Dehumanisation is totally unacceptable

By Brian Mkululu Mphahlele*

My name is Brian Mkululu Mphahlele. I was born and raised in Cape Town. I grew up and was schooled in Langa Township. In 1973, I was actually introduced to the late Steve Bantu Biko. I was 18 years old when I joined the liberation movement…I was 18 years old when I was arrested.

In Cape Town, at Caledon Square, I was made to take off my clothes. I stripped, stark naked. I was handcuffed on armrests. I was blindfolded, and a plastic tube was pulled over my head. I couldn’t even breathe. I felt that they were pulling wires around my fingers. They switched it on, the electricity was put on, and I thought I was going to die. And I am not afraid to say this but I urinated, and the electric shocks were shot off. And before my teeth were kicked out, before my ribs were fractured, Colonel Coetzee - one of the perpetrators - said to me: “When you came in here, the carpet was dry, now you have made it wet, you are going to dry it with your mouth”. That I did. Whilst I was doing that, I was on my knees, and Coetzee kicked me full in my mouth, and my teeth were broken. Every day in that week, every day I was tortured. They had a room upstairs where they were torturing people who were arrested for opposing the government. Even before me, there were lots of people who were killed, and tortured and maimed in Caledon Square. Caledon Square is a very big police station…

"I was referred to the trauma centre and to this day I have never lost contact with them."

After I was released from prison, I couldn’t cope with the outside world. Everybody, my mother, my late father, my uncle, my brother – they were all traumatised because I was such a young boy when it happened. I spent my 21st birthday in solitary confinement. I was a young boy…

The trauma centre [The Trauma Centre for Survivors of Violence and Torture] has helped me a great deal to cope with life. I had suicidal thoughts, because I thought life was not worth living. I was dehumanized, so I tried twice to get rid of my life. But I couldn’t do it. It is very sad to be dehumanized that way. I wished they had killed me instead, because they broke my dreams of becoming something in life…

I need psychological help, and I cannot afford psychological help. I was referred to the trauma centre and to this day I have never lost contact with them. Everybody in my community knew what I had gone through, and I was accepted with good hands.

" We were not fighting to be rich people, to drive fancy cars or live in big mansions. We fought for justice..."

Those who testified against me in court, I don’t blame them. They could not cope with the torture that was carried out on them. They even said in court that I was one of the instigators; it is not true. The community played a good role when I was released. They never viewed me as a criminal because they knew what I stood for.

What we were fighting for: We were not fighting to be rich people, to drive fancy cars or live in big mansions. We fought for justice and we did not fight the white person for his colour. Because if we were fighting a person’s colour it would be stupid. We were fighting to abolish unjust laws. For fairness and justice for all. Today, most of us who fought for justice still carry the brand of poverty. I just need a normal life. That is what I am fighting for all these years. But to no avail…

You can not compare the torture I endured. One cannot do this to another person. Dehumanisation is totally unacceptable. Torture is unacceptable. To incarcerate a person who is fighting for human rights is unacceptable. I would not wish anyone to go through what I have gone through. It is very bad. I will not stand and cross my arms and look at what the government did – killing unarmed people, looting, maiming, burning their houses. I had to get up and fight.

Cape Town Trauma Centre, South Africa, May 2008

* This testimony is an extract from an interview given to the photographer Christian Vium, who, in collaboration with the IRCT created the exhibition "Faces of Survival" to mark the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims in 2009.