On Life, Comradeship and More
New space, new experiences
There comes a time, a moment, an opportunity brought by life itself, to pause. To take a deep breath. To look back and reflect.
No one can ever tell you when this time will be, but when it comes, you will know it is the time.
See, a life in exile is nothing but a subset of a struggle-filled life. As such, whether one is forced into jail as a political prisoner or forced out into exile, one is simply entering into a different terrain of struggle, each with its respective rules of engagement necessitating special survival abilities—over and above learning revolutionary strategy and tactics.
Having spent some 15 years in exile, with political parties and activities still banned in Swaziland since 12 April 1973, I know very well that personal strength is important. However, no matter the level of one’s personal strength, in exile you will always need other people to make exile life both bearable and worthwhile, notwithstanding the conditions
From May 2010, when I was forced out of Swaziland for demanding democracy, I was fortunate to have found some of my Swazi comrades in South Africa, who themselves had been forced into exile many years earlier. They made my landing softer than it would have been, had they not been there, while at the same time providing practical assistance for me to keep walking.
In the early days of my exile, I was a bit protective—and some might argue ‘overprotective’—of everything about me and was more comfortable with Swazi comrades. I was not sure about spending time with South African comrades, keeping them as close comrades. I ensured to keep them at arm’s length
Opening up to more love abroad
While our intentions and wishes may be valid, we, however, do not have the power to select the circumstances under which we struggle. Life throws us into previously uncharted waters.
From 2011, when I began to work more closely with members of the South African Communist Party (SACP) at its headquarters in Johannesburg, I slowly began to open up to one SACP comrade at a time, even spilling a few of my own ideas to them on the work of the SACP, especially when it came to propaganda work.
As a volunteer in the communications team of the SACP, thrown into the deep end before I could even understand even half of the theoretical grounding of Marxism-Leninism, I made sure to open my ears and mind wider every time any of the senior leaders spoke.
Solly Mapaila, then the Party’s national organising secretary (and thereafter its first deputy general secretary) and chairperson of the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN)—one of the political organisations enlisted as ‘terrorist’ in Swaziland’s Terrorism Act—led what was popularly known as a ‘co-op’ at the SACP headquarters. Regarding the co-op, in a nutshell, comrades would contribute their monies every day to ensure that everyone gets to enjoy lunch. Without this, surely life would not have been as bearable as it came to be, because oftentimes I could not afford the contributions. Communism as a reality, not fantasy.
Through providing me with tasks almost on a daily basis, Solly, together with Lucky Lukhele—the SSN’s livewire spokesperson and Pudemo member—helped hone my writing skills to levels I had not envisioned. Through observing Lucky in his engagement with the media, I further learned the art of dealing with the media, whether in written or spoken form.
By the time Alex Mashilo arrived in 2013 as the SACP’s national spokesperson, I had opened my heart wider towards interacting and collaborating with other South African comrades. Alex, ever the patient and non-judgmental teacher, helped to reintroduce me to Marxism-Leninism.
Yes, I had read some Marxist texts many times before, but when Alex unpacked Marxism, particularly the method of Marx, as he often emphasised, I knew I had to put everything aside and start reading and studying Marxism from scratch.
While Alex was a true genius, he understood that the work of Party communication needed more hands. And brains. He thus recruited more young comrades to help with the work. Only one woman made up the team. That entire year she was friends with everyone but distant to me. Of course, she might also argue that I also freely interacted with everyone else but her.
If only she knew that all that time I was asking myself one question to which I had no answer: what type of human being gets into a room, sits with the television directly behind them, and always must tilt their head whenever something is interesting in the news? Surely, the natural position is to face the television. No? Whenever anything interesting came up on the television, she would just tilt her head without moving even her chair, watch, and then go back to her computer. Inside, I was shaking my head vigorously at such a rarity. And, dare I say, absurdity!
Her name was Hlengiwe Nkonyane, aka ‘Hlengza Reloaded’.
A bit more about Hlengza Reloaded
I knew absolutely nothing about Hlengza back in 2013 when I first met her together with the rest of the team.
A soft-spoken woman of a few words, in her I saw only a peaceful comrade. Every day she would occupy her favourite chair next to the roundtable at the SACP media department’s office—with the television awkwardly behind her.
