How to Fight the Pain of Loss

Bradley Steyn and Janet Smith talk to musician and filmmaker Steven Bosman, Bradley’s nephew, about how to share personal anguish and redirect pain to connect deeply with others.

Transcript

[Bradley Steyn]

My name is Bradley Steyn. I was born in Pretoria, South Africa. Growing up, I witnessed firsthand the brutality of hate and apartheid.

And as a teenager in 1988, I survived a massacre that would change the course of my life forever. And that's why I decided to take a stand and join the intelligence unit of Nelson Mandela's spy network. In the course of our dedicated efforts during that time, we successfully unearthed a sinister plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela at his 1994 inauguration.

This was a pivotal moment in South African history. Would we go into civil war? Would there be peace?

But it also marked a significant stride towards advancing human rights for all South Africans. Little did I know, a hit was placed on us. And I just managed to escape South Africa and find refuge abroad.

I used my experiences and my expertise and teamed up with leading security professionals, where I was fortunate enough to work with some of the most fascinating people in the world. Now I'm back in South Africa, ready to take on the rising tide of crime, murder, and corruption that has tainted South Africa's journey towards liberation and our democracy. Join me, Bradley Steyn, your co-host, along with journalist and author Janet Smith, and our special lineup of guests as we go undercover.

In this series, we will be declassifying our past, while we bring you the untold stories of our silent warriors, activists, and patriots. We'll also get a different perspective from our youth, where our democracy is today, 30 years later. Through these conversations together, we can shape the future we aspire to.

[Janet Smith]

Barend Strydom's racist massacre on a public square in Pretoria was one of the defining events of the last years of apartheid. It was November 1988. Global condemnation and international boycotts were finally grinding the world's supremacist outpost to a halt,

But even as expectations grew that there could be a peaceful transition to democracy, some, like Strydom, believed whites were being betrayed. The former policemen and army conscripts set out to make his statements in the most horrifying way possible. In total, eight black people were the victims of his rage.

The blood that covered the piazza outside the state theatre also came to mark the boundary between freedom and a form of captivity for Bradley Steyn, who was a teenager when he walked into the mass shooting. Bradley's life was spared by the killer because he was white. Yet that bloodied boundary was so destructive to his mental health that Bradley eventually put down those experiences and the astonishing true life events that followed into a non-fiction thriller, undercover with Mandela's spies.

This podcast takes you on a journey with Bradley and a number of extraordinary guests to examine the toll South Africa's battlefields has taken on our minds and how we can continue to work on our shared recovery. I'm Janet Smith and in this episode, we welcome Steven Basman, musician, creative individual, and Bradley's nephew. The reason why Steven has joined us for this podcast relates directly to the name of the episode, How to Fight the Pain of Loss.

Steven and Bradley share a particular anguish which we will explore. This episode is created in honour of Strydom's 7th and 8th victims, 29-year-old Msongela Johannes Mnisi and 62-year-old Satar Abdool Carrim. Johannes was shot in the chest in the City Soul Jazz Bar record shop on Prinsloo Street.

Satar was shot in the hip and in the jaw area in the same record shop while he was trying to assist Johannes. Thank you for joining us. I'll hand it over to Bradley now to introduce you to his nephew Steven.

[Bradley Steyn]

Hi and thank you all out there for listening to our podcast. Welcome, Steven. And like Janet said, Steven's my nephew.

He's one of my closest family relatives and he's quite a few years younger than me. So I've seen this young inspirational man, well this young inspirational boy grow into a man. And one incredible thing I've seen recently, he's a drumming teacher and one of his students has just won the international drumming competition in Los Angeles in the United States.

And in an interview, they asked this young man, what inspires you the most? And instead of him saying some famous drummer, he actually said his drumming instructor Stephen was one of his most inspiring people. And that just moved me so much because I see the talent in this young man.

