-cameral parliament. I was quite active, you know, in all those years and in all those issues, right. So, worked with the leadership producing very interesting documents under the watch of Tambo, as I have said you know. Documents for instance, which were dealing with the emergence of the Eminent Person’s Group after the Commonwealth Bahamas Nassau Bahamas summit, right. We interacted with them. I was also privileged with a lot of South Africans, who came out to see us in Lusaka and all the way to Dakar, Zimbabwe. I was exposed to all those, right and it was a privilege for me. An honour really to be involved in all those activities. Eventually, I got involved in the process Tambo started, the process that eventuated in the adoption of the Harare Declaration, very interesting document where the ANC propounded its view of a South Africa beyond apartheid. You must remember that that document eventually after its adoption in Harare went to a summit of the Commonwealth and after that to the UN and it became indeed the main position regarding a possible settlement of the South African question. Right, when the ANC was, oh yeah, when Sisulu and the others, you know, Mbeki Senior, Mlange and others were released, they came out and I was one of the young cadres of the ANC, who were assigned to look after them. I might digress a bit, I was also assigned to

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look after Dirk Coetzee. Dirk Coetzee had been the leader of the group that killed Mxenge. That’s the ANC for you, they assigned me that task and I performed it, right. Worked very very closely with him, looked after him right, when he was in Lusaka. He had defected from Vlakplaas after a policeman called Almond Nofemela has you know, has spilled the beans as its were, right. So, Coetzee and his two sons, etc became quite close to us, over there through he had come from the ranks of the enemy, right. What am I leaving out? Eventually, Mandela was released and when he was released, he comes out to Lusaka, amongst other places and eventually, it is agreed that the ANC must send people from Lusaka, and I was selected by the leadership to join Jacob Zuma and the couple of days later, we were joined by Mathews Phosa who is now the ANC’s Treasurer –General. We worked under Zuma, we interacted with our adversary, prepared for negotiations and eventually also participated in the negotiations all the way up to 1994, preparing for the elections, etc, right. And well, after the elections, Nelson Mandela appointed me Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, deputy to Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Also, the particular reputation and the particular relationship with us as the ANC but I served under him and to the best of my knowledge, he has never complained about how I related to him. I respected him as an elder statesman. I might have had political and ideological issues with him but I never put a lot of emphasis if any, on that. We had a good relationship and indeed I learned quite enough from him to be visible, sufficiently visible to be then appointed to Mineral and Energy, where I served for a short while and after that, I became Minister of Justice and left public office at the end of my term in 2004. And since then I have been an attorney at Bowman Gilfilan and John Schlossberg. And of course I am having business interests in mining and energy, right.

Int I wondered whether I could take you right back? Thank you very much for that

narrative. I appreciate it. In terms of growing up where you did and in terms of growing up in a politically conscious environment, from your memories and recollection, what were some of the discourses in the house, above what was going on in the country and what were some of your first hand experiences, of apartheid, as a young child?

PM You know, the disabilities of blacks in general. Bantu Education, I never in this

country went to any school or university, except Bantu universities, Bantu schools and universities and if, if you like it that was a deliberate act on the part of the government to stunt our development. Right, Verwoerd was very very clear on that and in respect to some of us, unfortunately, they didn’t achieve much of anything, right. So, that was a major issue. Access to education, right. Life in the ghettos, you know. Pass Laws, the raids, the numerous raids, you know by, you know, municipality police, we used to call ‘Blackjacks’, you know, on mere suspicion that a relative of yours from outside the city of Johannesburg might be visiting to you. They were knocking hard on your door, raiding and checking who was sleeping in your house. Violating our privacy, in fact, we had no rights. So, those things were being discussed. The

