African National Congress - Letters to my Comrades: Interventions & Excursions

C abrals proverb was, and still continues to be, the inspiration behind this compilation of Z Pallo Jordans intellectual and literary thoughts spanning 40 years.

Thank you, mhlekazi Jordan, most graciously for having allowed Professor Willie Keorapetse Kgositsile (your eternal friend) and me to enjoy the rare honour of assembling your creative expressions into this single volume.

Colin Bundy should be commended for invaluable contributions as consulting editor. We also wish to bow our heads to comrades Barbara Masekela, Gil Marcus and former president Kgalema Motlanthe for their passionate tributes to their compatriot during these difficult episodes of our democracy amid the vexing question: Quo vadis ?

Grateful thanks are also due to the National Arts Council for supporting the initial stages of compilation; and also the to the Mutloatse Arts Heritage support team, especially Nthabiseng Mhlongo, not forgetting the library staff at Times Media.

The publishers also wish to acknowledge and thank all the publishers of the numerous journals, newspapers and magazines in which the writings of Z Pallo Jordan appeared.

Re a leboga go menagane, compatriots Mothobi Mutloatse, publisher, Mutloatse Arts Heritage Trust: www.mutloatse.com

Z weledinga Pallo Jordan was born in May 1942, the second of four children two girls, one of whom was adopted, and two boys. Some of the most captivating pages in the autobiography by his mother, Phyllis Ntantala, are those recalling the familys life in Cape Town in the 1940s and 1950s. The family moved to Cape Town in 1946 when his father, A.C. Jordan, was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Cape Town (UCT). In November of that year A.C. (known to his familiars as Joe) bought a plot of land in Fleur Road, Lincoln Estate, in the suburb of Crawford, and built the family home there.

The Jordans were the only African family in Lincoln Estate, a racially mixed, predominantly Coloured working-class area. The children attended local schools where they all did well, Phyllis noted matter-of-factly: Pallo proceeded from an Anglican primary to complete his Senior Certificate at Athlone High School . His parents had previously avoided Athlone High School as they disapproved of its principal as a collaborator: he belonged to a conservative teachers association, formed when Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) teachers seized control of the older Teachers League of South Africa. Both Phyllis and Joe had cut their political teeth in the teachers movement in the Orange Free State and later the Cape African Teachers Association; his closeness to I.B. Tabata (his best friend according to Phyllis) made their commitment to the TLSA a given. Phyllis was a member of half-a-dozen left-wing groups, all affiliated to Tabatas NEUM.

Politically active she was through these years, but for the first time while her children were growing up, Phyllis did not go to work but stayed at home, until she returned to her studies in 1957 to take the Diploma in Native Administration (taught by Jack Simons) at UCT. And so Pallo entered his teens during years when her children on return from school were always with me, in the kitchen, in the living-room, in their bedroom, out in the yard, doing things together. They learned to paint, and to cook: as they grew up, the Jordan children were exposed to a world of books, music and progressive ideas [they] lived in a world of ideas, in an intellectual atmosphere. They went to classical music concerts, shows and plays, ballet and the open-air productions at Maynardville; at home, fortnightly family evening recitals and Sunday music evenings were regular events.