In memoriam: Cecyl Esau

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Cecyl Esau (1955—2021)[1]

Foto van Cecyl Esau verskaf en afkomstig vanaf: https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecyl-esau

Dit is met groot hartseer dat ek vandag hulde bring aan my vriend, Cecyl Esau. Aan die familie: baie dankie dat julle my uitgenooi het om vandag oor Cecyl te praat. Ek het hom meer as 50 jaar geken, vanaf ons jare by Esselenpark Hoër in Worcester. My laaste skakeling met hom was ’n week of wat voor sy dood.

He was the type of person who easily made friends, an attribute that many people across the country can attest to. Also, he was a great conversationalist with a wide range of interests.

I remember, as pupils, we often met in the Parkersdam library or at our homes discussing a variety of issues — not necessarily always the grand politics of the anti-apartheid struggle or local issues of governance. He was an avid reader who shared his knowledge and experiences generously. In later years, he grew into a man of culture who debated fiercely and persuaded people with his arguments. As pupils and later as university students, several of us even put our reading and literary skills to good use, compiling and printing a literary magazine and even political pamphlets that we distributed among our friends in Worcester.

Cecyl became renowned for quoting line and verse from all sorts of texts. I remember him quoting from novelist Émile Zola’s Germinal on the slave-like conditions of French coal miners in the late nineteenth century, and how they fought for fundamental social change. The famous last lines contain this promise of revolution:

An overflow of sap was mixed with whispering voices, the sounds of germs expanding in a great kiss. Again and again, more and more distinctly, as though they were approaching the soil, the mates were hammering. In the fiery rays of the sun on this youthful morning the country seemed full of that sound. Men were springing forth, a black avenging army, germinating slowly in the furrows, growing towards the harvests of the next century, and their germination would soon overturn the earth.

The comparison with the South Africa of the 1980s, the germination of revolt, is not hard to see. In this regard, I have learned much from Cecyl over the years.

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We grew up in a community where the political currents of the time were always simmering under the surface. It made for fierce debates in which lines of division were clearly drawn.

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We grew up in a community where the political currents of the time were always simmering under the surface. It made for fierce debates in which lines of division were clearly drawn. As high school pupils, we were aware of this, but whether we truly understood the dynamics of the various political tendencies is a different matter altogether. We were too young to have independent informed opinions. We often mouthed the views of our parents, our neighbours or our friends. Cecyl’s advantage was his enquiring mind, his constant need to know, his need to understand. In difficult conversations, his approach often took off the edge.

His enquiring mind led him to explore alternative traditions, whether it was setting up a meeting with a formerly banned person, like Hennie Ferrus, or exploring the tenets of Black Consciousness. I remember the times that he came around to our house to listen on our shortwave radio to the broadcasts of the BBC or the Voice of America. He later enticed us to listen late at night to the ANC’s crackling and fading Radio Freedom. We even rigged up a more powerful antenna to improve our poor reception, but to little avail. During one of those listening sessions, my mother enquired about all this cloak-and-dagger business, and scolded us for our unruly afros. Later, Cecyl got his own shortwave radio, which made his listening habits more controllable, with the additional advantage of not having to explain his hair politics.

Uit Die Burger van 2 Mei, 1980 (gepubliseer met die toestemming van Die Burger)

As law students at the University of the Western Cape, we had to study Latin and Roman law. Cecyl took great pride in acquiring those skills. It was not uncommon to hear us using those Latin phrases in everyday conversations. There were the common ones, such as ipso facto, quid pro quo or the difference between de jure and de facto. Even the more uncommon ones we used, like mutatis mutandis, animus testandi, corpus delicti. We learned our conjugations and declensions by heart. Neither Cecyl nor I continued our legal studies, but no learning is ever in vain, as he proved on Robben Island. He used his knowledge of Latin to rat out an alleged informer who said he was a law student but could not conjugate the first word in the Latin Primer, namely the word for “love”, which is amare, followed by the conjugations amo, amas, amat, amamus, etc.

