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26 April 2019 | Story Opinion article by Dr Chitja Twala | Photo Sonia Small
Dr Chitja Twala
Dr Chitja Twala is the Vice-Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities at the University of the Free State.

This opinion piece is to reflect on the sacrifices and roles played by the Twelve Disciples in the Liberation Struggle in honour of #Freedom Day.

To the majority of South Africans, the struggle for liberation centres around high-profiled political leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, and others. Less known is the experience of a generation of young men who left South Africa clandestinely to build the ANC and spread its liberation message in places abroad. These young men became known as the Twelve Disciples of Mandela. Like many other youngsters who became political activists elsewhere in the country, this group received its political conscientisation at school at the then Bantu High School (later known as Sehunelo High School).

This group of youngsters came from the Mangaung township in Bloemfontein, although it is not clear why they were referred to as the Twelve Disciples of Mandela. When they left Bloemfontein, they were destined to join MK in exile. The formation of MK was announced on 16 December 1961. At the same time, MK began a sabotage campaign against strategic installations throughout South Africa. In a leaflet issued on 16 December 1961, the MK high command made its political allegiance quite clear by stating: “Umkhonto we Sizwe will carry on the struggle for freedom and democracy by methods which are necessary to complement the actions of the established national liberation organisations. Umkhonto we Sizwe fully supports the national liberation movement and calls on members, jointly and individually, to place themselves under the overall political guidance of the movement”. During the initial stages of its formation, MK avoided openly mentioning the ANC for tactical reasons. MK sought to protect the leadership of the ANC from reprisals by the South African government, in particular those who had nothing to do with the decision to take the route of armed struggle.

It is clear from interviews conducted with the surviving members of this group that nobody knew exactly why they were called the Twelve Disciples, except that there was a plan conceived by Mandela, called the M-Plan, calling for the total restructuring of the ANC to enable it to operate underground should it get banned. However, although several authors such as Edward Feit, Karis and Carter, Nelson Mandela, and Bruno Mtolo and a number of court records provide information on the M-Plan, details are sketchy.

The group of young men from Bloemfontein were Billy ‘Marakas’ Mokhonoana (left the country earlier than the others and allegedly died in London); Selebano ‘Tlhaps’ Matlhape (left for Tanganyika and later studied in Yugoslavia and East Germany); Theodore ‘Max’ Motobi (left for Tanganyika and underwent military training in Cuba); Moses ‘Dups’ Modupe (left for Tanganyika and later studied Economics in Yugoslavia); Benjamin ‘Lee’ Leinaeng (left for Tanganyika and later studied journalism in East Germany); Joseph Shuping ‘Coaps’ Coapoge (left for Tanganyika and later attended Lincoln and Temple Universities in the US); Elias Pule Matjoa (worked in the Ministry of Communications in Tanzania and underwent military training in Cuba. He later studied dentistry there); Percy Mokonopi (received military training in Cuba and later served on the Helsinki World Peace Council); Mochubela ‘Wesi’ Seekoie (left for Tanganyika and underwent military training in Cuba. He later studied Chemistry in the USSR); Matthew Olehile ‘Beans’ Mokgele (left for Tanganyika and became a professional boxer in exile. Following an injury, he went to East Africa and joined the MK); Bethuel Setai (left for Tanganyika and later obtained a PhD in Economics from Colombia University. He taught at the University of California Santa Cruz, and Lincoln University in the USA) ; and Peter Swartz (was an active member of the ANC from the coloured community in Bloemfontein. He met with the group in Dar es Salaam, following his arrest on his way to Tanzania. He attended Kivukoni College and later went to the UK where he attended the London School of Economics. He went missing in London in 1965, never to be seen again).

In honour of many of these unsung heroes, the history of the Twelve Disciples needs to be told to reflect what one could refer to as a ‘bottom up’ kind of history. Without doubt, this kind of history will add value to the country’s historiography about the liberation struggle and demystify the one-sided narrative that the (Orange) Free State played little if no role at all in the struggle for liberation.



News Archive

Mineral named after UFS professor
2017-09-29

Description: Mineral tredoux Tags: International Mineralogical Association, tredouxite, Prof Marian Tredoux, Department of Geology, Barberton 

Tredouxite (white) intergrown with bottinoite (light grey),
a complex hydrous alteration product. The large host
minerals are nickel-rich silicate (grey), maybe willemseite,
and the spinel trevorite (dark grey).


More than five thousand minerals have been certified by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA). One of these minerals, tredouxite, was recently named after an academic at the University of the Free State (UFS). 

Tredouxite was named after Prof Marian Tredoux, an associate professor in the Department of Geology, to acknowledge her close to 30 years’ commitment to figuring out the geological history of the rock in which this mineral occurs. The name was chosen by the team which identified the new mineral, consisting of Dr Federica Zaccarini and Prof. Giorgio Garuti from the University of Leoben, Austria, Prof. Luca Bindi from the University of Florence, Italy, and Prof. Duncan Miller from the UFS. 

They found the mineral in the abovementioned rock from the Barberton region in Mpumalanga, in May 2017.

In the past, a mineral was also named after Marie Curie
With the exception of a few historical (pre-1800) names, a mineral is typically named either after the area where it was first found, or after its chemical composition or physical properties, or after a person. If named after a person, it has to be someone who had nothing to do with finding the mineral.

Prof Tredoux said: “As of 19 September 2017, 5292 minerals had been certified by IMA. Of these, 81 were named after women, either singly or with a near relation. Marie Curie is named twice: sklodowskite (herself) and curite (plus husband). Most of the named women are Russian geoscientists.”

Another way to assess the rarity of such a naming is to consider that fewer than 700 minerals have been named after people. Given that there are by now seven billion people on the planet, it means that a person who is granted a mineral name becomes one in 10 million of the people alive today to be honoured in such a way. To date, over a dozen minerals had been named after South Africans, three of them after women (including tredouxite).

It contains nickel, antimony and oxygen
The chemical composition of tredouxite is NiSb2O6 (nickel antimony oxide). This makes it the nickel equivalent of the magnesium mineral bystromite (MgSb2O6), described in the 1950s from the La Fortuna antimony mine in Mexico.  

“This announcement is of great academic importance: the discovery by the Italian team of a phase with that specific chemical composition will undoubtedly help me and my co-workers to better understand the origin of the rock itself,” she said. She also expressed the hope that it may raise interest in the Department of Geology and the UFS as a whole, by highlighting that world-class research is being done at the department. 

The announcement of this new mineral was published on the International Mineralogical Association Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification website, the Mineralogical Magazine and the European Journal of Mineralogy.

 

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