Remembering the leadership values of Smiso Nkwanyana

The decision by Unisa to rename its KwaZulu-Natal regional office after Comrade Smiso Nkwanyana was a result of years of lobbying by past and current student leaders to recognise the role played by Nkwanyana in shaping the history of this institution.

Unisa paid homage to the late Simiso Nkwanyana, a student leader at the university who went on to leave a lasting legacy in both provincial and national politics, by naming the building housing the university’s Durban Regional Hub after him.

The history of Unisa, like that of many other institutions of higher learning in the country, is shaped by the struggles of student leaders who understand that higher education is not only a place where young people go to learn and acquire their certificates to enhance their life’s prospects, especially where jobs and class standing is concerned. Institutions of higher learning are sites of class struggle and it is at these sites where future leaders are born and shaped for the benefit of society, including political parties.

When Smiso Nkwanyana met his tragic death exactly 20 years ago, his political star had been on the rise. I am not even sure whether he would be comfortable with me describing his influence in the politics of KwaZulu-Natal and nationally in these terms. Nkwanyana was not one excitable by positions and one only had to be around him to understand the kind of leader that he was, and his deep commitment to working class struggles.

When he met his tragic demise on that fateful day he had been in a night-long meeting with some of his comrades in the province, and although not having had any rest decided to proceed to another political engagement to prepare for a South African Municipal Workers Union provincial congress.

When he met his untimely death at the young age of just 31 years, Comrade Smiso Nkwanyana was already a source for wise counsel within the alliance structures in the province in particular. He was accessible, frank, bore no grudges and always ready with his signature laughter even during the most difficult of times. Those of us who had the privilege of working with him in advancing students’ struggles know the kind of a revolutionary disciplinarian he was. He was full of jokes but tough and unrelenting when it was time to do business and his unrelenting dedication to an issue was always a great source of frustration for the university management and council during negotiations.    

He did not only show incisive mind coupled with deep understanding of revolutionary theory when he was in the South African Communist Party (SACP) – his natural political home. Within the African National Congress he led and influenced policy debates and discussions on a range of issues and some of the positions he advocated for found expression in government policies and programmes. Who can forget the massive campaign that he advocated for the banking sector to review their lending positions in relation to township property owners which turned out to be a massive campaign carried forward by the SACP?

The past 20 years have seen a lot of political changes take place in our country coupled with the emergence of ‘cash-politics’ to ascend into higher office and the troubling failures of municipalities to deliver basic services to the poor in particular. With his political star having been on the rise at the time of his death one is left wondering how these would have affected him as a leader deeply and genuinely committed to the struggles of the poor and the working class.

We have a situation now where municipalities have been transformed into feeding troughs for local political gangsters who masquerade as activists and leaders. Municipalities are being bled dry as these gangs extract every rand of possible to enrich themselves and go back to those communities they fleeced to show off their overnight wealth.

But we also have a worrying crisis of worker formations – unions – that in many instances choose to look the other way while all of this thieving takes place, resulting in situations where municipal employees do not get their salaries timeously or not at all, plunging them into a life of poverty.  

As we mark the 20^th anniversary of Comrade Smiso’s death, it is my wish on behalf of the entire students’ leadership collective that served with him at Unisa in particular that we see the emergence of a selfless leadership that he displayed. What I am referring to here is the kind of leadership that truly cares about the poor and those continue to experience violence and discrimination purely on the basis of gender and class.

We saw recently how the people of the Cape Flats had to walk long distances late at night because of turmoil and lack of alternative mass transportation system in the Cape metropolitan area owing to the minibus taxi strike. We still see women and girls raped and murdered daily, taking away their rights and denying them of opportunities to meaningfully participate in the country’s economy because of limitations on their movements. We still have people in Slovo Park in the south of Soweto who live under sub-human conditions stripping them of their rights including sanitation.

These are the struggles Comrade Smiso would have been relentlessly pursuing even today had he not met his death on that fateful day in August 20 years ago. I am confident that had he been alive today he was not going to accept any public elected office which often comes with good leaders sometimes turning their back on revolutionary principle and morality as they settle into a life of comfort. Smiso was a strategist of note, an excellent theorist and a tough Marxist who never shied away from a difficult debate.

The writer is a former Unisa student activist, and served with Nkwanyana in the formation of the first-ever National Student Representative Council in the history of the institution. He writes in his personal capacity.