JOHNSON PHILLIP MLAMBO: BORN IN JOHANNESBURG 73 YEARS AGO TODAY

JOHNSON MLAMBO, A LIVING LEGEND IN LEADERSHIP
Pic:: SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY ONLINE

1.       ….On 31 March 1963 [while Blog Author was only 2, erstwhile 22-year-old Pan-Africanist Johnson] Mlambo was arrested alongside …Abel Chiloane, Simon Nkosi, Josiah Makofane, Nelson Nkumane, Michael Muendane, Lucas Mahlangu and Douglas Simelane….

2.       ….He was charged with sabotage and plotting to overthrow the South African government. Subsequently, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison….

3.       ….Mlambo was then transported at the back of a truck en route to Robben Island. The truck stopped at Colesberg Prison where [he slept] chained to [other prisoners].

4.       He arrived on the Island on 26 June 1963  and was given Prison Number 277/63…He was [then incommunicado] subjected to abjectly inhuman treatment by [the Apartheid Regime].

5.       For instance, he was [serially Blog Author’s emphasis] buried alive up to his neck and urinated upon.

6.       In 1964 these incidents and other forms of..ill-treatment were exposed to the international community [and] they came before the General Assembly of the United Nations.

7.       [However, the excruciating experiences Mlambo went through in jail only served to steel his resolve for the struggle towards African emancipation in South Africa].

8.       As a subsequent leader of the [party] and its military wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, Mlambo restructured [all party affairs] by reappointing numerous [previously-dismissed] members [in order]  to diffuse [debilitating intra-party] tensions [that had rendered themselves synonymous with the PAC].

9.       The military machinery of the PAC was also restructured [and enhanced in so many ways that] for instance, civilian members of the PAC were allowed to occupy certain positions within the Military Committee.

10.   [His leadership was also found to go much more gentle with those among party members who needed gentleness the most: THE GENTLER SEX.  In that respect], under Mlambo’s leadership a full department on women affairs was established and its Secretary became a member of the party’s central committee.

                                                    (SOURCE: SA HISTORY ONLINE)

BLOG AUTHOR’S PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF MLAMBO

As an erstwhile member of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, if also one of the said army’s most senior propaganda officers, I naturally had several opportunities for bumping into Party leaders inclusive of Chairman Johnson Mlambo, him that guerrillas lovingly referred to as "The River" (which was a direct translation of his surname to English from the Nguni) or "The Pool" (a similar translation of his praise name:"Siziba").

Among all the leaders of the broad liberation movement I had occasion to meet, Mlambo stood shoulders well above the rest if only by his humility, his astuteness, and his cool-headedness.  Absolutely nothing ever shakes Johnson Mlambo who apparently takes life as it comes with as much sangfroid for the raging storm as he will greet the splatter of a raindrop.

For that matter, if you ever chatted Johnson Mlambo up…and someone has done just that several times during the 1990s in Tanzania and even as recently as the 2000s in Mlambo's humble home in the Gauteng Province of South Africa…he will simply snooze off while you are in the middle of an earth-shaking conversation.

But when you hit the verge of packing your bags and leaving you will hear a tap on the table and bam he gives you the way forward out of what you'd thought was a gridlock!

That is the same mind that earned Mlambo an economics degree while still behind bars on Robben Island.

It is also the selfsame mind that not only gave the PAC perhaps its most stellar leadership period, but also gave the world the journalist in Mordecai King (Goodman Manyanya Phiri).  In fact, it is often successfully argued by elements sympathetic to the PAC that it is in all fairness the leadership of Mlambo, particularly in his capacity as commander-in-chief of its military wing, that hastened the day of South Africa's national liberation as those boys (Azanian People's Liberation Army fighters) made no secret of their erstwhile belief in "One Settler One Bullet", by which slogan they meant to exterminate the erstwhile white European settler community of South Africa and thus succeeded to send the fear of God down the spine of F.W. De Klerk and other oppressors to hasten to the negotiating table.

Their directness with their preference for soft targets was indubitably in contrast with other liberation armies which were more into sabotage actions and, for others, even military assaults on their fellow oppressed blacks whose only crime might have been a difference of ideology from that of the belligerent!

Personally, I am ever so glad and grateful to have met that great fighter for freedom and his extended family inclusive of a nephew (now a supreme court judge) and also a niece both of whom were my schoolmates at prestigious Thembeka Senior Secondary School in Kanyamazane, Nelspruit, back in 1979-1980.

He was for me also a role model like no other!  Or maybe it is a question of like attracts like where I mean:

1.  The greatest coward on earth not at all prepared to lose life or limb over anything, I am often referred to by all and sundry as "the Phiri who is totally fearless when it comes to matters of principle"...I guess, just for me to laugh out loud about, they watch one too many of my videos and that's why!  On the other hand, Johnson Mlambo is veritably such a fearless man he is ready to even give an eye on matters of principle (such was the case when he got into one life-changing fight with a hardened common prisoner on Robben Island Prison.  The latter was a lout who had apparently demanded sodomy from political prisoners or else no food; and Mlambo said: ["Over my dead body where my comrades are concerned, Pal!"].  Read all  about it here or on other sources with more  autobiographical detail where Mlambo narrates one of his torture sessions in the following m spine-chilling manner: "On one occasion I was [almost] buried alive.  I had to scramble out [of the pit] at the time when the warders wanted to urinate into my mouth."

2.  Maybe the similarity misguided observers people find between us comes from the fact we both of us grew up in South Africa's Mpumalanga Province...am I catching on straws?

3.  Then there is the issue of falling victim to human-right abuses by South Africa's politicians with Mlambo's case already cited on one of the links above on hand, while Phiri's less known fate at the hands of racists (albeit black ones in my case) is well-documented too particularly if you check No. 211 of this link.

4.  In my forlorn hope for finding reasons why people compare me to political giants like Mlambo, I have even exploited unconventional means: "Ah!" I marvelled as I found the fact out. "Phiri's birthday on 4 May 1961 fell on just as good a Thursday as Mlambo's 22 February 1940!"

Gotcha!

Happy Birthday, Siziba!