Her writing style tended towards uniting the progressive forces, almost reconciliatory in outlook and tone. One of her strong attributes was knowledge of important historical events and the fact that they had to be publicly acknowledged in our work and, where necessary, commemorated. She knew when the ANC Women’s League was formed, for instance, and ensured she wrote about it, even acknowledging the roles played by comrades whom my ‘hardline’ self would not have ever given space in my writings – but good comrades, nonetheless.
Yes, at that time, I was rigidly a ‘hardliner’ in almost all my writings, particularly articles premised on fighting anyone who dared to throw any drop of water against the SACP, the Alliance, the Swaziland struggle, and generally anyone who dared to raise a finger against communism. I blame Lenin, my greatest influence, for this! To be fair to Lenin, however, he only found a man who already held deep anger against the ruling Swazi regime. He could only pour out what he could to induce clarity in a mind ruled by anger. I think over time he succeeded.
As already stated, it took a whole year for us to actually get to begin to seamlessly speak to each other. I do not remember what sparked it. Slow cooking perhaps produces the best results sometimes.
With time, I managed to influence her towards being a hardliner in attending to all issues she felt aggrieved with. She scared me over time, though. I started to feel like she had taken the hard line beyond what I had envisaged and, sometimes, to my utter shock.
I recall some of the articles and emails she brought to me to review and edit before sending out. Sometimes I had to take time persuading her to smoothen some of the very sharp corners. All I wanted to unleash was a tiger, but it appeared the raw beast that was within her had been lying low and, once unleashed, proved untameable.
TOP TIP: If you wish to keep her smiling, don’t dare touch Winnie Mandela.
She was also passionate about African history—along with African thinkers and heroes. If there is ever a person who fully influenced me towards and introduced me to African thinkers, it has to be Reloaded. Sometimes the office would be noisy as she defended whatever point she propagated for anyone or anything she viewed as an African hero. Pushing her away from that hill was almost an act in futility even for Alex.
It was partly through those debates that I began to get bits and pieces of her mind. And, because I did not have the best knowledge of African heroes and African historical events, I tended to pay a bit more attention when she spoke about those—whether it was uMkhonto WeSizwe, or whatever Julius Nyerere said at whatever time in history, or some parts of Ethiopian history, and so on.
TOP TIP: Oh, she is a fierce defender of uMkhonto WeSizwe, so tread carefully!
Pushing boundaries
As our brains got more and more aligned, I began to appreciate that, just like me, she was not pleased with the state of the Party’s communication. She wanted the Party to do more and to do so differently. Those were some of the issues we deliberated on for hours and days, sometimes even leaving the office very late. We both felt that at that time—around 2014 to 2017—the Party should have been branching off the main road of communication, adopting new means. Hlengza would later refer to these as ‘New Media’. But the Party was stubborn to change!
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| Deep in the Sterkfontein Caves, 2017. |
Nonetheless, with each passing day, we found that, notwithstanding the limitations, we could, in our own way, push those boundaries. We thus rolled up our sleeves to rework, rebuild and liven up the Party’s social media platforms and create new ones. It was all a learning process, full of trials and errors, doing so without previous training.
But we both knew we needed Alex in the entire process. And we always sought out his wisdom, even though sometimes he may not have been aware of the brains he was pouring his wisdom to.
On the other hand, ever passionate about political education and insisting on doing it properly—determined to do away with what he called ‘indoctrination’—Alex had set up a political class for the communications team members. Over time, interest grew from more comrades in the headquarters of the Party as well as outside, and thus they joined.
Alex would later call the class ‘The Institute for the Scientific Study of Society’. Indeed, over time, it became a real institute with a yearly curriculum collectively worked on and compiled by its members.
Over time, Hlengza and I became more involved in leading the institution while Alex played a supervisory role. It was this opportunity that we used to deliberate on how we could make the learning process more interesting to all the members. This birthed the idea of excursions which the class had to take every quarter. At the end of the year, the class would organise a seminar and invite other Alliance activists to participate.
The Class of 2017 was the first to undertake those excursions. The first visit was to the Workers’ Museum and African Museum in Newtown, Johannesburg, gaining practical experience. Understanding the theory in practice in a way that the members could actually see.
Later, on
13 September, the class visited the Cradle of Humankind, going through a tough,
yet inspiring and enlightening whole-day session, manoeuvring through the difficult
Sterkfontein Caves.