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Cecyl was a loyal friend, someone who cared deeply and who would go the extra mile for a friend — in my case, quite literally. The Latin phrase acta non verba — actions, not words — comes to mind.

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Cecyl was a loyal friend, someone who cared deeply and who would go the extra mile for a friend — in my case, quite literally. The Latin phrase acta non verba — actions, not words — comes to mind. Many people know the story of his first detention and how he got detained, but let me repeat it in his honour and with great gratitude. On 12 August 1976, I was left unconscious, bloodied and badly injured after the police stormed the UWC men’s hostel, and I was eventually taken to Tygerberg Hospital. It was rumoured on campus that the police were arresting the injured at the hospital, and this prompted Cecyl to launch a rescue mission to get me out of the police’s clutches.

He and our fellow Worcesterian, Danny Titus, walked more than an hour from the UWC campus to come and fetch me, and eventually more than an hour back, for I was injured, only half patched up, and I was limping. I could not see without my glasses. As we were about to cross Modderdam Road (nowadays Robert Sobukwe Road) to the campus, a man jumped out of a combi, calling out to Cecyl, “Daar’s een van hulle! Hei, jy mannetjie, kom hier!” or words to that effect. And there we stood, not knowing what to do. Cecyl was only released from preventative detention by the middle of January 1977, more than four and a half months later. I will never forget his and Danny’s personal commitment to care. They did not have to do that.

The Cape Times, 23 May 1987, p 5 (published with the kind permission of The Cape Times)

Many people today will speak about his political activism, his struggle credentials, so I don’t need to elaborate on that, except to say that Cecyl firmly believed in a nonracial ethic – a truly nonracial ethic, rather than the current narrow, alienating perspectives that seem to be ruling today. He cared deeply for social justice for all. He committed his life to the struggle so that all of us could truly be free.

But let me end with one last characteristic. I want to touch on his modesty, his humility, his aversion to extravagance. A couple of days after the hectic time of his release from Robben Island, he spent some time with my wife and me. He didn’t have any money, or very little money, and he asked whether I could buy him a watch. We initially went to a jewellery store, but after seeing the prices he insisted on going to Clicks, where he ended up choosing the cheapest Casio watch.

In the same vein, in one of my recent newspaper columns, I dealt with the alleged corruption of a former president and a former MK veteran’s pledge to defend this president. I ended the column with the following lines: “To sacrifice one life to defend the boss of Nkandla would be a waste of a valuable life.” Cecyl’s aversion to ostentation, corruption and aggrandizement prompted him to respond cryptically, “Dankie, ek hou veral van die slotsin” (“Thank you, I especially like your concluding sentence”).

To the family, to his children and his siblings, June, Abe and Jacob, your loss is our loss. Let me say, without any reservation, there are few such as Cecyl, and you should be proud of him — unendingly proud of him.

Farewell, my friend. Hamba kahle, Mkhonto.

Cecyl Esau, Victor Verster-aangehoudene 502/80, se brief aan Hein Willemse (brief en byskrif verskaf)

[1] A tribute delivered at the provincial official memorial service in the Worcester Town Hall on 27 March 2021. As a student leader, Cecyl Esau served several spells of preventative detention in the 1980s. As a combatant of the African National Congress’s armed wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe, he was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for terrorism in August 1987. He, along with his comrades, was released during the period of transition to democracy in February 1991.

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Kommentaar

  • Winston Middleton

    Well stated. He was a persons' person. He engaged easily with students across the political spectrum when he managed 2 SRC elections at UWC. When most of us were released from VV in 1980, he and E Patel remained behind. Cecyl said "Go, we will join you soon". Its a pity that he couldn't complete his doctoral studies in oral history. Gone too soon.

  • Reageer

    Jou e-posadres sal nie gepubliseer word nie. Kommentaar is onderhewig aan moderering.


     

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