As a teenager, Khulu Radebe was part of the Alexandra Township 1976 uprisings. Arrested and sent to Robben Island, he was one of the youngest prisoners there. Returning to Alex, he participated in the township’s 1986 Six Days War. Radebe joined the armed struggle, repeatedly dodging death from the enemy and from fellow MK soldiers in Angola.

At age 50, and proving a prophet’s prediction correct, Khulu Radebe learned about his royal roots. He was informed that he was the ruler of the AmaHlubi people of the Embo Nation, a nation that stretches along the east coast of Africa.

In this landmark autobiography, Radebe chronicles his extraordinary life, and the revolutionary path for freedom in South Africa. Alexandra Township becomes a central character in the book, as Radebe reveals insights into the post-1990 war between Inkatha and the ANC. 

The Johannesburg launch of Comrade King will take place at Exclusive Books Rosebank Mall on Tuesday, 15 August, at 18:00. Read the excerpt.

***

I came down the mountain with the others. You came across houses in various spots as you descended the lower slopes. Women came out from their homes and started ululating, ‘Lilililililili’, in praise of what had happened. They were overjoyed we had made it back.

I didn’t know why this celebration was happening, as no one besides the men who had accompanied me up the mountain had known that I was going to undergo the ritual. According to local tradition, whoever goes up there does not return.

Residents of that area told me, again and again: ‘No man can reach that summit and come back alive.’

But I had.

***

I was suffering from a degree of shock despite my safe return. Msimango, the seer from Alex, sought to calm me and convince me that all was as it should be. ‘If, in the next two months, you are not called to take over the kingship, if your family from Natal, from Msinga and Estcourt, does not convene a meeting, you can come and choose anything in my shack and keep it,’ he promised.

We returned to Alex immediately after those events. That same week, there was an ANC Subcommittee of International Relations meeting at Luthuli House near the centre of Johannesburg. Baleka Mbete-Kgositsile, former secretary general of the ANC Women’s League, was co-chair of the meeting.

‘You resemble two people I know, but let’s talk about it after this meeting,’ she said to me when I entered the venue. She had never said anything of the sort to me during the months she had known me.

‘Can we continue with this at my home?’ she asked me after the meeting ended. She didn’t have a meeting agenda for me, and I was uncomfortable enough with the situation to decide that I wanted my wife and my sister to accompany me. My wife did not want to go. She said, ‘If you die, it’ll be much better if you die alone so that I am able to pursue your case without you.’

As for my sister, she was ducking and diving.

‘What is this thing, man?’ I asked. ‘Now that I’m a king, you don’t want to talk?’

I went there without them. When I arrived, I found a lot of people. And cars. And the police. They had brought their own seer, too. They were all there for me.

‘Hey man, you’ve got the wrong guy,’ I said.

The meeting room had a big table with different people seated around it who started to ask me questions. It was like an interrogation. Baleka locked the door, put the key in her pocket, and declared: ‘Let’s sit down and talk. We’re not going to leave here until everything is resolved. There is food here. There’s a toilet. You’re not going anywhere until we’re satisfied that all our questions have been answered.’

‘Where were you born? How were you born? Who is your father?’

‘I don’t remember all that, but you know what? The best person to answer these questions is my sister,’ I told them. ‘Ask if you can speak to her and put her on speaker phone. She’s older than me. She knows better.’ They called her and she obliged with all the facts at her disposal. A more serious trial awaited me after the group indicated its satisfaction with her answers and I was finally allowed to go home.

I was told one final thing would confirm whether or not I was a proper king: the traditional medicine that only a king can drink without harming himself. This was a family medicine, and I needed to go back to KwaZulu-Natal to drink it there. If I truly were a king, I wouldn’t die on the spot. If not, I would die instantly.

I wasn’t sure about this at all. ‘Eh, should I go there or not?’ I asked my uncle Vana. The elders had no hesitation: ‘You want to show that you are your father’s rightful son.’ My father had never had any boys besides me. Only four daughters. In their minds, I had to defend the position that I was his genuine son. They were even asking me funny questions, such as: ‘How sure are you that you’re your father’s son?’

Although I knew that I had been carried by my mother, I didn’t know how to answer those other questions. It was a difficult experience to face because human beings are driven by cultural ethics. If you were told as the only son to acknowledge your father as your sire, you had no option but to do so.

At the same time, I had not fully accepted the kingship scenario so unexpectedly thrust on me. I was still uncomfortable with the whole story. As a Marxist, I was totally opposed to the institution of royalty. An understanding that ‘This is who you are’ still needed to be imprinted on me.

This was why I was having conversations with God, the main gist of which was: ‘You are far removed from things that you are supposed to do here on earth. You have disappointed me.’

God’s words moved me towards that missing understanding. Also, at a certain level – and as was fairly typical with me – I simply didn’t care. ‘Let them go to hell, I’m going to drink this potion,’ I decided. 

***

We drove to Natal around Christmas. It was the first time I was going to my father’s home. He had fled Natal because his enemies wanted to kill him. I was a grown man who was coming home. Vilakazi, the chair of the house of Bhungane on my father’s side, accompanied me.

I remember that I had forgotten my jacket. I had a chill because it was extremely cold outside in the middle of the mountains. After we’d reached our destination and alighted from the car, we stood outside the houses we were visiting as people sang the traditional praises for a king. This took up to a couple of hours. ‘Hey, I think I must look for a stone to sit on,’ I said at some point. I did this just to get the people to say, ‘Better let them in. This guy’s been freezing for a long time.’ Having finally noted my discomfort, they invited us into one of the homes.

Some old ladies were sitting on the ground as we walked in. ‘No, this one is ours,’ they declared when they saw me. ‘We recognise him from when he was young. We watch our children here. We know them very well. He is ours.’

‘That’s not enough,’ the men said. ‘He must drink.’ ML

Comrade King by Khulu Radebe and Jeff Kelly Lowenstein is published by Jacana Media (R320). Visit The Reading List for South African book news, daily – including excerpts!