Breytenbach and Okhela

Breyten Breytenbach

     Breyten Breytenbach is often seen as the lead figure, the person who took the initiative to form what was later to become known as “Okhela”. The quotation below, taken from Luli Callinicos' biography on Tambo, amplifies this misperception  and under rates the roles of Tambo and other ANC leaders as direct participants. Denying OR Tambo's role as the initiator of "Okhela" is undeniably dishonest, albeit expeditious to avoid conflicts of the time within the ANC, problems flowing from these conflicts stemming from the Morogoro Conference are legion!

      But times transform perceptions and narratives, sometimes for self-preservation and sometimes for keeping things under the hat, for spin purposes trying to redirect events and/or resurrect from a train smash  like that caused by Breyten. In the passages quoted by Luli Callinicos we find Breytenbach making statements which do not necessarily tally with reality but at least he is still there and able to make these statements that open the way for "straightening out" the narrative, as it were. He personalizes (as we all do in one way or another) what was a massive project that was also much greater in scope than the single part played as individuals by all of us. Looking back many years later I can freely admit that the basic parameters of what we were doing, and what the ANC finally revealed itself to be as "liberation movement" puts a lot of credence on how Breyten was probably forced into a corner by the Security Police, based on the police revealing to him some of the really dirty inside linen of the ANC. When I was in detention in 1979 they tried this on me as well but I am sure not of the same severity. I am still speculating.

     After Breyten's arrest and trial I was detained under the direct supervision of Johnny Makhatini in Algiers, ostensibly for an internal post mortem/inquiry/disciplinary hearing that had to take place. In the beginning of 1977 I was able to get out of Algiers while Makhatini was on a mission somewhere else, and settled in with the bulk of the remaining "Okhela" comrades in New York. The discussion was, as I found it to be, whether or not we should denounce Breyten. I vehemently objected to this appraoch. Breyten was in jail and its not ethical to denounce any one unless the facts were on the table. And in the case of Breyten these facts would only become known upon his release from jail. The position adopted that through thick and thin we would defend Breyten and maintain his integrity, while at the same time doing everything possible to make amends with the ANC. I have no qualms about Breyten and to this day still feel he was victim rather than villain. But with regard to the ANC I discover that we were both victims. And there were more victims who paid heavy prices. The whole "white left" became victim! In these latter days the ANC in fact is spinning its "liberation movement" credentials out of existence!

 

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     “Oliver Tambo has not taken his rightful place in our national memory. Luli Callinicos’ timely and well-researched social biography begins the process of reducing the yawning deficit caused by the unintended consignment of the memory of Olive Tambo to the dark shadows of a forgotten history”. Thabo Mbeki
  

• Excerpts from the Engeli Mountains / Biography on Oliver Tambo; Luli Callinicos
Published 2004:-

     “Because of his own political history, Tambo was able to appreciate the fears of the nationalists of an ideological takeover by the communists. To demonstrate his understanding of their anxieties, Tambo looked favorably upon a project proposed by Johnny Makatini, which aimed to deflect the interventionist role of the left-wing whites in black politics. (11) In this context, Tambo agreed to the formation of an alternative organization within the ANC alliance, distinct from the SACP, aimed at focusing white members’ support work on their own community in South Africa.


     “It seemed the right moment for a leftist challenge to Soviet-oriented communist parties the world over. The students’ ideological revolt, inspired by the writings of Herbert Marcuse, had begun in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1968, spread to Paris and other European cities, crossed the Channel to the United Kingdom and then traversed the Atlantic making a deep impact on an American youth already radicalized by the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam war campaign. These initiatives dovetailed with the New Left, which had its origins in the post-Hungary 1956 split from the Communist Party in the UK. (12). The movement embraced a Marxist class analysis of society while rejecting the Stalinism of the USSR and its satellite countries. Naturally the SACP, which looked to the USSR since its inception for inspiration, guidance and support, was uncomfortable with the New Left.


     “Makatini, based in North Africa, had developed contacts French radicals. Like Tambo, he gave priority to an open, pragmatic strategy that would harness all those opposed to apartheid. In Africa, Makatini had initiated relationships with “unfashionable” states such as Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Senegal and Zaire, despite the reactionary nature of some of these countries.


