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Browsing African Studies Institute - Seminar Papers by Author "Beinart, William"
In January 1930 a meeting was held at Headman Koliwe's location in
Kentani district, Transkei. It was addressed by Elias Mabodla (or Agitator
No. 53 as he was identified in a police report) who had come "to preach ICU
amongst you people". He recounted how nine trade union leaders had been
arrested in East London where they had called a strike. Their plight evoked
strong sympathy in Kentani, especially as one of those arrested was a local
man, Dorrington Mqayi. Headman Nkonki summed up the mood of the meeting: "It
is for us to see into this matter as our blood is amongst those people in the
gaol at East London."
Fifty years later, during our research on rural popular movements we
encountered Mqayi in his identity as an ICU "agitator" in Kentani. We then
retraced his footsteps. In an archival echo of his journeys between the
Transkei and the harbour city, we moved from the boxes holding the records
of the Kentani magistracy to those of the East London Town Clerk. We had no
way of knowing whether Mqayi would resurface in the East London documents,
but began our search for him in speculative optimism. We did meet Mqayi
again - but not him alone. Mqayi in East London was not the leading actor that
he might have been on the smaller stage of Kentani; rather, he had a modest
speaking part in a vibrant urban drama - a drama recorded in the vivid and
detailed police records* of ICU activity in the Town Clerk's files.