Walter Rubusana and ‘the perfect storm’
2026-02-04
Brown Maaba
The idea of ‘the perfect storm’ is borrowed from the Wolfgang Petersen film about a fishing vessel lost at sea following the devastating hurricane of 1991 that greatly affected the United States east coast. This article relates to the imagery in how, despite his achievements as a missionary, educator, and statesman in the early 20th century, Walter Rubusana was often perplexed by unexpected events. To emphasise his point, the author examines the October 1920 Port Elizabeth worker militancy into which Rubusana was drawn and the massacre of workers that ensued. The article shows that his involvement in Port Elizabeth union politics was a miscalculation, leaving the workers infuriated and, in turn, leading to his assault and a riot thereafter, which led to brutal killings by the police supported by armed white civilians. Contribution: The author concludes that Rubusana, walking a narrow line between worker militancy and the politics of petition and negotiation, could be glad that, at the end of the day, he was exonerated from these killings by the Commission of Inquiry established to investigate the riots and was indeed compensated for his injuries.