But I also see the trouble in this young man and what he has gone through. In 2018, Stephen's father and my sister were on their family farm outside Nelspruit where armed individuals broke into the house and overwhelmed my brother-in-law, John. He alerted my sister who locked herself in a bedroom and barricaded herself in there while John tried to take on these assailants that attacked him.

John was brutally murdered and stabbed and ultimately ended up losing his life while trying to protect his wife. This has ultimately been a very awful blow to my family, to my sister, to my nephew Steven and his brother Dylan and our whole extended family because Steven has had to face his own mental health challenges as has the rest of our family. Steven, I know this is very difficult to talk about and I just thank you so much for doing this.

[Steven Bosman]

Thank you for having me. Yeah, I think that this is definitely not an easy thing to talk about. That time where getting the phone call and then hearing your dad's last breath, I think that was when the paramedics arrived and then they confirmed that was just as he passed.

They managed to catch one of the individuals, the man is an extremely violent human being who has murdered many others out in the plain daylight in the streets. 

[Bradley Steyn]

Out in rural Pienaar in Mpumalanga.

[Steven Bosman]

yeah. And just meeting those families as well has been tough to realise that it's just, he's not the only, that's not his only victim and those are the only victims that are known of. He's probably done much more which obviously he's not willing to testify to but yeah, I think that that was definitely a traumatic experience in just taking in, just having to drive. We drove down that same night and dealing with that and then being there back home and seeing all that blood on the floor was, I'll never forget that.

I'll see it at least every time I close my eyes. I think that that's, it's something that you can just never unsee and I think that that's the same for my mum. I think that she can never unsee anything like that.

I think that everybody really came together for, like, you know, as a community there were so many people very helpful and just amazing and, you know, just supportive, I suppose. Helping my mum feel safe and secure and just, you know, helping her to get back on her feet and figure out at least, because nobody tells you but when someone dies in your family, it's just a lot of admin and you don't really get a lot of time to grieve as you think you do. It's mostly just admin.

Some signing, some documents, you don't even know why but, you know, death is admin. And I think, you know, the awareness and all that sort of stuff, you know, it was on a farm, yes, and that was when, you know, a lot of farm attacks were a very, you know, large at that time. So it definitely, you know, struck a nerve with a lot of people in South Africa and it was really amazing how it came around with, you know, just everybody coming together but it felt that it was a bit strange in the way it was.

You know, there were so many weird questions asked, especially like when my uncle Brad went and he did a social media post when you did that post on Facebook and I think there was YouTube as well and you got so much backlash which you were just trying to make people aware of, you know, this is violence and crime on one another and you got so much backlash that it was very difficult as our family to see this as, you know, you've just lost a parent or in my mom's case, her husband of like, you know, marriage of 30 years or more and, you know, then we see, you know, another one of our family members getting put down for trying to be supportive in the sense of, you know, this is still South Africa, it needs to come together and, you know, we need to stop the crime, the violence and it became about racism and, you know, the history of everything where people are still stuck in that age and it's ridiculous.

I actually still can't believe that people still think that way. They're still stuck there and, you know, just attacking someone who has brought the country to a point where, you know, or been a part of, you know, bringing the freedom of moving within the country, everybody being, I don't know if you could put it that way, but free, yeah.

[Janet Smith]

Thank you, Steven. I think it's absolutely clear and we can hear from your voice that this is a grieving that doesn't end.

[Steven Bosman]

No.

[Janet Smith]

You were unprepared for it in ways that people cannot imagine unless this event has happened to them and judging by the recent crime statistics, we know that this is an event that has altered thousands and thousands of lives this year alone, in the first quarter of this year. So thank you so much. And I think in terms of Bradley and that link that you have made to the way that Bradley responded is a very important starting point for this discussion.

So Bradley had occupied an odd position in terms of this. Bradley had already incited some aggression from his own community of white, middle-aged men who had been through a particular era in South African history. All of them, most of them conscripts, trained in weapons handling, many of them had gone into conflict situations.

