The first time I saw Olorato Mongale was in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) where we were both students at Rhodes University – she in the journalism department and I in geography.
She was slightly younger than me, but we had mutual friends – Charlene Mihi and Zukiswa Shumani. Olorato had read my book, Memoirs of a Born Free, and found it compelling. Thus, Charlene organised for us to meet. On that day, Olorato walked into my apartment and, rather than sit on the couch like most guests would, she comfortably waltzed towards my bookshelf and leant against the wall to provide commentary on several books.
I could immediately tell she was an avid reader and a thinker. That afternoon, we discussed many issues – from race politics to gender relations. We talked about institutionalised racism at the university and the many ways we could challenge it.
And perhaps more hauntingly, we also talked about gender-based violence (GBV). It was clear this was an issue she was passionate about. At the time, there was a growing movement on campus that spoke about the insidiousness of rape culture at the university – a culture that was characterised by the normalisation and trivialisation of sexual abuse and sexual violence. It was a pleasant and intellectually stimulating encounter.
I would leave Makhanda after completing my honours degree. I did not maintain contact with Olorato. While we had a mutual friend, Charlene, with whom I remain close, we were not friends.
Many years would go by before I saw Olorato again. This time around, she was not waltzing into my apartment or commenting about the characters in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. The next time would be in a photo showing a young woman lying dead on a street in Lombardy West.
The raw anger that followed the brutal murder of Olorato was reminiscent of the pain that followed the cruel killing of Uyinene Mrwetyana, who was raped and killed in Cape Town in 2019. Both women were killed doing the most ordinary things – Olorato going out on a date, and Uyinene collecting a package at the post office.
Eerily, both women are also connected by Rhodes University. Olorato was a student there, and Noma Mrwetyana, Uyinene’s mother, was a dearly beloved student counsellor. A few years after Uyinene’s murder, I would co-host part of the launch of the Uyinene Mrwetyana Foundation with Prof Pumla Gqola, the renowned scholar and author of the award-winning book, Rape: A South African Nightmare.
Today, I am writing an article about Olorato.
I raise these points to illustrate just how interconnected South African women are. It is a cruel fate that has befallen all of us that such interconnectedness is rooted in unimaginable trauma. In this country that we call home, every woman knows someone who has been raped, murdered or subjected to other forms of GBV.
When we sit together as South African women, particularly black women, regardless of our class backgrounds, we all have stories to tell about the violence we have endured or witnessed. We are bonded by this trauma. It is for this reason that, after the murder of Olorato, the thought on many women’s minds was: “Am I next?”
It sounds like a cynical and perhaps even dramatic question. But when women you know personally or through mutual friends are killed for going on dates, when Uyinene is killed while collecting a package at the post office, you cannot help but wonder if you are next, because in SA, where every woman knows a rape or murder victim, women know and feel that every man they encounter, even in our own homes, is a potential perpetrator. Everywhere is a potential crime scene.
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