Rest In Peace, Uncle Rashied - My Memories of Rashied Staggie

“Does it always have to end like this?”

I asked my father, as we stood in London Road; a street in Cape Town near the CBD that has now claimed the lives of two of my uncles.  

“We have to trust in God,” replied my father, who was subsisting on caffeine and had not slept the night before. Just like in 1996, when my uncle Rashaad was murdered on the same street, my father was one of the first people on the scene. He watched his brother die on that day, but this time the murderers were clinical in their approach and didn’t leave any time for macabre, short-lived family re-unions.

“True,” I said and noticed a couple of women covertly watch us from their windows. When I returned their gaze, the windows popped shut with force, as if the strength expended in closing them related to the amount of protection the glass bestowed.

“Just feels like we cannot escape the bloodshed, you know. This loop just keeps looping. A twisted circle of life,” I added.

My father didn’t reply and was distracted by a white SUV which stopped near the family home. The plain clothed policemen were friendly and sympathetic. Shabbily dressed and with bags under their eyes, I guessed they too had been seduced by the previous day’s murder and had inadvertently invited insomnia into their beds. They had come to take my aunt and my cousin’s statements.

It’s harrowing hearing loved ones describe the murder of loved ones. There’s a hint of dissociation, but the grieving is palpable, it stirs the room in sadness.  

The detectives droned on and on, soliciting trivial information that no-one in the lounge believed would lead anywhere. A lifetime of witnessing inadequacy, intolerance and ineptitude from the men in blue, even though these ones weren’t draped in their capes, left the entire room in frustration. We are South Africans, after all – police equal disappointment.

My other cousins returned from the shops with whole-wheat rolls, cheese, salad, salami and drinks for those who had come to pay their respects. They wore makeup, but makeup is meant to make you look better, it has no sway in hiding pain. They broke down in tears randomly, memories flashing on precipices, then jumping.

As I looked at one my cousins, I remembered it was her birthday yesterday. Cruel fucking world we live in, I thought. Imagine having to celebrate a lifetime of birthdays, only for it to commemorate the death of the man who gave your life, the man who gave you everything. Celebration to depression in the wink of a memory. I lowered my head, tempted to cry, but then I thought of my uncle Rashied and I smiled.

Photo: Benny Gool

My Uncle Rashied and I had different worldviews. but we respected and loved each other. We didn’t go around saying that we loved each other, for as we know, that is supposedly not the way of true men, and in his world, this was an important way of the world.

There are three periods in my life that are easily recalled when I think of my uncle Rashied. The first is when I’m a child, maybe six or seven years old and for some reason my Dad and I have taken the train and minibus taxi to some place that I found ugly; it’s as if the flats were arranged like a kindergarten class sticks Lego together – blocked and boxed and stuck side by side of uniform height, but here with grimy, faded walls.

The environment was an eyesore, but I liked the people. When he saw me, my uncle picked me up and hugged me. He asked me if I wanted anything, pies or drinks or whatever. I was a very hungry child, and I wanted a steak and kidney, as well as a pepper steak pie.  He tapped my stomach, proud of my appetite, and sent some guys off to get four pies! I impressed everyone by eating all of them. I drank water because even back then my mother was weird about sugar.

That little flat was full of men with drawings on their arms, some even on their faces. I don’t remember why they were there but they were happy to see me, many of them knew me and were astounded by how much I’d grown. When we left, my uncle Rashied gave me a silver money box. It was a strange object, cylindrical and crudely welded together. He told me that If I ever needed to buy more pies or anything else, I should just shake the box. He pivoted his body so only we could see and showed me the secret method to extract notes, as well coins from the box. He shook my hand when we left and for days on end, I would tell my mother how cool my uncle was. I hid the money box under my bed.

Photo: Benny Gool

Cut to the 2000’s and I’m a teenager.  My uncle Rashaad had already passed away, murdered in public by a group of vigilantes, while the press scavenged photos and footage for the forever hungry media machine. My father was in prison, so was my uncle Rashied.

I would see my uncle around once a year, my visits to my father were more frequent, but the two-hour long drives and teenage, hormone induced anger at our situation made me forego visits for months at a time. I felt like we were struggling outside, yet they were there smiling at us, assured that everything would be okay.

 After a year or so we were allowed contact visits, hitherto it was behind glass and with that imbecilic mounted telephone that you see in Scorsese and old De Palma films. There’s not much in the way of “true” communication in that predicament, especially when extended family visit in their herds during festive seasons.

At the beginning, the contact visits were cool, my love of pies had not diminished, and they were the go-to food for everyone who visited. Pies, Simba chips and soft drinks: the staple of the South African prison visit. In all the prison visits that I have made all over the Western Cape in my life, most with family, a few with girlfriends, others by myself, the one thing that was a constant was the food and drink on all the tables. If my uncle or my father saw a young girl with a baby or a poor rural family - anyone actually - with no pies or drinks, they would instruct us to get them some. It simply wasn’t the same if everyone wasn’t eating.