So their view and their outlook on South Africa was still stuck there as an 18-year-old and 19-year-old with that experience. And yet Bradley had sort of turned on his own community by then being recruited into the ANC still as a very young man in his early 20s and that confused a lot of white people. So he already occupied that place and then he put out this social media post that I guess reflected on that confusion.

On the one hand, his absolute devastation at losing this man he'd loved and who was your father, your brother's father, his sister's husband. And on the other hand, having to be very careful, I think, around explaining some aspect of South African history, some aspect of South African politics. It was a farm attack.

It's never going to be that simple and that reductive when it happens to somebody you love.

[Steven Bosman]

Of course not.

[Janet Smith]

And so Bradley was sort of stuck in that place of having to be these two people.

[Bradley Steyn]

Yeah. You know, what was really interesting at the time was that I stated that my brother-in-law, who I loved dearly, I'd known this guy since I was three years old. He taught me how to be a Blue Bull supporter.

He taught me about rugby. He was an incredible guy that had a construction company and was a budding strawberry farmer, aspiring strawberry farmer, and just gave so much to his larger community and created so much employment and so many lives within his own little bubble of work that he did were completely disrupted by the senseless murder. But you know why I think I got targeted was because I didn't state that this was a farm killing.

I stated that crime... I stated that our beloved ANC, you know, had really dropped the ball and how disappointed I was and that I am with the ANC and with our national security leadership within our country making our borders porous so that different people can come in and transitional crime, cross-the-border crimes, etc., and just how badly run our country was from a national security point of view. And then I said that, you know, crime affects all our citizens, even the ladies that help us in our homes and on Fridays go home and get in taxis and are terrified that they'll get raped or robbed and that crime affects everybody and that, you know, us collectively, you know, we really need to step it up and make a difference.

And, you know, that's ultimately what I'm going to continue to do is champion for against this crime and against, you know, our vulnerable citizens being targeted and attacked.

[Janet Smith]

Steven, your knowledge of Bradley as an individual, aside from your family connection to him as your uncle, must be somewhat received. In other words, you knew that Bradley had had this experience when he was a teenager and you knew that he had battled with trying to, I guess, still those images in his mind of having been caught up in the massacre on Strijdom Square in your hometown. Now your hometown.

Nelspruit was your hometown. Bradley has that history circling around him all the time. And so when you were defended as a family by Bradley in this loving way, you probably didn't realise that numbers of people out there would see it through the prism of Bradley's history and they wouldn't necessarily be touched or as touched by the fact that Bradley was also a family member, a brother-in-law, an uncle, and so on.

How difficult was it for you then as a family to see that additional trauma that Bradley went through? He was trying to support all of you, but he was also trying to retain a particular persona that he had attracted out there in the world.

[Steven Bosman]

I think maybe I should start somewhere a little bit before that. Growing up as a kid, I only knew in my teens, I knew my uncle as a guy who bodyguarded the celebrities of the time. You see Prince walking and then there's my uncle Brad in the background.

And this is pre-Facebook days where you could just find a photo like that. It was only later in my later 20s that I actually learned about the whole Strijdom Square and all of those things through my cousins telling me about his hardships and the difficulties of dealing with that PTSD and dealing with trying to make his way in the world and still try and keep in touch from such a far distance. I think that he's made himself into someone who can be extremely sensitive as a family-loving person.

And also on the other side, he has to flip to a man of security, a man of considered violence, or at least from an outside perspective, with being bodyguards and having to fight a war, essentially. A war on whether it be just racism or just against the person who's just being hurt, the little guy, basically, the underdog. So with that and then also his budding career in just becoming an avid South African who just wants to make the country better, because this place is, it's like looking at that kid who just is budding with a ton of potential and that kid is just too lazy.

