In 1982, the family moved to Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape before being transferred to Cradock, where, in the years before Mr. Goniwe’s death, the township became a crucible of unrest that threatened to embolden disaffected Black South Africans across the land.
In her account of those years, Ms. Goniwe focused on her husband’s deepening involvement in marshaling Black dissatisfaction to the extent that the township effectively slipped beyond white administrative control. “Running battles between the police and the youth became the order of the day,” she said. Again her husband was detained, only to be released as revolt deepened.
He was not the only target. “The whole family bore the wrath of the security police, which took the form of harassment, early morning house raids, constant surveillance, death threats, phone bugging, short-term detentions for questioning, mysterious phone calls, tampering with cars etc.,” Ms. Goniwe said.
Later she discovered that their home had been bugged. “That device could pick up the slightest sound, even the drop of a pin,” she recalled, “everywhere in that house, in all rooms, so they could hear us sleeping in our bedrooms, everywhere; they could hear us argue, whatever, whatever happened in that family.”
After her husband’s death, Ms. Goniwe was active in efforts to promote social change, particularly in rural areas of South Africa. She later became a mayor and speaker of the local municipality council in Cradock, a position she occupied at her death.
Lynsey Chutel contributed reporting.
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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/world/nyameka-goniwe-dead.html