Comrade Golwelwang �Nazi� Matoteng I knew
Correspondent | Wednesday August 3, 2016 15:40
I broke down, rose and have risen above the dungeon that is the denial syndrome, for Comrade Nazi, is gone for good.
I cried briefly as I went through the pictures he shared of our international trips. The agony levied by this shocking news was insurmountable. The insurgency it portrayed with it was miserably immense. I visibly sobbed my tear-shy eyes from within the lonesome, spacious government office where I work.
The silence is funny and I giggle now and then to shame away the trauma. I was not only vexed, and did not only hate this, I at the same time was perplexed. The complexity of emotions was overwhelming.
This pain my friend, is unbearable. It defeats, especially when one is distant from the Creator of all things. I almost immediately revisited my deferred desire to reconcile with him. It pains more than it ordinarily would, death has caused a sudden subtraction from the fortress of progressive cadres.
Death has swindled the struggle a reliable soldier, a relentless and selfless cadre. Cde Matoteng was no friend of mine. He was merely a truthful comrade. He was one to look you in the eye and constructively differ with you.
What is even more excruciating is the reality of deficiency of enough quality cadres capable to fill the void punched by this situation. But what can we do? Hold our heads and cry, and fold our arms? The deafening silence in my office is cracked spontaneously by the sweet sound of the Eric Donaldson ringtone in my phone, almost ironing out the intransigent distraught feeling of anger. All the same, the situation quickly reversed each time I pick the phone to confess and confirm to inquisitive comrades from all corners. I cannot escape this.
Going through inboxes of Facebook between ourselves I confirm absence of a virulent diatribe. It picks up the pieces of a broken heart, which has always, until now been unable. In these are testimonies and memoirs of a defiant, courageous, reliable, brave, humble, decisive, intelligent, eloquent and sometimes stupid gentleman, most importantly with unwavering willingness to learn and generosity to share knowledge.
My disturbed emotions set alight with hope, that at least these are testimonies that during his living days, we have mingled and learnt from each other; an opportunity that evaded multitudes reading this message.
The fingers working on this message had numbed, each time I attempted to jot it down. The keyboard of my smartphone always felt cold.
This is the last opportunity to draft a ‘tell-it-as-it-is’ testimony despite intricacy of deciphering the correct diction to describe and ascribe the real Cde Nazi. He was a man of many faces and demeanor, a naturally clumsy character, one never to take the risk of claiming to know accurately.
Yet courage surprisingly quickly usurps this negative energy and replaces it with vigour and as I say, hope. I find rare strength and solace in that Linton Kwesi Johnson’s rhyme dubbed ‘The Unfinished Revolution’ which tells of how we shall “march on again... as freedom is not an ideology, freedom is a human necessity, it can’t depend on one somebody”. So this morning I woke up early, shook the dew from out of my head, washed the cobwebs from my face and used this liberty to jot down this memoir. I know time cannot steal but time can only heal and I don’t claim any sort of privilege qualifying me to this endeavour. I will put down a rhyme as well to his memory.
The year 2011 set our first physical encounter with my fallen comrade. A clear recollection of that fateful meeting engaged my mind vividly, when news of his passing reached me from Cde Oagile Maikano. My mind failed to duck the kind of feeling between confusion and shock that wears us all upon hearing this sort of news. So did my eyes struggle to reverse tears, like I recited above, when this heart piecing reality gradually crystalised.
I had only cut teeth with BLLAHWU Executive Committee leadership. BOPEU offices hosted us a protracted leadership forum at which he represented his branch. Fresh from a poll I had triumphed albeit marginally, to the dismay of many (including him), I met this comrade (Cde Motshegwa reminds me of an erstwhile occasion of a campaign meeting prior to this poll, but my mind recollect very little about it).
Unknown to him as quiet unknown to a few other attendants, I grasped Nazi was a rough, hard tackling debater when he wantonly interrupted during my tenure to speak. There had been a spree of irregular altercations as though to unsettle and render undue embarrassment on my person.
We had just emerged from the Mochudi 2010 elective congress. A sizeable number of comrades had not sufficiently healed from anxieties associated with the elections aftermaths, including as I say, my surprise triumph.
I had learnt about this mushrooming reactionary tendency but undermined its potential indictment to the courage I wield particularly in political debates. All the same it blurred our efforts to deliver a successful and productive meeting. In fact this is a chronic disease across all sectors.
A debate between a younger and or newer person and the older fold is always littered with unnecessary insecurities, big-brother mentalities, intimidation and sometimes open jealousy.
It is the reason some organizations cannot implement sustainable leadership development programmes because they thwart out youngsters with unnecessary aggressive onslaughts.