And then I feel like there's so many people trying and I think that's beautiful. So when he put out the post, I think the first thing that I thought, and actually all of our family thought was this is his way of channeling how to reach out. I don't think any one of us thought about there was not any sympathy or anything like that.

I think it was more just realizing how angry everyone is in this country, how angry and how much they, in their own way, are struggling with their own PTSD. Whether it's, I don't know, when any South African goes to bed at night, they're doing about four or five locks before they go to bed and that's not including an alarm system, assuming you have one. That's every South African.

And there's no safety, there's no security in this country in terms of your life or the possessions. You have a constant thought process of when you get to a set of lights and you're looking in the mirrors constantly to check if you're going to get robbed, if you're going to either lose your life or lose that possession and you have to make a choice and you have to think, don't worry, I've got insurance, I'll be fine. Or you don't and there it goes.

And that's just a factor of part of life and that's where I think, watching that just makes me think that that's where there's no coming together. It's every South African for themselves and kind of fighting and then yes, we're all friendly to each other but there's a point where I feel that the country's kind of lost its way in that sense. And that's where I think that the strength is trying to reach out and try and just, I don't know, I guess it's a little bit...

[Bradley Steyn]

Do better.

[Steven Bosman]

Yeah, a little bit woo to say but just be good to each other. I mean, that's where I think that the country is... There's a joke now which is, what's our biggest export?

Our fruit or the people leaving the country in droves. Professionals because I mean, Australia and all those countries they're just taking every single professional that they can take. And the funny part about that is there's a whole PTS, there's now a South African PTSD in all these first world countries where, because there's so many South Africans out there and they're so used to waking up in this absolute, they hear something at night and they wake up in fear.

And this is three years of living there in a safe country where you're not supposed to, you're not in fear of crime. And it's just a raccoon knocking over the bin. And a few of my friends have said that where it's just, it's the weirdest thing that's something you actually have to start getting used to.

And some of them have to see psychologists just to deal with that PTSD of living here and not even being a victim of a crime. And I think that that should speak volumes of just that reaction, I think is just whether, no matter what your view is, I think it's just a cry for help.

[Janet Smith]

So this returns us to the title of today's episode, which is how to fight the pain of loss. So in Steven, in your case, you are fighting the pain of the loss of John Bosman, farmer, father, and uncle.

[Bradley Steyn]

Builder.

[Janet Smith]

Builder.

[Bradley Steyn]

Blue Bull supporter.

[Janet Smith]

Blue Bull supporter. Steven is a young South African, very young.

[Steven Bosman]

I turned 33.

[Janet Smith]

You're young. 

[Steven Bosman]

Getting old.

[Janet Smith]

You're young. You have a very different outlook on what it means to be a South African. And your circle shares your outlook, which is, you know, joyful about this identity and fearful.

So there are these two persona again in all of you. But fighting the pain of loss is also about what you've just described. The loss of feeling of being protected by a new country that included everybody.

[Steven Bosman]

There is no protection. There's no, there's no, there's no, I mean, like, for example, the detective, you know, he quit. He quit because, you know, he was explaining to us that, you know, he couldn't go and investigate a certain lead because there were just not enough vehicles for the detectives because there's more detectives than there are cars at the police station to go and, you know, there's only three cars or something like a car at the police station of the whole of Nelspruit.

I mean, that is a city now for many years.

Yeah, I think it's... 


[Bradley Steyn]

And the frustration, I remember hearing about the frustration that he was going through because he couldn't actually do his job properly.

[Steven Bosman]

He couldn't do it. I mean, yeah, to this day, I mean, it's 2022. My dad died in October of 2018 and his trial is in two weeks and it's been, but only started this year because of the amount of postponements.

Granted, COVID-19 obviously played a massive factor, but it has not gotten much further. And granted, I don't think it's going to go well, but, you know, it's...

