Our Writing

If we write, we can get published. If not, not. If we leave the field to the class enemies of the working class, they win. David Masondo, the National Chairperson of the SA Young Communist League, had a major article published today in the (Johannesburg) Sunday Times yesterday, on the Editorial page. His article is linked below and packaged with two others that can serve to illustrate the combative nature of journalism. This is where writing becomes an essential part of class struggle. Makgwadu Steve Pheeha has written a tribute to Rachel Corrie, who was deliberately killed by an Israeli bulldozer-driver on the 16th of March, 2003 at the age of 23 while acting as a human shield. Rachel left her own testimony in writing and it has been made into a play, which was to open in New York on the 22nd of March, 2006. But it has been censored and will not now open. Censorship is a tribute to the power of words. See here and here, and Steve Pheeha’s linked document below. Comrade Mzala (Jabulani Nxumalo) passed away 15 years ago at the age of 35. He had already become a prolific and influential writer. Thanks to the contributions of Comrade Seshupo Segole, Provincial Spokesperson of the SACP in the Northern Cape Province, the Communist University has been able to construct a Comrade Mzala Archive here. No doubt it is only a beginning. The voice of another generation can be heard if you go to the “Tried for Treason” section of the MuseumAfrica in Newtown, Johannesburg. This room must rank as one of the greatest exhibitions in the world. The voice in question can be heard speaking gently but firmly and directly, just as you enter the room. It comes from a video monitor showing an interview with the late Ike Horvitch, on the subject of the drawings he made of his fellow Treason-Trialists in the late 1950s, and of his own experience. It was done in 1995. The drawings are extraordinary, as is the whole Treason Trial exhibition. Those of us who may still feel that too little has as yet been done in South Africa to honour the late Comrade Horvitch, a former CPSA Central Committee member, following his death on December 28th, 2005, can console themselves a little with the fact that he has pride of place in this incomparable memorial to the Treason Trial, among a collection of 156 of the most distinct and strongest personalities that it is possible to imagine in one place. In his case the way the comrade expressed himself was not writing, but drawing; plus, of course, that remarkable video. Click here for more about Ike Horvitch. But go to that exhibition if you can. Links: Sunday Times, 3 articles, Masondo, Carolus - Marcus, Roodt (1541 words) Tribute to Rachel Corrie, by Makgwadu Steve Pheeha (1464 words)