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need to apply for permits even when you were going to celebrate anything or mourn, you know, in the area, whatever, you know. Right, have parties. I remember I accompanying my grandmother who would then have to tell the white man, a Mr. Rothmans in White City, he ran the municipality offices there. How many people would be participating in a family gathering. Therefore, determining how many indigenous Africans…litres of indigenous African brew, right could be produced. The chap just looks down, doesn’t even look at you, says “How many?” and you say “We expect about 200”. Say 200 litres, so each one of the participants, whether they were teetotallers or not would consume 200 litres, right, of that. That humiliation right. You know, the need to carry on you your Pass Book. They are called Identity Books now but they were the Pass Books then. To carry it on you at the risk of being accosted by a police officer, who might have awesome power to detain you for failure to produce. So those were real life issues. We were not spared them. Right and of course relatives of ours who came from Natal, especially, Ladysmith and Durban, who couldn’t stay with us, who couldn’t visit us for more than a, a 72 hours, three days without the permission of the likes of Mr. Rothman. Right, those were issues for us, right. The need to apply for permits to go…to leave Johannesburg to attend family functions, funerals, weddings whatever and humiliation because when you arrived at the other end, your destination, the need to report that you were going to be in that township, in that district for…a stipulated period. That humiliation right. And of course, some of us, needing education and being told the only colleges you can go to are Bantu colleges. That I never had as a result any opportunity to get to know my white counterparts and socialise with them, etc. There were far removed from us, right. And our experience of whites and at the hands of whites was negative, right. I remember my mother’s employer, here in Langelaagte, beating me up for wearing rugby socks, old rugby socks, which his son had given to my mother, who had then darned them. It was bitterly cold and when the man saw them and my mother couldn’t do anything. She was just standing there on the windowsill as it were, looking out and I said, there is a psychological pain more than the physical pain that I am feeling. Humiliation of my mother; I said you touch a little chicklet, the chicken knows, the fowl knows how to respond to you. But there’s my mother looking on and I know she might, if she were still alive deny that she wept. And I never raised the question with her because I knew how humiliated and how embarrassed she must have felt. But I have this distinct impression that my mother wept, that was the most she could do. We depended on whatever this white bully was paying her so if she would have protested, she would have lost the job, right. That level of humiliation beating me up only to find that when his son says in Afrikaans, “ Ek het vir hom die koese gegee. ” I gave him the socks and getting no apology from him. Now, those are the experiences and of course, I have talked about the raids by the police and whatever. In other words, the State forced us to resist it, with all our might and with all the means at our disposal, by criminalising our very existence. Right, I have mentioned freedom of movement, I have mentioned lack of opportunities, I mean it is only now that in the townships, you have what you see now. I used to say, we make belts, we make shoes in white people’s factories but we are not allowed under

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the law to make the same thing. They get skills, experience and whatever and when you retire or are fired, they can’t take leather and you know, pieces of metal and join them into belts in the townships because the law did not allow them to do that, right. And I remember when I was among the young lawyers, a statement which we called the swansong by the M.C.Botha who said all Bantu lawyers, indigenous African shall leave the central business districts where they were plying their trade as lawyers and go and practice law in their own areas. So, I would have had to go and practice law in Soweto where there were no office facilities. Right, where would I go and practice law? Right, hence the emergence of the organisation led by…that the Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke and others were leaders of, right. Some of our foremost judges were leaders of the Black Lawyers Organisation right. It was formed in response to that. The notion of blacks in management in companies is new, right. Hence the emergence of the Black Management Forum. Companies never thought of us as managers, though we had a semblance of education. Management was unimaginable. Not even the management of human resources. Very interesting. So, as I say the State forced us to resist it and those who managed their apartheid state only had themselves to blame. But then again, the interesting thing, growing up in that ANC inclined or oriented family, helped me understand that the white person, though in many cases, a downright racist was not the enemy. That was a very interesting thing, right and something difficult to understand and accept because the only encounter with whites was at the level of white brutality. The policeman and whatever, right. The, the kicks on our doors and whatever, right. In other words, there was never a moment when we saw the white man in any other light. And the first time, I met whites who really treated me as a human being was when I was in exile. Staying in the same place, as Albie Sachs, I can tell you, Albie will confirm this, as a result, I used to cook and I used to wash his dishes and clean the place, right. Because honestly, I thought that, I had an obligation, as a black to serve here and yet Albie was also working and cooking and whatever. Sharing everything with me but honestly for some time, I regarded it as my own obligation to do it. When I also lived with Molly and Nathan, the parents of Gill Marcus, our Governor of the Reserve Bank, I honestly thought that I had an obligation to serve them. It was much later that I said you know, these treat us totally differently. The Joe Slovos or whatever, you know, right. That’s how deep and through and extensive the damage of the system had been. But again, you had to live with a philosophy that said, that they are not our enemy. It’s the system that is our enemy, we’ve got to defeat it and they together with all of us are the co-owners of this country. It belongs to all who live in it. Something very very very difficult to understand and analyse, but those are the tensions of the ANC and they were generally accepted across and length and breadth of the polity. Where after all, though we never met the, the likes of the… this organisation had been privileged in being led by some of the most noble of people like Albert John Luthuli, right. Though Archbishop Tutu was not a high profile political leader in the ANC, he had the sort of visibility and stature that would never allow you to hate people because of their race. It would inspire you to respond you to their hate with the

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love they were exhibiting. Very interesting, right. So, I, I came from that background, right.

Int Mr. Maduna, thank you so much. I am aware that you do need to leave and I

really, really look forward to the opportunity and privilege of interviewing you again and asking me some searching questions.

PM I would be more than willing to sit down with you. Int Thank you so much.

Collection Number: AG3368

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