[Bradley Steyn]

Yeah, there's a very good chance this guy who's currently incarcerated, who's part of a gang that operates out of  Pienaar in Mpumalanga, who go around and attack, attack a variety of different people, even within their own community. Steven was talking about meeting the witnesses earlier on and these are witnesses, black people from Pienaar who this guy had a problem with and he walked out into the street and shot somebody, but they are terrified of these gangs and they're terrified to become witnesses and to talk out about them because they know the police can't protect them and look after them because, you know, there's one car working in...

[Steven Bosman]

Yeah, I mean, people have taken it into their own hands as well. You know, not from our side, obviously, but I mean, in general for fighting crime, there's, you know, whole communities, more outskirts, not so much more city centers, more the smaller towns around and, you know, if there's a crime, they will take care of it and they've, you know, risen to that, but there's another whole offset to that, which is now anybody can just cry wolf about somebody who stole something and then this person is going to get extremely hurt for doing possibly nothing just because you didn't like that person and so there's just a lot of, you know, flip sides. There's vigilantism.

There's a whole bunch and I've often, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a person who, you know, I had to stand three meters from this man in the, you know, court and look at him in the eyes and that was, you know, you stand there and you have thoughts. You have. You have like a ton of thoughts going through your head, you know, like, well, there's a gun over there.

It's two meters away from me. I can, you know, I can make this man, you know, die if I really, really wanted to and you know what? The worst thing that you stand there and think about is you can't do that.

You just can't do anything. It's not that anymore. You just can't do anything.

There is no help. There is no, you're helpless. You're helpless.

That is it. You are just helpless. You kind of just have to live with the fact that you cannot do anything unless you turn to, you know, to crime yourself and then you're just becoming the problem that you already have, you know, has approached you to, you know, has approached you to destroy your life.

Yeah, and your family and everyone around you and make everyone who is within a perimeter of yourself miserable for whatever amount of time. Yeah. 

[Bradley Steyn]

So, I just want to, if you don't mind, just ask Steven a question. So, Steven, in your mental health journey, what have, what has been the fallout?

Have you felt depressed? Have you felt anxiety? What, can you tell us what the journey was and how you've been on this journey?

I know you and I have discussed this many times.

[Steven Bosman]

I used to be an avid runner, but I've quit that. My dad used to be a massive runner and I just can't do it anymore. But I would say.

[Bradley Steyn]

Why?
Because you think too much of him while you're running?

[Steven Bosman]

Yeah, I used to. I used to do, I used to do pretty well. I used to hold like school records and stuff like that for whatever time.

And I always used to call him after like a race or something like that. And even though it'd be stupid, it would just be our way of connecting. And then I think, I think the depression did kick in pretty, pretty hard.

A lot of, I mean, but that's, you know, any loss and anxiety. But I mostly buried myself in work, mostly buried myself in work. And I think through the support of, of love and, you know, from my fiance and my family, I think that that has been, you know, massive strides forward.

But I think that you know, having to deal with that, even, you know, dealing with the whole psychology, I don't think I have fully gotten through it. But I do believe that what does make a difference to me and has pushed me is to at least make, I don't know, at least turn whatever that anguish and anger and terrible feeling I can into either, I don't know, something, you know, going and playing drums, I think is definitely a great outlay for me or any, or any, just any physical labor that can lead into a positive way. That's the only coping mechanism I've had to manage to develop for myself.

Other than that, otherwise, it's mostly just... 

[Bradley Steyn]

Was there a point where you decided I had to get help? I need to see a therapist. I have to go get help.

I can't carry on like this anymore. I'm losing my mind. Was there a point like that?

[Steven Bosman]

Yes. Yeah, lots of fits of rage. I came home often.

And, you know, if it would be just stress from work or something like that, it would be it would be something I would just flip my switch. It was like, I was like a person who was on steroids or something, you know, where they just, there was just anything would trigger them. And I think that that was definitely a moment for me where, you know, I was fighting with everyone for everything.

