My Father Died for This. Lukhanyo Calata
weighs heavy on my soul, and I can’t begin to know what this truth over three decades does to the people who loved Fort and then lost him in such a brutal way.
At four years old, Kwezi is at an age when he’s starting to grapple with the concept of death. He and Lukhanyo went to the grave on a recent visit to Cradock. He asked Lukhanyo, ‘Do you know what killed Fort?’ And proceeded to answer this question with, ‘The apartheid killed Fort.’ Lukhanyo and I were both surprised by this answer, and both of us assumed the other had given him an answer similar to this when Kwezi asked that question. But he’d come up with it himself. Neither of us had ever heard that question from him before, nor provided an answer resembling anything like that.
Kwezi also wanted to know from me whether Fort was with God in heaven. I told him yes, he was. He wanted to know whether heaven was a place where one ‘saw God for real’. I told him, yes, that is what you can expect, and this seemed to really please him.
By all accounts, Fort Daniel Nqaba Calata was a remarkable person. As a child he was introverted, but not unfriendly, and a bit of a clown. His late sister Peggy described him as, ‘talkative. He liked to joke around. He was nice to us, but he also liked to spend time by himself.’
Fort, his two sisters, Sisana and Peggy, as well as his brothers, Patutu (Patrick) and Roy, grew up with their cousins Mandisa, Gangumzi, Bangilizwe (Bangi), Nonthuthuzelo (Ntutu), and Nomzi. Their grandparents, James and Miltha Calata, raised all of them as their own children, while their mothers, Nontsikelelo, Vuyelwa, and Noluthando, were working outside of Cradock.
His cousin Bangi Solo remembered him as a ‘somewhat sickly baby’ who comforted the family after they lost baby Joy, Peggy’s twin sister. For Peggy, Fort filled the void left by the passing on of her twin: ‘Fort was very important in my life because he was my imfusi [the child born after twins]. In Xhosa culture, if one of the twins dies, the child who’s born after that must take the place of the late twin. That is how close I felt to him. You must also bear in mind how close we were in age. I was born in July 1955. Fort was born in 1956. We were, however, very different. I am an extrovert, while he was an introvert,’ she said.
LUKHANYO
The little boy who would one day become my father was born on the morning of 5 November 1956 to Nontsikelelo Gertrude Calata and Macdonald Maphike. He was their third child, born just over one year after twins, Peggy and Joy. Joy died while only a few months old. Nontsikelelo – or Sis’ Ntsiki as she was known – and Macdonald were not married, but lived together in Sophiatown, a vibrant black suburb just outside Johannesburg’s city centre. Both the little boy’s parents were musicians. Sis’ Ntsiki was a classically trained pianist, while my grandfather, Mac, was a gifted tenor saxophonist. Both, I am told, also sang quite well and played for several bands and groups in the area at the time. But under apartheid (and I guess even today), very few black couples could raise a family on musicians’ wages. So, my grandmother kept her day job as a primary school teacher, which provided the family with a steady income.
A few weeks after his birth, Sis’ Ntsiki took her newborn along when she visited her father, Canon James Arthur Calata, in detention. He had been arrested and was held at the Old Fort Prison on charges of high treason alongside 155 other anti-apartheid leaders. Among them were the likes of Yusuf Dadoo, Ruth First, Archibald Gumede, iNkosi Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, Professor ZK Matthews, Vuyisile Mini, Lilian Ngoyi, Reginald September, Walter Sisulu, Joe Slovo, and Oliver Tambo.
It was during this visit when her father, or Tatou, as he was known by the family and the community of Cradock, named his new grandson Fort – adding that, like a fort, the young boy would become the strength of the family.
During this visit, Tatou also expressed his unhappiness regarding the family’s situation in Sophiatown. Just a year before, Sophiatown had been declared a white area under the Group Areas Act. By November 1956, when my father was born, the government had started its forced removals programme. Its bulldozers had moved into the suburb and had already begun demolishing families’ lives, dreams, and aspirations alongside their homes, schools, clinics, and other community structures and amenities.
