The Sunday News
THE former Zanu-PF provincial chairman for Bulawayo, Cde Macleod Tshawe was in the 1970s a man about town in the City of Kings and Queens, a fashion trendsetter who set alight many gigs in places like Mpopoma, Tshabalala and Barbourfields until one day in 1976, a need to assist the freedom fighters set him on a collision course with the Rhodesian security forces.
After the Rhodesian security forces found out that the fashion savvy Cde Tshawe who was later on to operate under the name of Cde Jabulani Cele had provided clothes to three Zipra guerillas, he was forced to leave the country in a huff for Botswana en route to Zambia disguised as a Rhodesia Railways cook.
Sunday News Assistant Editor Mkhululi Sibanda (MS) traced Cde Tshawe, an active cultural activist among the Xhosa community in Zimbabwe, which is mainly found in the neighbouring districts of Umguza and Bubi in Matabeleland North.
In fact, Cde Tshawe functions as an overseer for the Xhosa community and locally is the senior functionary for King Zwelonke, the Xhosa King from the Eastern Cape in South Africa.
In our interview today, Cde Tshawe speaks about how he fought racism at his workplace, leaving the country for Botswana and later on first working as a driver for Zapu senior officials in Lusaka, Zambia particularly for the late national hero, Cde Dumiso Dabengwa, who was the director of intelligence.
Later on he was sent to undergo training in intelligence in Zambia and the then Soviet Union. Below are excerpts of the interview:
MS: Many people know you as a politician, businessman and former freedom fighter, but who is Macleod Tshawe, where were you born?
Cde Tshawe: I was born on 31 December 1947 at Hauke, koNkosikazi in Bubi District, Matabeleland North. I went to Hauke Primary School.
I come from a family of eight, two us are still alive, myself of course and a sister who is the seventh in our family.
My brother, who came after me, Madoda and was also in the armed struggle is no more.
I am a Xhosa the Nolonxoba lineage, this Nolonxoba is our ancestor who was a brave warrior for King Hitsa.
Turning to my schooling, after completing my primary education, I was supposed to go to Inyathi Mission for my secondary education.
However, lapho-ke ngafika ngalunguza because I had financial problems, so I could not continue with my education there. It then happened that my uncle, ubaba omncane, Thompson Tshawe invited me to South Africa.
So I went there and lived in Diepkloof 2 in Johannesburg where I enrolled at a local school, Union College of South Africa.
It was there that I went up to Matric level.
While there I got really involved in political activities with some ANC cadres.
My political activities became so serious to the extent that it worried my uncle, Thompson who then told people back home about my behaviour and at that time my father had passed on.
Well, I came back home and that was in 1962. I stayed at home before getting a job at my uncle, Lameck Nyathi’s grocery shop, Gadari Shop located in Makokoba’s 2nd Street where I was in charge. Although it was a small enterprise, there was huge business there.
Not satisfied with what I was getting from the grocery shop I left and got a job at the Edgars Group’s clerical department where I worked with people like Joshua Masilela, a former Senator in Independent Zimbabwe who is now late.
We worked together with some whites like Edward who was very fluent in SiNdebele, Neville Knight, Gerald Fisher and Schutz. At personal level, at first they liked me because I could speak good English.
MS: I suppose that was a good job for a black person then?
Cde Tshawe: It was. Later on they decided to take me to the branches of Sales House, which was a subsidiary of the Edgars Group where I became a trainee manager for some time and that was in 1967-1968.
That is where I started experiencing racism.
MS: How?
Cde Tshawe: It was in 1972 that I fought with this girl named Mrs Van Tonder because of the things she said to me.
I had just come from Gwanda where Edgars had a branch there.
When I got to Bulawayo I was told that about 16 shirts were missing and there were insinuations from Van Tonder that I was the one who had taken them, stolen them, so to speak.
She tried to zero on me and the now former Highlanders player and administrator, Edward Dzowa, that one of us was responsible for stealing those shirts.
Honestly I had not stolen them and neither had Dzowa. What had happened was those shirts had not been released from the headquarters at the then Wilson Street kuboJoshua Masilela, although they had been invoiced as collected.
It was just a mistake by the workers from the headquarters.
MS: So you were angered by those allegations, which you viewed as racist loaded?
Cde Tshawe: I was. What made the situation worse was that I was made to count the shirts for two consecutive days by that girl, Van Tonder. I then burst out and told her that there was no point in counting because I did not see the point of doing it.
The girl was in charge of that branch. Despite my protest she started saying irritating things and I slapped her.
In those days it was an anathema to beat up a white person and I was immediately summoned to the headquarters for that.
I was fired on the spot. Little did I know that the girl had an affair with a senior manager, Neville Knight and that worked heavily against me.
I was then called by Ted Shultz who was the director.
He asked me what happened and I told him, he then said that they should not have fired me for that, but pointed out that I was also wrong for beating Van Tonder.
I explained that I had lost my temper. He promised to talk to Neville so that I get my job back.
However, it did not take even a week before Shultz employed me at Erick Davis, which was an exclusively white store.
I was the first black person in his counter to hold a pencil and wear a suit, little did I know that I was to come across racism.
MS: Take us through your experience there.
Cde Tshawe: I was working with a white man who was called Ginger Kuhn who could speak English, Xhosa and Ndebele properly so he really liked me.
I ended up managing that place when Kuhn would go and play golf and finally ended up as the buyer of that place.
As a buyer then came Michael Davis the son to Erick Davis I worked for.
From nowhere he called me to the store’s Fife Street Branch, which was opposite to Haddon and Sly. He ordered me to get a cloth and clean the windows.
I asked him what he meant by all that calling me from that far to clean windows because there were other people around, but he insisted that I should do that and an altercation erupted.
There was sister Barbara who understood me so well and asked me to keep quiet. Dominic then started walking towards with the intention to beat me up.
Waye seyilahlile because those days I used to lift weights in in Mzilikazi and I then told him that if he moved a step forward I was going to drop him down.
He was lucky because I would have killed him, if it was not for his father who timely entered the building and intervened. At that time
I was already crying due to anger and he called me to his office.
I could not understood how the company could reduce me to a messenger and that really angered me. We did not even finish a year at Erick Davis.
Ginger Kuhn and I left and we opened a men’s clothing called Terrence Kuhn which was located along the now Jason Moyo street. I was managing the place and teachers and railway employees used to get their clothes from that shop.
That is the place that defined my political life.
MS: How, what happened?
Cde Tshawe: It so happened that one day three men came to the shop and identified themselves as guerillas.
They said to me that they were on mission to carry out operations in urban warfare so they wanted clothes, jeans to be specific.
During that time it was the beginning of 1976.
I gave them what they wanted, jean trousers and shirts and they went away. Little did I know that they were being followed by the
Special Branch. Soon the Special Branch was on my case.
– To be continued next week with Cde Tshawe on how he outwitted the Special Branch and crossed into Botswana
