It was a day of fun, excitement and a trip down memory lane for residents who attended the book launch of ‘Letters to my Mother: The making of a troublemaker’ written by Kumi Naidoo, at the Nelson Mandela Youth Centre on Saturday, 12 November.
Letters to my Mother offers an account of the South African freedom struggle seen through the eyes of a teenage boy from an ‘Indian’ township caught up in historic events between 1980 and 87. Durban human and environmental rights activist, Kumi Naidoo, credits Chatsworth – his place of birth – for moulding him into the globally revered leader he has become. His political education, however, was inspired by parents and leaders throughout KwaZulu-Natal, including Phoenix, Verulam and Tongaat, as the 57-year-old former secretary-general of Amnesty International says in his poignant memoir Letters to my Mother: The Making of a Troublemaker. Naidoo praised the parents of children from schools in Merebank, Wentworth, Tongaat, Verulam and Phoenix; who fought to get their children re-instated after expulsion from school for participating in protests against apartheid elections. It was at community meetings joined by civic leaders, including lawyer and hotelier, Rabbi Bugwandeen, anti-apartheid activist and lawyer, Archie Gumede, and civic leader, Virgil Bonhomme – among others – the Indian and Coloured politicians working with the apartheid government were criticised. “For us, being part of something like this was really exciting.”
Naidoo’s mom took her life when he was 15, leading him to embrace politics with vigour. Naidoo’s letters to his mom were also crucial to his coming to terms with her death in 1980. His story is about how his mom’s death sparked his journey into action against apartheid and since then, Kumi Naidoo has been described as a ‘troublemaker’ for over forty years. A former secretary general of Amnesty International and former executive director of Greenpeace International, he has become a global figure in progressive social movements worldwide. In 2011, Kumi was detained in Greenland after boarding a giant oil rig in defiance of a court order. He and other protestors climbed the rig despite having water cannons sprayed on them. Naidoo told The Guardian that he wanted the company to stop drilling for oil and would request a copy of the rig’s spill response plan.
Born in 1965, Kumi played as a youth organiser during the anti-apartheid school boycotts of the early 1980s, becoming deeply involved in the underground activities of the African National Congress. Having been arrested multiple times and with a price on his head, Kumi fled to the UK in 1987, where he took up a place at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, remaining in exile until 1990. He returned to play a key role as spokesman during the country’s first democratic elections. For Naidoo, the book is a testament to the courage and resilience of ordinary young people and others who resisted apartheid in their day-to-day lives by working for transformative change in their communities. He hopes that telling his story will help inspire a new generation of South Africans to respond to the urgent social and environmental challenges of their own times, learning from the successes and failures of the past and forging solidarity across racial, linguistic and religious divides. “Once you’ve read this book, you will never be the same again,” said Noel Daniels, the chief executive of the Cornerstone Institute, founded in 1970 on the Cape Flats when prospective Black theologians were excluded from attending universities reserved for Whites in South Africa. Poet, playwright, performer, and producer, Siphokazi Jonas, added: “Through his vulnerable remembering, he shows us that when we are ready, we must face ourselves and our untold stories.” Naidoo’s grief made him determined to free South Africa and help to shape a better world. Letters to my Mother – The Making of a Troublemaker by Kumi Naidoo is published by Jacana Media. Available in all good bookstores and online. – Edwin Naidu
