Osvalde Lewat’s MK: Mandela’s Secret Army is a haunting narration of South Africa’s long and violent battle against apartheid. I consider this film an act of moral recovery for those whose names and faces were buried beneath the legend of Nelson Mandela. Through interviews with former MK soldiers, archival footage, and revolutionary songs, Lewat reconstructs the story of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), founded in 1961 to confront the state violence of white minority rule. It is a film about resistance, sacrifice, and the human cost of freedom. It is equally a reminder that South Africa’s liberation was not born from diplomacy alone, but also from the brutal force of armed resistance.
The film opens with the resonant voices of MK veterans singing a struggle hymn. Making meaning of the song, one could tell that their song is more than nostalgia; it is an invocation of a history written in defiance. Over these voices, the broadcast from Radio Freedom declares: “We must now respond to the reactionary violence of the enemy with our own revolutionary violence.” The documentary makes it clear that armed struggle was not chosen lightly; it emerged when peaceful protest was met, again and again, with massacre. As Mac Maharaj, one of the early cadres, recalls, “From 1912 to 1961 we sought freedom through peaceful forms of struggle … but every time we launched mass action, it was suppressed and repression became more and more harsh.” It was this moment, the film reminds us, that marked a moral turning point: the decision to fight back. Mandela’s own words frame this transition. On screen, we read: “The symbol of the spear was chosen because with this simple weapon Africans had resisted the incursions of whites for centuries.” The spear, uMkhonto, becomes both literal and symbolic, linking ancestral resistance to the modern anti-colonial war.
The testimonies of former MK soldiers form the emotional core of the film. Zola Maseko recalls leaving film school to join the armed struggle after seeing images of brutality back home. “I felt that was the most effective way of fighting against the system,” he says. For Dudu Msomi, who joined at thirteen, it was both political and personal: “I wanted our people to be free from the system that was very evil … even my mother, who was a politician, said to me, if you are here in the country anyway you are going to die.” Such moments reveal the courage that underpinned the movement, as well as the recognition that freedom would demand the ultimate risk.
The documentary excels in its attention to women. Msomi, Totsi Memela, and others recall undergoing the same military and political training as men. “There were no tailor-made trainings for female and male,” Msomi explains. “Everything was the same. We became strong. We became part of the whole freedom fighters.” Their voices reclaim a space long denied in nationalist histories and show that the fight against apartheid was also a fight against patriarchy.
But the film’s most devastating power lies in its portrayal of pain. Maharaj’s recollection of torture, “They took my penis and beat it against the table … then pressed a plank with nails onto it,” is unbearable to hear, yet crucial to remember. The violence of apartheid is not abstract here; it is intimate and physical, enacted on bodies that refused to submit. When Jabu Masina, later sentenced to death, recalls his mother asking whether he would be hanged, he answers calmly, “Yes, mama, they kill us.” That quiet acceptance of mortality turns the film into an elegy for a generation whose faith in justice outweighed their fear.
If the first half of the film is about defiance, the second half is about betrayal. The joy of Mandela’s release in 1990 and the birth of democracy in 1994 is shadowed by a sense of disillusionment. The same veterans who once marched to liberation songs now speak from poverty, addiction, and state neglect. “Our people are still staying in shacks … drinking water with pigs and swamps,” laments Maghebula Segale. “It’s not what we fought for.” Maseko adds, “There is no tomb of the unknown soldier, no museum dedicated to MK fighters … The new South Africa has failed to honor those who sacrificed their lives.” The film thus challenges the postapartheid narrative of reconciliation by showing the unhealed wounds beneath it.
In these closing moments, MK: Mandela’s Secret Army becomes more than a historical record. It becomes an indictment. It asks what freedom means when those who fought for it remain invisible. Maharaj captures this poignantly: “The biggest problem we have … I just want to be acknowledged that I was an MK soldier. Not for anything. I want my children to know that the life they are living is a result of what I did.”
Finally, by the time the veterans sing their closing song, “The wounds, the tears, the blood of our parents flow down the streets of our country,” the viewer understands that this is not nostalgia but bearing witness. MK: Mandela’s Secret Army reclaims the collective memory of the armed struggle against apartheid. It reveals the humanity, contradictions, and unfinished work of liberation. It reminds us that behind every image of Mandela’s smile stood thousands of unnamed fighters who believed that freedom, if it was to mean anything, must be fought for.