Getting the team to get all the necessary resources in order to embark on that trip was difficult, however. It was helpful that Hlengza, unlike me, never shied away from knocking into offices, no matter how high the occupier. Otherwise, those excursions would never have been successful.
TOP TIP: Refuse to open those doors and feel her wrath!
For the end-of-year public seminar, the institute hosted Professor Alex Mezyaev from Russia. The seminar focused on the Centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
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| Professor Mazyaev, Hlengiwe Nkonyane, Dr Reneva Fourie |
When Hlengza and I brainstormed on how we would be able to fly Professor Mezyaev from Russia to South Africa, we silently left a slight window of disappointment. Where were we to get the money? But Hlengza’s window of disappointment was much smaller than mine. More, she knew which buttons would need to be touched—which to touch first and which to touch last. Thankfully, in the end we had unqualified support from the then SACP head of secretariat, Dr Reneva Fourie, Solly Mapaila (First Deputy Secretary at that time) and Cosatu.
All through the imaginative efforts of the ‘A’ team, as Alex’s communications department team got to be known.
I, having been there, know too well that if you think Hlengza away from that equation, then you have none of the abovementioned successes.
In revolutionising the communications approach of the Party, we undertook many tracks and experiments. At some point, we accompanied First General Secretary Solly Mapaila to a mosque in Johannesburg to commemorate the life and times of Ahmed Timol.
Timol was murdered by the apartheid regime’s police in 1971 by either pushing him out the window or off the roof of John Vorster Square police station in Johannesburg, as the high court would find out later.
I got to know of Timol through Hlengza. She had learned of the developments towards reopening the inquiry into his death through Timol’s nephew, Imtiaz Cajee. She literally took it upon her to get the entire SACP to fight for justice for Timol. I do not exaggerate when I say that, without her efforts, the SACP may have missed the historical moment in October 2017 when the Pretoria High Court ruled that there was a valid case to answer for the two police officers in question that they had taken part in the murder of Ahmed Timol. Those police officers were members of the Security Branch stationed at John Vorster Square when Timol was killed.
All in all, anyone who ever needs an organiser, a thinker, a visionary—all embodied in the same person—has no reason to look beyond Hlengza. But she is too humble to ever admit this!
TOP TIP: Share great ideas with her only if you are prepared to attend to her daily calls about more, and more, and more ideas on how to implement those ideas!
Solidarity
I have often felt that it is very difficult for anyone to understand the struggle of Swaziland unless and until they experience it personally. I find that those who walk with the people, in a way, get intimate knowledge and thus know exactly what needs to be done to provide solidarity. It is no accident of history that Solly Mapaila remains a persona non grata in Swaziland today. The regime knew of his ‘dangerous’ work in solidarity with the people of Swaziland.
I did not know to what extent Hlengza understood our struggle. As she got to know me more, she got to understand that, while I was forever hectic at the SACP, my mind was fixated on the Swaziland struggle.
The process towards understanding each other pertaining to our struggle was not a smooth one. Hlengza is more of a quick thinker and thus tends to rush quickly towards what needs to be done—so I would learn later. Right on, she overwhelmed me with a flood of ideas on what had to be done in the international space to raise awareness of the Swaziland struggle. For her, we were simply not doing enough, so I felt. Before I could respond, she was already throwing in ideas about how the ANC’s foreign mission, led by Oliver Tambo, embarked on serious advocacy from country to country, institution to institution, to get people to understand the South African struggle against apartheid rule.
Notwithstanding the daily floods I was receiving from her, I was able to reflect when I was alone. I mean, she was correct. And the sloppy work in profiling the struggle, if truth be told, was deliberate. A lot of that still happens today. A story for another day.
Well, regarding international solidarity in general, Hlengza was relentless and unapologetically took action at all times. The Palestinian struggle was another important struggle she put her energy and focus on. Sometimes even to the detriment of the everyday struggles happening in South Africa, which the SACP had to pay attention to.
As our minds coalesced on the Swaziland struggle, we began to harmoniously build practical solidarity efforts. But she still wanted to understand the struggle more physically than merely hearing from us, the exiles. The SSN office in the SACP was one of her favourite offices.