Illustration: Siraaj Ryklief

I left the country after I graduated from university. It didn’t matter where I was in the world, my father and my uncle would call me on the phone. My father tried to have deep conversations on his calls, while my uncle just laughed and wanted me to describe things. In my mind I could see him in that prison with a long line behind him waiting for their turn, while he held court with his overseas call.

When I returned from studying and working in the Czech Republic in 2011, I started regular face to face visits again. I actively pushed for paroles by writing letters and attending pointless parole hearings and other meetings. They were so much older now, but their hopes for a positive life outside had not faded. I spoke to them about the documentary I planned to make, that would make me finally understand things, and maybe, just maybe spark an idea within someone to solve this gangster issue that had caused so much pain.

They were all on board and excited for the future.

My uncle Rashied was released in late 2013. My debut novel was published in that year and I received development funding for the documentary. I wanted to hang around him as much as possible to get a grasp of the story, but his release was like a circus. There were so many hangers on, so many things vying for his attention. Politicians and wannabe politicians crept out from the woodwork, priests and pastors were regular guests at his house. They were all trying to help him in some way, but it was clear to me that they were also out to help themselves.

As part of his parole conditions he worked at a rehab. His work here involved pep talks to the addicts, but most of his actual “work” involved mediation. People would come in the guise of paying their respects and then unburden their problems on him. One woman was there because her husband was murdered by a rival gang and there was a dispute about money matters. She wanted for my uncle to speak to the gang so she could get paid out for her husband’s sacrifice.

Most visitors came with small gifts, but some arrived with expensive whiskeys and wines or bags of luxury clothing and shoes. If they didn’t have an issue to be solved that day, I figured that the gifts were like a kind of underworld insurance, a ghetto version of “saving up for a bad day.”

My uncle had a jovial way with everyone, he loved cracking jokes until the conversation became serious, then he would stare off and rub his chin while he listened. When he finally decided to talk, he demanded absolute attention, he hated not being listened to and it felt like he was always watching out for that.  I pitied the fool whose phone rang in those times, because if you didn’t listen then you projected disrespect, and respect was divinely important to him. He was either extremely chilled or extremely focused, and spoke clearly and succinctly in his native Afrikaans, eyes alight and open to whomever came to him with a problem or request. Most left satisfied, except the obvious, proven manipulators – media, politicians and police etc.

What didn’t surprise during this time was my uncle’s fearless nature, which laid testimony to the family legend that all Staggie men were born with the “bold” gene. I remember a cousin of mine went missing and against his parole conditions, my uncle and I drove from dealer to dealer in Mitchell’s Plane to try and find him. We got out and walked the streets, sometimes my uncle had to sign autographs, which I found bizarre, though my uncle grinned through all of it. We were on “enemy territory” and given the unpredictable nature of a drugs and gangsters cocktail, things could easily have gone fucked up.  Bold gene or not, it’s impossible to be fearful when you’re walking with a man who exhaled Xanax from his pores.

When we finally received production funds from the documentary, he called me over to his house and explained that he couldn’t be in the film. I was disappointed and he didn’t give me a reason, simply saying that one day I would understand. Truth is that I understood right then; spending that much time with him with the intention to actually learn, had given me an invaluable education. I just wished he had told me sooner.

I finished the film anyway. After shooting it, I felt like I needed some space from everything, so I left to China to write, teach and edit the film. Now that he was free and dealing with so much, the phone calls dried up. I knew he was mediating gang wars and getting involved in legal business, but beyond that I was focused on other things.

I was shocked and surprised when I heard of his death last week. I was convinced it was a hoax and didn’t believe it until I spoke to my father on the phone. I was meant to see him upon my return from China and was excited to show him the final cut of the film, but we didn’t get a chance to. I just always thought we had time.

My uncle would be the first one to tell you that he did many bad things and just like my family is in pain and is suffering now, he caused the pain of many other families. He regretted this and thought his choices were made from necessity and circumstance. I know that he wanted to see change in Cape Town, a revival in the townships, a revolution in the country. These days when it comes to gangs and Cape Town, it’s like the Sysyphus myth, carrying that damn rock up the hill only to watch it roll back down again and repeat. We must embrace other ways, we have to destroy this loop.

RIP Uncle Rashied, I will always cherish our conversations and like you did, I will continue to walk fearlessly in this world. I take solace that as humans, we’re all in this together, whether we like it or not, planets in a vast universe, forced to stay in orbit, but yearning, yearning for that divine path that will ultimately give us the gravity we crave.