And I think there was definitely a point where I needed to call for help and go and seek that. And I definitely I received that actually, thankfully through my church that I was playing for. I play for a church, Choose Life church up in Pretoria.

And I the one day I just I went to one of the guys, Bruce, who who's a massive, you know, help there. And he was he was my guiding, you know, like, light for just somebody who's willing to sit down and just guide me. So I think, you know, and that's a place where they are, they're willing and they were like, Look, this is beyond us.

We want to we want to give you a little bit of psychological help.

And they guided me to, to actually get some psychotherapy.....

[Bradley Steyn]

Which is really interesting, because you're not a religious person, you were playing at the church, you know, to make money. Well, as a job is what I'm saying. And it was my habit stance that.....

[Steven Bosman]

I would say,you know, I've always been fairly religious. My family's not necessarily religious. I just never push that on to anybody. It's a personal I believe everybody has their personal journey.

And I've always found that like, you know, playing drums at that church is the closest I've ever felt to, you know, religion or God. So, you know, that was a massive moment for me. And then them leading me towards that path was, you know, that was that was, they were the ones who were actually there for me and never really pushed it on me.

They were just there as a support. And I found, I found my religion through that, or it strengthened it. And then also, you know, performing there is this, there's nothing quite like it, you know, there, that's a, that is a place in my mind, where, you know, if you want to see a good community and a place that wants to grow and just grow the people around them for the sake of it, that would be a great starting place, the way that they structure it, I suppose.

[Janet Smith]

So the pain of loss, from your perspective, has been relatively well described. You can feel it, you can articulate it. It comes in many different forms.

And you're going to have to go on supporting your mother and your brother in different ways throughout your life, as they are going to have to support you. Turning to you again, Bradley, around the pain of loss. I think this is an aspect that your family has had to carry you around.

So if I may correct my grammar there, your family carries you too, around your various forms of loss, which you have experienced. And your mental health journey around your experiences is, it's quite a weight. It's quite something for your family to bear, in the sense of not always understanding absolutely where it comes from, or the granular detail of it.

But as we approach the end of this episode, we perhaps need to admire and give love to all the South African families who continue to try and understand each other's losses.

[Bradley Steyn]

Because there's so many stories out there of exactly in different ways.

[Janet Smith]

And we do immediately feel drawn to those stories which are affecting us as a nation. People leaving because they can't bear to stay. People wanting to become angry with you, Bradley, because you're a target for various unresolved issues inside themselves.

People not able to take the term farm attacks and come to grips with everything that circulates around that. And those listeners who perhaps heard the episode, an earlier episode, in which we spoke to Letlapa Mphahlele, who was a Director of Operations for Aplan is now a forgiveness activist. He was talking to us about how residual violence, and it's an intense residual violence that we see today, really comes out of many untied, resolved threads.

We can't look back, make sense of everything that's going on. Not enough communication about things we didn't know about each other. So I want to ask each of you how you would advise other South Africans within your own communities, so in your case, Stephen, young South Africans, how to fight the pain of loss on a broader level.

What would you think makes sense to you now that you've been through this experience? What can you filter through and share with other people?

[Steven Bosman]

That's a good question. I think that it's very easy to go to lose your path, especially with, you know, there's a lot of people with, you know, them projecting their own prejudice and hate upon you to, you know, and them to like, you know, live vicariously through you with your anguish and anger. And then just, you know, they must, they want you to portray their beliefs in terms of, I don't know, you know, people who have...

[Bradley Steyn]

Their ideologies. 

[Steven Bosman]

Yeah, their ideologies, which they're in terms of like being racist and, you know, where it's that usual thing, oh, well, it's guaranteed it's going to be, you know, hating black people. And it's just, it's disgusting the way that people do that.