TOP TIP: Once she sets her mind to something, she will bankrupt herself towards fulfilling it.
Around
September 2018, she met one of the firebrand leaders of the Communist Party of
Swaziland (CPS), Njabulo ‘Njefire’ Dlamini, who was en route to Athens to
attend the international meeting of communist and workers’ parties. We all
spent one week in Johannesburg together, and within that week, Hlengza was
convinced about the Swazi struggle. Meeting someone coming straight from the
ground was helpful.
In early 2019, Hlengza took a special excursion to learn more deeply and practically about the lives of the people of Swaziland. With nothing but a simple backpack, she took an unprecedented tour, enduring the burning sun and traversing through the long, winding tracks of rural Swaziland on foot, conversing with the people in their real conditions and getting their unfiltered thoughts about the political system. Without any special funding or support of any kind. Pushed solely by solidarity. Later, in December 2019, she attended the 10-day CPS Summer School, collaborating with comrades in crafting practical efforts for the struggle.
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| Njabulo 'Njefire' Dlamini with Hlengiwe Nkonyane in Johannesburg in September 2018. |
Sadly, Njefire, as he was affectionately known among his comrades, died on 23 May that year. He was only 32, yet his revolutionary work continues to inspire the people to continue the fight.
In the end, a friend, a comrade, a human
One thing I dearly hold onto today is the relationship I had with Njefire when it came to propaganda work. Within a short space of time of working together, we were able to find each other regarding the direction the CPS needed to take in this regard. A pity that he ceased to breathe before fully getting his point across throughout the Swaziland struggle. I am left alone to explain.
Already, he had created new avenues within his union, the teachers’ union, breaking ground which hitherto had remained sacred—to the point of even creating new positions, albeit informally, within the union, with a view to getting the union to be an everyday active and dynamic union rather than a bureaucratic one which waited for too long before taking decisions and giving direction on crucial matters. He actively took part in creating the popular night vigils before big union actions—which were his novel ideas—and today I marvel at how his union has grown through his contributions. He would be very proud.
Revolutionary work between Hlengza and Njefire did not last for much longer than two weeks. Yet Hlengza became permanently convinced of the nobility of the Swaziland cause. She threw herself, body and soul, to the cause.
By 2018, when they met, Hlengza had already played an important role in my life. For some reason, I had never told her the specifics of what I needed to survive each day, but, somehow, she seemed to know and understand. All without judgment, expectation, or payback.
Today, every time I look at the morning sun, I recall that the only reason that I can see it is because a certain comrade came into my life and literally took over it in terms of getting it to keep going on. Otherwise, the whole thing was just worthless—so it seemed to my eyes.
I recall how she would often look me straight in the eye and tell me how I was the most experienced in the SACP communications team but still volunteering and not getting what was due to me in terms of remuneration. Almost on a daily basis, she would tell me that I deserved far better, and she would go around pushing senior leadership about this.
At that time, I really did not want to push for anything more, because I understood my precarious legal situation in South Africa. I was content doing work in the background for the Party, and my name remaining there and receiving whatever the Party could afford. Despite this, Hlengza insisted that I deserved far better. She was not content with the fact that I was still on a volunteer basis when I had done so much work, far more than the required basis.
In some instances, I wished she would not pitch at work because I knew what she would say before the day ended. I felt that whatever she wished for me was all in futility and needed my heart to be content with all that I had at that point. I was not only unemployed: I was unemployable anywhere. Yet there was Hlengza moving from office to office advocating for me.
This is but one of the many practical examples which made me look at Hlengza as a special being. Show her a barrier and she would see a gap! Show her an impossibility and she quickly sees how the entire thing could be circumvented or made to bend to her own rules. If light conquered the universe, she would lead it to a blackhole to tame it.
TOP TIP: Hlengza’s loyalty is so great. Betray it at your own risk.
By 2017, having restarted my LLB studies from scratch at the University of South Africa (Unisa), owing fees for some semesters, I had taken the decision to give up on my studies. I told myself that the whole thing was leading me nowhere. Solly and Lucky had already helped me to restart my studies back in 2012, but circumstances beyond their control meant that I had to skip some semesters due to non-payments.
As if she had heard me in my head, that year Hlengza was so big about me finishing my LLB. Every now and then, ‘Pius, you must finish your LLB,’ is all I heard. Often, I was passive, merely saying, ‘Yeah, I will’, and nothing more.