This was not the life Tatou had wanted for his daughter and, more particularly, his latest grandson. I suspect the fact that Sis’ Ntsiki wasn’t married to Macdonald also weighed heavily on him; he was after all an Anglican priest. So, just days after their visit, he arranged for a group of Anglican clergymen to transport his daughter and her newborn son to the relative safety and peace of their home in Cradock. Here, Sis’ Ntsiki was eagerly awaited by her mother, Miltha Mary Calata, or Mamou as she was affectionately called. It’s unclear how many times the young Fort would see his father again, if at all, after this hastily arranged relocation to Cradock.
Tatou remained in prison for at least another year as the apartheid state prepared to prosecute him and his fellow detainees on charges of high treason. He was eventually released alongside OR Tambo, iNkosi Luthuli, and about 70 others in December 1957, due to a lack of evidence against them. Shortly after this release, OR Tambo went into exile. My great-grandfather returned home to his family, church, and community in Cradock. Fort’s cousins and siblings, my aunts and uncles, had over the years told me how energised Tatou was by having a baby in the house. By the late Fifties, Tatou was serving as senior chaplain on the ANC’s National Executive Committee. Walter Sisulu had succeeded him as secretary-general of the movement at the Bloemfontein National Conference in December 1949.
Despite his on-going health issues, family and community members in Cradock recalled that all Tatou ever seemed to do was work. Almost everybody we spoke to talked about the formidable organiser he was. One of these people was Mbulelo Goniwe, a childhood friend of my father’s and Matthew Goniwe’s nephew. I asked him what his impressions were of Tatou as he and Fort were growing up in Cradock’s old location. After a long pause, he said to me, ‘Tatou was the true embodiment of humanity. He was someone who loved children, who, despite being this well-respected person, often spent time talking to the youth, particularly about our education.’
Mbulelo recalled that at some stage Tatou owned a blue Ford Anglia, and that he and Fort had on more than one occasion had the privilege to accompany Tatou when he visited schools on several farms around Cradock. He said, ‘Tatou did not distinguish between his ministry and political work. Tatou also had a deep faith in future generations.’ Bhut’ Mbu, as I call him, then cited an example of the kind of attention Tatou would give to youngsters in Cradock: ‘Tatou would often stop to speak to us youngsters, and in the course of that conversation he would ask one of us whether we had eaten. I found him to be someone who had a genuine love for humanity and righteousness.’
This description of Tatou is corroborated by author Stanley Manong. In his book, If We Must Die, Manong writes of Tatou, ‘He was revered by everybody and became a people’s priest in the literal sense.’2
To the Anglican Church, however, Tatou’s duality – as a priest and politician – was a major concern. Bishop Archibald Cullen, based in Grahamstown, wrote to him on several occasions in a bid to have him scale down his political activities. Tatou, it’s said, would politely disagree and decline each time. Despite his busy schedule, Tatou took a keen interest in the upbringing of the young Fort. Mamou was very encouraging of this, as it meant her husband was spending more time at home than usual.
According to Fort’s cousin Bangi, they (the children) had to get used to seeing Tatou at home more often. Although Tatou was still working as hard as ever, he began to take meetings, mostly political, at home. Bangi added, ‘This meant a change in routine for everybody, especially us, the children. With Tatou at home, Mamou was stricter than usual. She demanded silence above all, so we didn’t disturb Tatou while he worked.’
ABIGAIL
Fort was perhaps the first of what I’ve come to term the Calata sons of favour, a status he shared with his son, Lukhanyo, and grandson, Kwezi. I became aware of this phenomenon after Kwezi’s birth in 2012. Our research revealed that from very early on Fort established himself as Tatou’s favourite – a fact confirmed by both Peggy and Bangi.
‘Fort was Tatou’s favourite because of that calmness. Parents will always have their favourite,’ explained Peggy.