We Are Fighting the World. Gary Kynoch
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on the origin and first decade of Russian existence on the Reef in the late 1940s to 1950s. Bonner argues that Basotho differed from other migrant groups on the Rand in this period because of their tendency to permanently settle in the urban areas and that “it was the scale and rapidity of this transition from migrant to immigrant status that was responsible for the Russians’ development.”1 Basutoland was in deep distress in the 1930s. Population growth, land shortages, and soil exhaustion were exacerbated by severe drought. At the same time bridewealth prices were higher than elsewhere in South Africa. As a result of these circumstances, increasing numbers of men left Basutoland for longer periods of time. Desertion of wives became more frequent and thousands of impoverished women migrated to the Rand to scrape out a living, often as beer brewers and prostitutes. Many of these migrant men and women formed liaisons that eroded family commitments at home and mitigated against their return to Lesotho. At the same time, burgeoning employment opportunities and the higher wages available in secondary industries meant that Basotho men were leaving their jobs on the mines and moving into the urban areas. As a result, Basotho migrants began dominating many of the squatter movements and established an increasing presence in the townships. This process, Bonner believes, resulted in battles over territory, housing, and women and eventually gave birth to the Marashea, the bulk of whom lived and worked in the townships.
The movement of Basotho workers from the mines to secondary industry during the 1940s, combined with the fact that the majority of his informants followed that trajectory, led Bonner to conclude that “the preponderance of Russian leaders were working in secondary industry (much of it heavy), with the balance self-employed, mainly in tailoring. Their membership, while being regularly replenished and reinforced from the mines, was likewise employed for the most part in secondary industry.”2
My research indicates different work and settlement patterns. The Russian gangs on the Rand in the 1950s were led by men who lived in the locations, and while there is no doubt that many Marashea moved out of the compounds during this period, oral and documentary evidence suggests that mineworkers still comprised the majority in most Russian groups on the Rand.3 Alarmed by the weekend rampages of visiting mineworkers, township representatives urged the authorities to place tighter restrictions on miners’ movements. Following a series of weekend robberies in 1965 in which Russians were implicated, a member of Phiri’s (Soweto) Joint Advisory Board insisted, “These men are not local, but come from compounds in the East Rand. . . . It is clear that after drinking all their money . . . they tend to go out and hunt for innocent prey in the streets.”4 The African press highlighted the activities of marauding Russians on numerous occasions, and the report of an attack on Naledi (Soweto), announcing that “Blanketed ‘Russians’ from the mines hit the township at dawn,” was typical of such coverage.5 Township officials in areas regularly visited by Russian mineworkers complained vociferously—“Basutos employed in the gold mining industry habitually visit Pimville at weekends and terrorise the respectable and law abiding residents of the location. This it may be mentioned is a typical pattern of behaviour of the Basutos employed on the Reef.”6 The involvement of Basotho mineworkers in the 1950s Newclare violence was deemed sufficiently serious for the director of native labor for the Witwatersrand to request that compound managers prevent Basotho employees from visiting the township.7 While some Russians, including the leaders, resided in the townships, it was widely perceived that the gangs drew their strength from the compounds.
Moreover, a more urbanized Basotho populace did not necessarily signal a migrant-to-immigrant shift for the circumstances of most Basotho workers during this period were not so sharply defined. Marashea veterans interviewed for this study almost all maintained close ties with relations and friends in Lesotho and moved frequently between South Africa and Lesotho. Some settled permanently on the Rand and lost contact with families, but most regarded Lesotho as home and returned when their working lives were finished. Others migrated between Lesotho and South Africa on a more or less continual basis, depending on work opportunities, family circumstances, and the need to escape criminal prosecution in South Africa. Borashea was a survival and coping mechanism for its members but it did not arise from a migrant-to-immigrant transition. Bonner’s period, when large numbers of Russians worked in secondary industry, was an aberration. If the Marashea had largely cut their ties with the mines, one might expect that the Basotho gangs, like the Isitshozi mining gangs before them, would have become indistinguishable from the numerous urbanized gangster organizations on the Rand. A wider temporal and geographical focus on the Marashea demonstrates that nothing could be further from the truth.
As for the timing of the formation of the Marashea, an additional factor might well be of consequence. A number of early Marashea, including several of the men I interviewed, were veterans of the Second World War. Some accounts credit these veterans with being the founding members of the society. BH, a prominent Matsekha leader in the 1950s East Rand who arrived in Johannesburg in 1946, recalls that “Marashea began at the time of men like Ntate [term of address for an adult male] Mapiloko, Ntate Likhetla, and Ntate Matsarapane when they arrived from the world war. . . . . There were many men from the world war and they were the ones that began the groups of Marashea.”
Before the Second World War, Basotho migrants who fought with melamu (traditional fighting sticks) were known as liakhela, a label that distinguished them from “respectable,” law-abiding Basotho (multiple interviews).8 These early groups of fighters sometimes organized according to regional divisions in Lesotho, as was the case in a series of disputes in Vereeniging in the mid-1940s. However, the Marashea proper seem to have been born in Benoni, on the East Rand, in 1947 or 1948.9 The name Marashea surfaced in the late 1940s and was taken from the Russians, who were understood to have been fierce and successful fighters in the recent world war. At first no regional distinctions were made, but by 1950 a bitter rivalry had emerged. One faction referred to themselves as Marashea, while their rivals took the name Majapane, after the Japanese. “It is like naming a football team. The new team might be named after one that is already famous. Marashea were those from Matsieng [southern Lesotho] and Majapane were from Leribe [northern Lesotho]. Those from Matsieng named themselves after Russia while Molapo named themselves after Japan. These two countries were known to be strong in war. That’s why those two groups chose those names. But within no time the name of Majapane died away and even those of Molapo were called Marashea” (MK).10 The two main factions have since identified themselves as Matsieng (sometimes referred to as Makaota), from the south of Lesotho, and Molapo/Masupha (collectively known as Matsekha), from the north.
COMPOSITION
Membership was open to all Basotho men (most came from Lesotho, but Basotho from the Eastern Free State and the ethnic homeland of QwaQwa were also readily accepted); however, people from other ethnic groups were generally allowed to join as long as they spoke Sesotho. For example, Hlubi from the Matatiele area on Lesotho’s southern border (who speak both Xhosa and Sesotho) made up a portion of some Marashea groups. The typical trajectory for male youth was to herd their families’ animals, attend initiation school to learn the customs and rituals associated with manhood, and then migrate to the cities and mining areas to find work. Female members left Lesotho and the more impoverished rural areas of South Africa to escape desperate economic and social circumstances. The overwhelming majority of Marashea, both male and female, came from backgrounds of rural poverty and few had any significant formal education. Men labored in the mines and secondary industry while women most often took positions as domestic servants, brewed beer, and engaged in sex work.
Occupational divisions among male Marashea will be discussed in detail later; it is enough to note here that groups were composed of employed members and those known as malofa (loafers), who relied on various, often illegal, means to support themselves. None of the retired members interviewed in Lesotho could be considered well off and many live in poverty. Marashea still active in South Africa typically live in informal settlements, although a select few men in the upper echelons of the organization display such trappings of wealth as private vehicles and cell phones.
As Bonner has noted, “Unlike other urban gangs on the Rand, the Russians were overwhelmingly adult in composition. No age cohort dominated, certainly not the youth.”11 Men usually joined in their youth but senior positions were generally reserved for long-serving