In the same year, Alex would also sing the same song as Hlengza’s. To date, I do not know whether they had held any discussion about me that year—the same year I had taken the firm decision to abandon my studies. By that time, I had relented to the deep levels of depression endured through the years of exile.
But there they were, Hlengza and Alex, independently and consistently telling me of the importance of completing my Unisa studies.
And so it was that, in late 2017, I decided that perhaps the best thing I could do with my life was to finish my LLB. At least to appease those pushy souls but, perhaps more importantly, to inspire other Swazi activists to keep fighting each and every day for democracy—placing my life as an example.
Sometime in late 2017, I took a solemn covenant with myself that I would not cut my hair and beard until I finished my LLB. I was motivated to make the last push. I was driven towards attaining that forever elusive LLB. Thanks to Hlengza’s and Alex’s annoying collective push. They made me feel that I was not alone after all in my apparently lonely journey.
I wrote my final exams in June 2020. Our group was the first Unisa group to write online examinations, as the Covid lockdown was only a few months old for the South African population.
Unfortunately, I could not receive my results in the same year, because I owed tuition fees. R8,000.00! I was only able to satisfy the debt some time in 2021. That still needed a great deal of sacrifice because after that payment I was left without a cent in my pocket.
Nonetheless, true to the solemn covenant with myself, I did not cut my hair until I received that confirmatory letter in the first half of 2021 informing me that I had finally attained my LLB. A culmination of collective work! The LLB was not just mine. Many people had played an important role in it. Hlengza was part of that story.
Today, I look around my house, and I see Hlengza’s presence in all I see. In many ways. I recall all the moments when she made timely interventions in my life. And those moments continue to exist in my life.
She may not have understood the long-lasting impact her daily actions had on me—and would have in the long run—but she went on to do what she felt was right anyway. I was one of the beneficiaries of her practical solidarity.
I must hasten to speak about the practical contributions and not remain abstract. Here, I am talking about being hungry and not knowing what I would eat that day, and she would intervene, all without asking for payment. I am talking about not knowing how I would communicate my troubles to higher leadership about my demands, and somehow, she made those communications on my behalf before I could even ask her to do so. I wish to count more, but the whole thing is just countless.
In other words, to the normal soul, I had gained a good person in her. But, in truth, I had obtained a friend, a comrade and just something more than all of that.
In lieu of a conclusion: Hlengza’s moment
On Hlengza’s birth anniversary this year, 25 March, I thought I should take some time out to ponder and make a few reflections on my life, on comradeship and more stuff. Undergoing all those processes made me think about how she has literally crossed many rivers on my behalf in ways that no one had ever done before. And, at that moment, she did not really know much about me. She had no reason to believe anything about my undying loyalty either to her or the Swazi struggle—or even the struggle for a socialist world.
Yet there she was, throwing her whole life to walking with me, beside me through each and every step of my life in exile. A very rare occurrence.
In the end, while exile dutifully delivered multitudes of rotten tomatoes my way, I was able to find some people who made my life not only bearable but also memorable. Such are the rare types I needed to keep. Such are the Hlengza types of people I will continue to keep in my life.
As Hlengza celebrates her own milestone in life, I thought it necessary for me to sit down and make my reflections on the meaningful contributions she has made to my life over the past 13 years or so.
Among the about 60 million people in South Africa, she has remained one part of the tiny minority of people who brought me back from the precipice and saved my life. Many times. I do not exaggerate when I say that I am alive today due to her friendship and comradeship with me. And no other has ever called me ‘friend’ since I landed on South African soil except her. None!
I could write many more pages, but such would be a book without end, for I have left many memories in this chapter. I only meant to introduce the subject and landed on such a long story without noticing.
My only intention with this article was to celebrate Hlengza’s birthday, which is on 25 March. As I sat down to reflect on her, I could not come to a conclusion whether Hlengza had been a friend or a comrade to me. I concluded that she has been both. But something was special on each part.
In the end, I understood that she had been a friend, a comrade and much, much more to me. Something one cannot sell and/or buy.
Cheers to life, cheers to lifelong comradeship and continuous learning!
Written 25 – 27 March 2026.
Published 29 March 2026.
