Not everyone walked off Robben Island and became president.
My obsession with South Africa and apartheid in general and James Mange in particular is causing me to have some very interesting experiences. I ordered the documentary “The Long Journey of Clement Zulu.” Apparently, only four libraries in the world have it. It’s on videotape. Of course going to the school I go to, I was able to get it. This documentary follows three men immediately after their release from Robben Island: Clement Zulu, Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim and James Mange.
“Prison destroyed my life,” said Clement Zulu. Do not get it twisted, these men were proud to have done what they did for their country. But when you step off that boat from Robben Island where do you go? Home? Where is that? Ebrahim Ebrahim was reunited with his family and immediately became an active member of the ANC again. He soon assumed a top position. Yet his relationship with his young daughter suffered. His relationships with his whole family suffered. “Sometimes I fight depression.” And why wouldn’t he when he spent his adult life behind bars?
Clement Zulu was a simple, uneducated man from Nongoma. He couldn’t go home. It was a stonghold of the Inkatha Freedom Party and he would be killed. There weren’t too many places he could go. He was still a a black rabble-rouser as far as the apartheid government was concerned. And there weren’t too many options by way of empolyment either. He wouldn’t even be taken back in the mines. And so the man who stepped off Robben island having sacrificed years of his life for his country, ended up living in a shack in Newcastle, a squatter camp. He began working again with the mine workers’ union trying to mobilize them to demand their rights. Some years after his release Clement Zulu was killed in a car accident, never fully seeing the fruits of his painful labour.
And then there was James…James Mange. It was the most surreal thing ever seeing this man step off the boat, wave at people. I saw his son, I saw James clutch him and I saw him turn away from the camera and weep. I had created this man in my head. I had written him and now I was seeing him. I heard him talk about his experiences. But the most amazing thing was hearing him say words that I, without knowing, had already written as coming from him in my story.
The historical aspect did not concern me so much as understanding his character. I seperated my James Mange from the real person. I was right in many ways, inaccurate in others. But I had lived this man, I had been him and now I was meeting him.
Not everyone walked off Robben Island and became president. I can’t help but wonder if they are satisfied with their South Africa today.
