The passing of Old Boy Stephen Johannes (Steve) Marais (1974), anti-apartheid activist, writer, translator, eco-socialist warrior and gardener, on 18 March 2024 in Johannesburg, brough back memories of an era long past and showed how Paul Roos Gymnasium helped to shape South African history in different ways.
His death was mourned in an official statement of the African National Congress, who described Marais as “a courageous and dedicated comrade” whose unwavering commitment to the struggle for freedom and equality will forever be remembered.
Marais published his memoirs ‘The true confessions of an unrehabilitated terrorist’ in 2023. He explained the title by saying that not one of the definitions of the verb rehabilitate in the South African Concise Oxford Dictionary apply to him, therefore he must be an unrehabilitated terrorist.
“… there must be tens of thousands of us, those of us who survived the ordeal and who are still alive and who, mostly silently, even now rage against the many injustices that (continue to) prevail in (our country and in) our world,” he said.
The Stephen Marais Memorial WhatsApp Group pointed out that Steve wore the badge of ‘terrorist’ proudly, not because he thought he was, or wanted to be identified as, a ‘a person who spreads terror through violence’ – he was, at heart, a gentle, loving, humanist and pacifist – but because the title was ‘bestowed’ on him by the apartheid authorities for doing what he strongly believed in: fighting an unjust system, no matter the risk to his freedom or life.
“Born in 1956 in Stellenbosch, Comrade Marais sacrificed the apartheid privilege to stand in solidarity with the oppressed people of our nation under the banner of the ANC.
“Despite facing imprisonment for his involvement in uMkhonto we Sizwe activities, Comrade Marais remained resolute in his pursuit of justice and liberation. His selfless dedication to the cause, even in the face of adversity, serves as a shining example of courage and conviction,” according to the ANC statement.
Marais passed away peacefully, in the company of his life partner, Khethiwe, and their son Nkululeko, after a brave 21-month battle against lung cancer. He is also survived by another son, Mlungisi.
With an English mother and Afrikaans father, Marais always proudly declared that his mother-tongue is English and his “ouma-taal” Afrikaans.
He was nine years old when Verwoerd was assassinated in 1966 and it was his ouma who told him that “Verwoerd and his apartheid was ’n reuse klomp kak” (a huge pile of shit).
His mother was Anglican and she taught him that apartheid was evil and unchristian. His father was an agnostic, a physicist and civil servant most of his life, and he encouraged Steve to always question everything.
His first act of civil disobedience was in 1971 at the age of 14 when in Standard 7 at Paul Roos Gymnasium. Children from all over were bussed to the Goodwood Showground in Cape Town for the 10-year celebration of the birth of the then white-dominated Republic of South Africa.
When the prevailing national anthem ‘Die Stem van Suid Afrika’ was sung, he organised a handful of fellow learners to remain seated. They were quickly yanked away by organisers of the occasion and made to go and clean up the rubbish at the back of the stadium for the rest of the event.
His second act of civil disobedience, in 1979, was to refuse to be conscripted into the South African army, which was at the time engaged in fighting Southern African liberation movements in Mozambique, Angola and Zimbabwe.
After attending Michaelis School of Fine Art at UCT for four years, he decided to decamp to Lesotho and put himself out of reach of the South African military authorities. There, in a village in the mountains of Lesotho, he worked with a group of like-minded white South Africans on a rural development project.
His third, but not last, major act of civil disobedience was in 1983, when he joined the underground structures of the African National Congress (ANC).
He went to celebrate his decision at a tavern on the outskirts of Maseru with some of his fellow strugglistas. After a while, a member of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) came over to their table and said to Slumber, one of his ANC comrades: ‘I see the ANC is getting so desperate, you are even recruiting hippies to do your dirty work for you!’
Steve was arrested by the security branch in March 1986. During his stay at John Vorster Square Police Station in Johannesburg, similar sentiments were often expressed to him by the police as well.
In September 1986, he was charged and sent to Sun City to await trial. While there, he saw his father for the first time since his arrest. His father’s first words to him were that ‘they (the ANC) were using you’, which disappointed Steve, given his father’s previous advice to always question everything and make his own choices.
He had met his life partner, Khethiwe, in 1985. At the time, she was on the run from the authorities who were looking for her because of her political activities at Turfloop University as a member of the Azanian Students Organisation (AZASO).
In February 1989, sometime after his arrest and conviction, they got married in the garage of the Pretoria Security Prison.
After his release in October 1990, he and Khethiwe, together with their two sons Mlungisi and Nkululeko, lived in Yeoville where they were active in ANC branch activities and party agents in the 1994 elections.
In 1991, Steve and Khethiwe started Afrophone Translation Services in response to a need by the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for reliable and efficient African language translation and interpretation services. At the time of his passing, he was still involved in the language service industry.
One of his passions was organic vegetable gardening, establishing a large shade house in the back yard of their house in Lombardy East, Johannesburg. He was also a shareholder in a smallholding in the Magaliesburg, to which he travelled most weekends to grow fruit and vegetables on a slightly larger scale.
For 26 years, he drove an old Uno, with 410 000 km on the clock, which he inherited from his father who passed away in 1991, shortly after Steve’s release from prison.
He was also involved in promoting the idea of an eco-socialist future for South Africa and, right up until his last days, he was trying to arrange a small gathering of young people from Lombardy East and neighbouring Alexandra to encourage them to work actively for a better future for themselves and their communities.