     “Johnny ended up with all sorts of diplomatic bed mates, that worked to the advantage of the ANC”, commented Neo Moikangoa, one of Tambo’s personal assistants, who knew Makatini well. (13)


     “And so it was that one wintry night in 1972, Oliver Tambo hurried under the shelter of an umbrella through the streets of Paris to a certain Left Bank café to meet the key figure in this project, Breyten Breytenbach. (14) Eloquent, romantic and extremely talented, the well-known Afrikaner poet lived in exile. His Vietnamese wife, Yolande, had years before been refused an entry permit into Apartheid South Africa (although more recently he had been permitted to visit South Africa with Yolande, as special dispensation from the apartheid authorities to grace an Afrikaans cultural event). (15) Breytenbach (once a Stellenbosch flat mate of Marius Schoon, COD member who had served 12 years in prison for attempted sabotage) was offering to recruit and mobilize intelligentsia, particularly radical Afrikaner thinkers, artists and writers, to resist the apartheid system from within. His key argument was that as oppressors, whites were deeply alienated. To illustrate the message, Breytenbach gave the analogy of lion-tamer and the stool. The lion saw no distinction between the stool, or the whip, or the lion tamer. White South Africans were, by definition, part of the oppressive machinery, and only by recognizing the leadership of the liberation struggle could they come to terms with their alienation. (16).    


     “Briefed by Johnny Makatini, Tambo was given a rundown of the activist poet’s achievements. Together with artists and intellectuals in the café society of Paris, Breytenbach was one of the founders of Atlas, the anti-apartheid organization operating in France and the Netherlands. Atlas saw its mission as a direct action group involving European and South African radicals. In Holland, they persuaded the dockers in Rotterdam to refuse to unload South African cargo, and exposed tobacco smuggling as well as sanctions busting oil deals with Rhodesia. In Paris, when the South African Embassy moved location, at Breytenbach’s behest a number of French Trotskyites hijacked the transit van and stole all the documents to do with the French-South deal on Mirage aircraft.


     “On the night of the Paris rendezvous, Breytenbach proposed to deliver to Tambo an amalgamation of Atlas, with a specifically South African-based Okhela – a white, New Left alternative to the South African Communist Party – operating within the ambit of the ANC. It was important, argued Breytenbach, that white people be seen to be supporting the ANC in a nationalist perspective. Breytenbach’s record of achievements was in a very sensitive realm, but his proposal was in keeping with the ANC’s inclusive approach and its new membership policy. Tambo indicated that he thought the proposal was a good idea and accepted it, on condition that the project was kept under close wraps.


     “Soon afterwards, the Okhela made its first move. Makatini, however, was later to remind them that they had undertaken their first assignment against his wishes. Makatini, some believed, backtracked because he understood that Tambo, having encountered determined opposition by the SACP members on the Executive, was not going to support Okhela. (17). The ANC perception was that the talented Johnny had moved too quickly, pre-empting a proper mandate from the ANC. (18) Be that as it may, Breytenbach traveled to South Africa in disguise as one Christian Galaska, accompanied by an Okhela colleague, Barend Schuitema, from the Netherlands. Breytenbach’s aim was to make contact with the local left intelligentsia through Gerry Mare, a young Afrikaner activist in Natal, in order to offer educational and military support. Mare, though, rejected what he regarded as an adventurist proposal. Breytenbach then traveled around the country, trying to identify recruits among student leaders.


     “As I understand it, a lot of them were very keen, in a romantic sense. And also with Black Consciousness at the time, there was this sort of searching for a path. It was totally disorganized, unstructured”, commented a one-time Okhela member. (19).


     “The detentions of a number of student activists followed and in the ensuing trial the entire plot was blown out of the water. (20) Breytenbach embittered by the absence of the ANC’s political backup, recanted – “groveled”, by his own admission – in a painful show trial and received a nine year sentence. (21). And when he finally emerged from prison, he rejected the ANC and, apparently, even offered his services to the Security Police to infiltrate the SACP. (22)


     “The [Special Branch] of course graciously served that up to the media”, commented Pallo Jordan wryly. (23)


     “Okhela lasted only a year or two longer. (24) Ultimately, the remaining activists of the organization realized that “in the real world to do anything you have to recognize the ANC. . . .To fight against them you might set up some small outfit, but you are not going to get anywhere” (25)                


     “Clearly, though, the dissatisfaction of activists from all directions indicated that the ground was fertile for political entrepreneurship. For the Group of Eight, |Tambo was not moving quickly enough in advancing their demands to reverse the Morogoro resolutions. In fact, the steps ha had already taken to meet their grievances and anxieties had backfired. The Executive Committee, who saw no particular reason for the existence for an additional structure, had dissolved the national secretariat. And then there was the embarrassment of the Okhela debacle, which was revealed to ANC members only when Breytenbach was put on trial.