It also renders succession planning and retention strategies futile since practically the environment are hostile. The young who are feeble-hearted succumb to the virulence and turbulent nature of debate. The same applies to the fleeting illusion of gender mainstreaming. Fewer women are galvanised against the roughness of political debates.
Myriads are easily relegated to oblivion due to the tendency of trivialising issues and polluting the environment with tensions and diatribes. I held the floor, and becoming unusually irritated by the pettiness of side remarks, my attempt to engage comrades at the same level weighed heavily on me.
Comrade was seated quiet attentively as though to assess my presentation, test my character and make a verdict on ‘legitimacy’ of my election.
He punctuated my presentation; “Comrade we cannot take your emotions, we are not here to bask at your emotions!” With the voice we all know, rough and authoritative.
I had out of inexperience (not acquainted to the characters in attendance) undermined the possibility that certain things would be done deliberately to drain my confidence. I was regarded too young and my election was a visible source of frustration to comrades like Nazi. The then president (chairing the meeting) shared the same frustration but honestly, did spare me the embarrassment by summoning Cde Nazi to instant order.
He obliged and the meeting continued peacefully. At the break I resolved to engage Nazi.
He revealed himself as an otherwise reasonable, soft and content person, who harboured no intentions whatsoever to upset me. It is at this instance that I met Cde Nazi. I learnt from then that he would hardly hold a view and hide it for the purpose spewing it as propaganda at one’s back. Life with me in the Executive Committee was to continue as I was not a seed to be killed before growing. Cde Nazi, a senior agewise was in the branches. I quickly reckoned that for purposes of consolidating hegemony it was critical to keep close with him, to engage him on cross cutting issues. Interestingly we shared the same leftist interest and ideological postulations.
On initiating me to factional lobbying in the union, Cde Nazi had a trademark argument against the presidency of the past immediate president. He posited that all those whom he supported were introduced to protect his interest by cosying up to and defending his decisions. In fact there had been a leadership crisis at the Lobatse Branch which he attributed to the president’s failure to give leadership direction. He maintained that instead of playing a mediatory role he used his position to implement a divisive strategy that would in the long run collapse the branch.
This issue irked him, and was central to his disdain for Cde Baeng’s leadership style. It however did not cultivate any level of personal abhorrence or distaste towards him. He always ensured that whilst discussing it his audience was repeatedly informed that it had nothing to do with his personal relationship with Rre Baeng.
This was in spite of the allegation that all his attempts to raise such issues during meetings were met with resentment that he would rather be unceremoniously ejected out of the meeting. This was a source of apparent discontent with the then leadership which he said feared people of his courage and calibre; those with unwavering stamina to debate issues, ask questions and hold leadership accountable.
It is one of the Marxist indicators of strong or progressive organisations, ones with the courageous membership which is able to hold leadership to account for its actions. Cde Nazi leaves us, still holding passionately that Cde Baeng’s phobia for debate made him not a good leader. He held that he was dependent on antagonistic strategies and surrounded himself with people who were unable to give him proper advices. Without an objective reason to believe him made it also difficult to judge Cde Baeng based merely on his assertions.
I made use of my personal experiences, having attended meetings chaired by Comrade Baeng and also having interacted at Branch-CEC leadership levels.
The existence of comrades who assumed the status of ‘starrings’ in union gatherings who sought satisfaction from the idea of holding leadership at ransom also made me indifferent to his assertions.
Comrades would rise and raise issues not in the agenda, want to speak when not ushered in to do so, were rowdy and depended on using every opportunity to discredit, scandalise and even defame leadership. This reduced meetings to anarchic talk shows devoid of progress and direction. Cde Baeng presided over meetings with amazing protocol and authority to ensure business was dispensed. We agreed to differ! This defines the principle in his debate, always characterised by astounding maturity and consistent commitment to his position.
The 2011 workers uprising also provided Cde Nazi the opportunity to prove his meddle. He was amongst the battalion that was in the front of the battlefield.
He mobilised fearlessly and kept regular update about the progress made in Good Hope. He shared strategies of picketing ,which he was so much keen on developing countrywide consciousness about, as it was a progressive solution to the diminishing numbers particularly after the employer implemented the No Work No Pay thing. Picketing was an ignored concept in the course of our strike and fewer comrades including Nazi, Cde Mokwape were really passionate about.
He was amongst comrades who were familiarised with the inside of the dungeon for engaging activities believed to be notorious and without the precincts of strike rules.
He believed that for the strike to deliver productive results, numbers had to keep increasing and his obligation towards this gesture was amazing. Not only numbers of the working class itself. It was his opinion that ultimately the community should buy into the plight of the working class and this should have culminated in a multifaceted nationwide strike with different levels of aggression.
