Exhibition must serve to engrave Toivo’s heroics, says Ndlovu
An exhibition that portrays the heroics of Vincent Tshabalala during the anti-apartheid struggle has been opened at the Alexandra Museum and will run until September.
An exhibition that celebrates the heroics of Vincent Tshabalala during the anti-apartheid struggle was opened at the Alexandra Museum on June 11.
The exhibition, which will run until September, was opened by a student friend of the late uMkhonto we Sizwe fighter Ernest Zwelibanzi Ndlovu, who described the artefacts on display as a befitting tribute to the heroics of the man, who many knew in the streets of Alexandra, by his nickname of ‘Toivo’ after the iconic Namibian father of the struggle, Andimba Toivo wa Toivo.
“The exhibition is a befitting remembrance of heroics of Tshabalala and will be engraved in the minds of young people today that this freedom we enjoy now was written with the blood of our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, and nephews and nieces, the list is endless,” said Ndlovu, who was introduced to Cosas [Congress of South African Students] by Toivo.
Ndlovu said he was literally hauled into a meeting of Cosas and inducted as the new secretary of the student movement in the presence of another erstwhile student activist Connie Bapela [then Hlatshwayo before she married Obed Bapela, now deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs].
“The previous secretary had absconded and my student activism and fight against apartheid started and I never looked back ever since,” said Ndlovu, who said when the news of Tshabalala'[s violent death broke, he never believed it as he knew him to be in exile.
Ndlovu said he still believes that Tshabalala was not shot by the regime’s security operatives as he had emptied his AK47 as he fought his way out of his hideout in deep Alex and ran all the way still firing up to then London Road [now renamed Vincent Tshabalala Road] and corner 13th Avenue.
He died on the spot next to the gates of the Central Johannesburg Colleges Alexandra Campus. “As his former comrades, we ascertained that he realised he had emptied his AK47 and would soon be cornered and then blew himself with a hand grenade.”
Ndlovu, a close friend of Toivo along with Paul Mashatile [now ANC treasurer general who started the Vincent Tshabalala Education Trust] said Tshabalalas heroic fight against the apartheid forces had inspired many youth in Alex then to join the fight.
The exhibition is a project of the City of Johannesburg as part of its efforts to commemorate Youth Day on June 16 and was curated by Luvhuwani Mulaudzi of the Alexandra Museum.
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