One of the more intriguing documentaries to be screened at this year’s New York African Film Festival (AFF) cast one of the world’s most iconic historical figures in greater light. “MK: Mandela’s Secret Army” by director Osvalde Lewat reminds us that Nelson Mandela was a more complex figure than the peaceful prisoner of 30 years, or the elder statesman “Madiba” of his later years after his release.
As Mac Maharaj, one of the subjects of the documentary, said, “Mandela’s foremost quality is that he was a freedom fighter. He was [as] ready to pick up arms as he was ready to put down arms, depending on the conditions. The idea that Mandela should be portrayed as a pacifist is again to appropriate our history and place it in the model of a colonial mentality.”
Zola Maseko, another subject of the film, said, “They tried to erase the early part of Mandela: Mandela the revolutionary, Mandela the guerrilla.”
Mandela’s accomplishments were also the direct result of the efforts of many. Most of the focus of “MK: Mandela’s Secret Army” is on former members of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK for short) such as Maseko and Maharaj. The paramilitary wing of the African National Congress, MK was formed in 1961 after generations of peaceful resistance against the terroristic tactics of South Africa’s government. “Mandela’s Secret Army” amplifies the voices of the unsung heroes of South Africa’s revolution against apartheid.
One of the most memorable scenes in the film is of an entire township filling the streets, dancing and chanting the revolutionary songs that were a hallmark of South Africa’s freedom struggles. It brought into clear focus that the fight was undertaken by the entire nation: Everyone fought and everyone suffered, whether they were imprisoned, as most MK soldiers were, or killed, as many were. Many family members were harassed and tortured even if they didn’t end up behind prison walls.
In “Mandela’’s Secret Army,” former MK members Dudu Msomi, Maharaj, Maseko, Ronnie Kasrils, Andy Kasrils, Jabu Masina, Maghebula Segale, and others take the viewer on a harrowing journey. It also shows the diverse nature of the organization, which included men, women, whites, Indians, and other ethnic groups as members.
MK was also very much an international organization. The soldiers received support and training from Germany, Sweden, China, andCuba. They trained in disparate locales, including neighboring Swaziland, and received assistance from other African freedom fighters such as those in Zimbabwe.
The former members recount the tortuous path they took to take armed resistance against South Africa’s Nationalist Party, which formalized the system of apartheid in 1948. The blistering accounts, as well as copious archival photos and video footage, bring to the fore the desperate brutality of life under apartheid. Blacks were wantonly beaten, and their ability and freedom to travel was severely restricted. Worst of all, they could not own property nor were they allowed to vote. The relatively youthful appearances of the former MK members strike the viewer, showing that many must have been mere teens when they joined the struggle.
Although their efforts destroyed the formal system of apartheid, “Mandela’s Secret Army” presents the audience with the dark truth that the struggle continues in many ways. For some of the soldiers themselves, whose strategies and tactics brought South Africa’s Nationalist government to its knees and ushered in a democratic system of government, there is no recognition, no monuments or museums. This begs the question of how much power the ANC really has.
As Masina, who was on death row and released along with Mandela, said, “Nobody knows me. Nobody remembers. Nobody says, ‘There’s a person who was on death row.’ Many MKers are suffering even today. They never benefited anything. Although I never fought to enrich myself. I just wanted to get rid of apartheid.”
The former soldiers recount how both the system against which they fought and the resistance itself destroyed them and their families. Drug abuse, chronic unemployment, and homelessness are common. The film illustrates the despair left in the wake of the unfulfilled promises of what a democratic South Africa would mean.
Some of the former soldiers are filmed in what can only be described as shantytowns. They drink unclean water. “This is not what we fought for. This is not what our people died for,” asserted Segale.
The tragedy that the system of gross inequality persists in South Africa, which “Mandela’s Secret Army” highlights, is compounded by the knowledge of the sacrifices made by so many who are still unheralded. It’s perhaps a subtle indicator that the changes begun in South Africa in 1994, when apartheid officially ended, were more cosmetic than many would like to admit. If, as has been said, the measure of a society is in how it treats its women and girls, perhaps the measure of how equal a society truly is can be found in the way it treats those who fought and died for that equality.
As Maseko said, “Mandela was a great man, but there are thousands, tens of thousands, of unsung heroes. For the government to honor [them], or create something that our children and grandchildren, future generations, can go [to] and pay homage to MK fighters, who were prepared to give their lives, make the highest sacrifice for this country, isn’t big.”
For more info, visit www.filmlinc.org/films/mk-mandelas-secret-army.