For him the idea to sing struggle songs underside trees was inefficient and unproductive. My mind recalls a conversation we had about elevating social disobedience to cause and discern a level of social disorder that would not only shake the employer, but inflict damage on the government.
When the state heightened its enmity and wore its despotic face, when the recalcitrant President announced that not even a five-year strike would cause him to budge to our demands, Cde Nazi was disheartened. He felt this was a sign of dictatorship. What even made matters worse was the attitude of the ‘lock-out presidential policy’ which ensured audience was not to be given to workers or their representatives.
Rather televised messages would be communicated to the effect I described above at Kgotla meetings and at any given opportunity. This, including that preposterous setting comprising the Lobatse lady who cried to the amusement of the presidential delegation, was the basis for his believe that government had assumed irreconcilable positional bargaining tactics. It necessitated, in all honestly, a change of tactic and Comrade Matoteng was at the helm of the revolutionary regime change initiative meant to amongst other things, elevate the level of activism from merely seeking a 16 % increment. In his view we presided over a tactless war with a former army general who seemed to amass gratification from employing draconian principles. It was now a governance issue. We formed the opinion that government had usurped the roles of the Bargaining Council.
Cde Nazi posited that the executive had no business tempering with legislative roles of Parliament. Thus, the Bargaining Council as a formation of Parliament had to remain as independent as granted such independence by Parliament.
Executive interference with its roles was tantamount to poking its nose in the policy formulation process and being contemptuously disrespectful to the adage of separation of powers. In propagating this information he was defiant to the illusion peddled by the employer that we were indulging in partisan antics against the General Orders and Public Service Act.
Not everyone, owing to the diversity of political and cultural tendencies within the striking fold, likes talking about this issue. Some believed we had alienated them. Some felt used for political aggrandisement. Some were only freaked by threats from the employer and a large majority did not properly comprehend dynamics of the issue. He was unfazed until a decision was made to challenge this harassment by seeking an order to obviate government from holding this position and so did Justice Ian Kirby.
Cde Nazi would have his tenure of office in the Central Executive Committee of the Union in December 2013 as my successor in the International Desk. He assumed these reigns as an unopposed candidate who artfully authored a fraudulent elections writ. He single handedly managed to convince the congress to defer implementation of the constitutional amendments.
He later chatted to me about it, that he had always wanted to be Secretary for International Relations and his contention to avert immediate implementation was based solely on that interest. This reveals the schemer that was Cde Nazi.
His works speak volumes about a man with towering altruism and devotion. I do not recall Cde Nazi’s absence from a trade union event attributed to personal stuff. In fact he would go to the extent of foregoing work commitment no matter how much exigent they were.
Even during his last ailing days, he was ever ready for combat and always presented himself to be counted. He carried out functions of his position with aplomb and willingness to assist other portfolios particularly the Union’s arts and sports programme.
The challenges that come with being in leadership of trade unions are insurmountable and taxing, sometimes life threatening. It takes a courageous man to resist all pressures mounted against this undertaking. They range from being licentiously abhorred and petty people picking up issues with one. Cde narrated how he was disparaged by one Alec Seametso for using the word “comrade” whilst speaking to other comrades. The gentleman was allegedly terrified and promised that he would do all in his power to ensure Cde Nazi loses his job. But Cde Nazi took him for an imposter who wanted everyone to believe he was powerful, in fact one with feet just too big for his shoes.
He called me to say “Cde, this other overrated semi-literate chap mistakes me for a play ball.” This was after he apparently told off the named individual, a politician known for uttering insulting sentiments against Kgosi Tawana, and he (Cde Nazi) nearly compromised his job.
He was furious when he reported this matter to the Central Committee for intervention, but assured us that he was not petrified nor will he offer the apology sought by the said individual who had apparently threatened to take up the matter with the office of the President. Cde Nazi was brave and unwavering in his beliefs particularly where he felt the position he took was correct. He would not budge to vicious threats.
The life of this man is worth celebrating. In this peace I omitted, Nazi the family man, the farmer and joke cracker. I hope his family, friends, comrades, his children, partner and fans of Comrade Nazi understand him better.
We shared a life
A life as broad as the wideness of waving oceans
And as silent as its dark nights
Yet turbulent, rough sometimes
We shared a life
A life with everyday strives
Lived until the next day arrived
And his time ultimately arrived
He took his time on the earth
He never got what he just deserved
Kissed the skies so soon
Nazi smiling in the sun
Nazi sits in the palace of peace
KEAOLEBOGA ‘CDE RAS MANXO’ DIPOGISO