And I think that that's especially where, you know, you're still easily influenced as a younger generation per se, you know, you're looking to somebody as an elder of elder community, and you're looking to that community to give you guidance because they've obviously gone through, you know, war, they've gone through some, you know, anguish, and they've obviously had a longer time. And those are the people that you generally look to, to get a direction, because you don't know what to do next. You really don't, you just feel stuck.

And I think that that's, that's the, that's the, it's too easy. People find, I think a lot of people tend to go that way. I've seen some of my friends who've experienced that, and they tend to go that direction.

And it's just ridiculous, like, I think it's silly. But I think that the whole thing is that you need to find some form of a way to communicate or talk about it. Or at least a way to have some form of a coping mechanism to, to build yourself into a better person, because there is only one way.

And that's to to look at that and learn from it and help you. It's a part of you now. So make it a building block to making it a better person than, you know, destroying yourself.

[Janet Smith]

Bradley?

[Bradley Steyn]

You know, I just want to take a step back and just just say something that, you know, it took me over 30 years to find closure around the Strijdom Square massacre. And Janet, you actually helped me a lot with that when we actually started researching the names of the victims of the Streatham Square Massacre, who we've dedicated the series of podcasts to. And for me, figuring out what their names were, figuring out a little bit more about them.

And we're still constantly searching for more links to those people and those survivors or victims. But through that very process of going through that, I did really well. And I got better.

Because we were talking about it, you know, unfortunately, we had to go to archives and I had to see the brutality of whatStrydom did to these victims and going through the autopsy files. These things were very, very traumatic and triggering. But, you know, I also felt a lot of closure with that.

So, you know, I'd encourage a lot of people out there that and, you know, us losing Bozzie, my brother-in-law, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of stories of people from Atteridgeville to Durbanville, all across our country. So many people have been affected by crime. So many people are so incredibly desperate in our country because of COVID, for instance, and the fallout from COVID, to our unemployment rates.

People are desperate, people are hungry, people are just so vulnerable and will act out in ways out of desperation because they can't bear to see their children hungry anymore. And I believe us collectively, if we push these politicians to the side that are constantly trying to divide us, and I keep going back to rugby and it's just amazing to me how rugby just does wonderful things for our country and the spirit of our country. If we can just not rely so much on on government and rather just build our relationships and our friendships in communities, understand each other's different cultures and where we come from, you know, we don't necessarily need to like it, but my mom always used to, Stevens gran always used to walk down the road and smile and wave it and just be kind and acknowledge, hey, I see you there, fellow human being. And it's amazing.

She taught me that at a young age. And it's amazing how, you know, that might be exactly what that person needs is just a friendly smile, because they might be going through a world of pain. And that's what they needed to just get through what they're going through.

[Janet Smith]

Bradley, I think just to interject, there will be listeners who don't know what transpired in those posts, and what those posts contained. So if you can just summarize for us what you what you wrote in those posts, and why you managed to have as many people supporting and loving you through those posts, as you did, you know, directing anger at you for two different reasons, for these two different reasons, you were an ANC person. So there were those people who were angry with you, because you were an ANC person.

And then there were those people who were angry with you for perhaps betraying a white history that people say they played no part in, or, you know, they shouldn't have to account for.

[Bradley Steyn]

Yeah. So I decided to make a video on Steven's front porch of our family farm in Nelspruit. And I said, and we'll add a link to this or something where we could show this post.

And I filmed this and saying, oh, this is a beautiful country, but how disappointed I am that the ANC has failed us, that our national security is in tatters, that crime affects everybody across our country. And what ended up happening was the Burger newspaper, or the Beeld newspaper, picked up a story and decided to run a story. But you know, being in the clandestine world, you don't talk about clandestine operations, etc.

You know, we keep the stuff to ourselves, we don't talk about it. But in the article, it came out that I was recruited into uMkhonto we Sizwe. And I was involved with the Department of Intelligence and Security out of the Western Cape, under the command and leadership of General, sorry, Andre Lincoln and Jeremy Veary.

