Women vs Justice - two titles show the struggle continues

Title: Women in Solitary 
Author: Shantini Naidoo  
​Publisher: Tafelberg  
The story that Shantini Naidoo sets out to tell begins on 6th April 2018 at Pretoria Central Prison. In the wake of the recent death of Winnie Mandela, as a journalist she is there to find out more about the Mother of the Nation’s incarceration here. On the same occasion she also witnesses the annual commemoration of the hanging of MK freedom fighter Solomon Mahlangu.  But it was her investigation into the 1969 ‘Trial of 22’ that got her started, the focus most specifically on the seven women included in that number. The women who ‘lived through harassment and abuse that was gender specific’, whose ‘prison narratives illustrate… women’s contribution to the liberation struggle’, but about whom there is such ‘lean and scattered information’ and ‘whose stories have largely gone undetected, untold, in the shadow of the mainstream narrative – that of the Rivonia trialists and Robben Island political prisoners. ’
Following this prison visit, Naidoo goes in search of the four women, those still living, who went through both the trial and the brutal solitary incarceration that followed. And so she tracks down Joyce Sikhakane-Rankin, Shantie Naidoo, Rita Ndzanga and Nondwe Mankhala, keenly aware of asking them to share difficult memories that have been buried for half a century. In each case at these delicate meetings she elicits revealing fragments of their back stories.  Joyce for instance aged seven, attended Holy Cross Primary run by activist Reverend Trevor Huddlestone and went on to become an award winning journalist. Over tea and scones Shantie (no relation) explains that she came from a family of activists whose grandfather petioned Paul Kruger about human rights abuse of indentured labour and it was ‘not  question of us getting involved, it was how to get involved.’ From her home in Soweto former parliamentarian Rita describes her forced removal from Sophiatown in 1955 ‘when 2000 policemen arrived with handguns, rifles and knobkerries.’ Lastly in a Port Elizabeth township Nondwe tells how she became an ANC volunteer at 17 spreading the word to ‘so many people in rural areas and in town who didn’t know about the struggle.’ In some cases  the memories are still sharp, in others they are fading – but all the memories they describe of their solitary time in detention are almost too painful to read. And hard to forget. Winnie’s story, though better known, is hardest to forget. Interesting that while her husband spent 27 years in prison, only 3 days of that were in solitary while for his wife was subjected to solitary confinement for more than eighteen months.
Bringing all of this firmly into the present day are the chapters that follow: Aftermath, looking at the devastating effects on their long term physical and mental wellbeing as well as significantly, those of their children and grandchildren. Latter Days: how the women meet again to receive the presidential Order of Luthuli in Silver and for a last time at Winne’s funeral. On Healing in which she quotes Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madizizela on the TRC and the aim ‘to foster accountability…restore hope.. and agency amongst those whose identity was diminished and humiliated.’ Finally in Conclusion she says, ‘It makes us uncomfortable to hear these stories, but we risk worse if we don’t – apathy, and a skewed moral compass, which many already follow.’ Review: Nancy Richards

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​Title: Kwanele, Enough!
Author: Andy Kawa
Publisher: Tafelberg
In December 2010, businesswoman Andiswa Kawa decided to take a short leisurely stroll on Port Elizabeth’s King’s Beach before catching her flight back to Jo’burg. But she never makes the flight. Instead she is abducted by a man carrying a broken beer bottle who says ‘I’m gonna kill you’. In the dunes he and several other men rape her in a nightlong, 16 hour ordeal that left her traumatized and almost defeated. But not quite. Because today Andy looks back on a decade of My battle with the South African Police Service to get justice for women’– the subtitle of the book in which she outlines the whole horrifying story.
As if the abduction and assault weren’t bad enough, the handling or mishandling – and even no handling at all - of the police at Humewood police station – is breathtaking. In the book she recounts the wrenching chain of events, in her own words. But all of it backed up by others – like the runners who found her wandering and confused on the beach, the car guard who knew the assailants, through the voices of members of the justice system, the press and through the words of Justice Edward Cameron who writes the foreword and those of Dr Mamphela Ramphele who she came to know well through this ordeal.
Aside from her bulldog-like endeavours to get some sort of action and response, if not apology and remorse, from the police and the system, she also took up the cudgel for other women by starting a campaign called Kwanele Enuf is Enuf! The aim of which is to ‘break the chains of silence, fear, tolerance and apathy against sexual violence.’ Its partners include POWA, Commissioner for Gender Equality, Sonke Gender Justice, Business Unity South Africa and Business Against Crime. But the fight against gender violence is ongoing. What makes it so doubly unjust is that it’s the likes of Andy Kowa and her book, as well as others like Tracy Going and hers, Brutal Legacy, who are the sacrificial lambs suffering not only the violation, but the repeated violation as a result of the inertia and inefficiency of the police and justice system.
The defence closed its case on The Minister of Police vs Andy Kawa on 2nd August 2018. On 22nd November, the High Court case had been won. Not long afterwards the Minister of Police announced his intention to appeal – and despite a letter she sent to President Ramaphosa requesting he withdraw the appeal, it went ahead. On 6th May 2020 the appeal was upheld in the Supreme Court. In closing Kawa says, ‘We decided to take the matter to the Constitutional Court. We have applied for leave to appeal and are awaiting response.’ The wait, like the struggle, continues.
Signing off her daughter Celiwe says, ‘I am so lucky to have a mother who actively lives her politics and fights to make the world a safer, fairer and more just place.’  She sure is.
​Review: Nancy Richards