MALAIKA MAHLATSI | Thandi Senoamali, a woman history must never forget

A few weeks ago, Thandi Senoamali walked past the consulate-general of Malawi in Woodmead, Johannesburg.

She was confronted by a scene many other people would have looked at with curiosity and nothing more. Hundreds of men, women and children were sitting on the cold concrete floor, their belongings strewn across the ground.

They were a group of Malawians desperately seeking assistance from their government to repatriate them back to their homeland after months of anti-immigration tensions in South Africa. The consul-general of Malawi, Maxwell Biwi, was nowhere in sight.

The consulate gates were locked and would remain so for days. Desperate calls would go unanswered. Attempts at making any kind of contact to resolve what was clearly becoming a humanitarian crisis would be in vain.

Senoamali, a Soweto-born South African businesswoman and social justice activist, could have decided to walk away, arguing that the problem was not hers to solve. She wouldn’t have been entirely incorrect because as a private citizen with no connections to Malawi, she could not compel the Malawian government to show up for its people at a time of desperation.

Senoamali had nothing to gain from assisting Malawian nationals abandoned outside their consulate. The assistance she provided came at a cost to her

Instead, she decided to approach the group and ask what was required to make their stay outside the consulate gates slightly more bearable. Within hours, she had mobilised warm meals prepared in her home by her family and employees, bottles of water, blankets and other necessities that would give the people a fighting chance in the brutal winter cold of a country that has decided they are no longer welcome.

Anyone who knows Senoamali knows three facts about her. The first is that she loves her family immeasurably. The second is that she is passionate about running and travels around the world to participate in races. The third is that she is incapable of turning a blind eye to the suffering of others. I have been on the receiving end of her generosity many times, and have seen firsthand how sincerely she cares about black people.

I have heard many people proclaim “black lives matter” and define their politics as being rooted in black solidarity. But I have learned that principles are convenient things to have, and that they are not really principles until they cost you something.

Senoamali had nothing to gain from assisting Malawian nationals abandoned outside their consulate. The assistance she provided came at a cost to her.

The days she spent preparing warm meals for them and shuttling between her house and the consulate cost her a significant amount of money. They also cost her the most invaluable resource, one that she will never regain — time. For a woman running her own business, time is everything.

Senoamali’s story is the story of many black women throughout history, who have carried our people under difficult conditions, and whose names do not appear in textbooks

It is crucial to have meetings, administrative and operational responsibilities, train her employees, and keep the lights on. It is also time with her own family, including children who are in their formative years and require the steady presence of their mother.

Senoamali gave all this up because it mattered more to her that human beings who were stranded outside a consulate that was supposed to help them, but instead left them to endure debilitating humanitarian conditions, knew that in a South Africa that was insisting “Mabahambe”, there were people who valued their humanity.

Senoamali’s story is the story of many black women throughout history, who have carried our people under difficult conditions, and whose names do not appear in textbooks.

It is the story of the thousands of women who contributed to our struggle against apartheid by providing shelter to liberation fighters, raising children of incarcerated and murdered activists, and running small businesses to keep communities functional when the state’s apartheid policy sought to disenfranchise and starve black people.

History does not name these women; their contributions have been erased. But this Women’s Month, one of those names must be known and remembered. It is Thandi Senoamali.

Sowetan