And that story broke. And then this social media post started picking up and becoming more popular or whatever. But what ended up happening was a lot of white South African, South Africans, a lot of them, conservative white South Africans, you know, turned around and said, jy is mos n verraaier, you have betrayed our people and our race.

You know, you can't, you know, you've run away and lived in America. The reason I lived in America, because it was too unsafe for me to live here. The other reason they said is, is, is that, you know, that I have my brother-in-law's blood on my hands.


[Janet Smith]

And because you had  fought on the side of the ANC...

[Bradley Steyn]

Because I had fought, on the side of the ANC and that the, and because the ANC was doing such a piss poor job at running our country that I can't be crying now over spilt milk, because I was part of that.

[Janet Smith]

But so you had, from their point of view, you had relinquished your right to comment on this.

[Steven Bosman]

And that he was part to blame.

[Janet Smith]

As an impartial, yeah.

[Bradley Steyn]

And that I was part to blame for. 

[Steven Bosman]

Which he is not. 

[Bradley Steyn]

Helping the ANC get into power, which, you know, that's, I had a minuscule role in, in contributing to the liberation movement.

There's, there's bigger heroes, etc. And then, but you know, which was incredible for me was that my mentor, well, actually my handler in the ANC, Jeremy Vearey, who at the time was a major general in the South African police force, turned around and, and said, Bradley's betrayal was a righteous betrayal. And he wrote this very moving letter about, I don't know, can you recall any of it?

[Steven Bosman]

Was this Andre Lincoln's one?

[Bradley Steyn]

No, Jeremy Vearey's letter, stating that, you know, at least I, I did something and, and stood up and......

[Steven Bosman]

You said something where it was in a place where no one was saying anything really, except just hate from either you're going to be extremely left wing or extremely right wing. And somehow this became a political battle where, you know, and everyone was either, you know, just hating on other sides, but there was no objective or any point just to speak at all. 

[Bradley Steyn]

There was no cohesion. Yeah.

[Janet Smith]

So this is a reflection of, of that, that sort of chaotic place where we find ourselves in. Jeremy was trying to endorse your bona fides, right? You know, Bradley is a patriot.

And he was seeing it through his prism.

[Bradley Steyn]

Through his lens, being my handler.

[Janet Smith]

That's right. And what a beautiful, important moment for you and your family that somebody of that stature could stand up for you.

[Bradley Steyn]

Yeah.

[Janet Smith]

Yet that only deepened the anger from those people who saw you as a traitor. Yeah. So we're stuck in that place right now.

And, and, you know, in terms of Steven's need to be quiet, come to terms with his father's death, this is noise. All of it is, is tremendous amount of noise.

[Bradley Steyn]

And to me, I got to be very blunt with you. It actually really pissed me off beyond belief because all I wanted was my family to grieve. All I wanted to do was, was just call the ANC out, call Bheki Cele out, call our national security ministers out and just say, you know, you know, what the hell, you know, let's, let's, let's sort this out, you know, let's get this, let's get our stuff together here.

And, but, you know, it just, and, and, you know, there's noise just, you know, my sister and I are incredibly close. My sister, his mom Lee basically raised me because my mother was too busy working at the state theatre and my dad was working at Grant McKenzie's in Pretoria. So my sister and Bozzie, John helped raise me, you know, and it's, it's, it's, and it kills me still to this day.

My sister left, she just came to visit us in Cape Town. She left two days, three days ago, and I still, I, I see her pain, I see her anguish, I see how heartbroken she is. And it, it, it infuriates me because I'm so frustrated because I can't do anything.

I can't, like Stephen say, said earlier on, I can't go and kill that guy, you know, because, you know, you can't do that. But it's just being twisted and his legal team are manipulating the system because they know they can.

[Janet Smith]

So as we, as we bring this very tough episode to a close and thanking you both again, I do want to reflect on, on Bradley's strength around Strydom. And Bradley's life has been much, much bigger than Barend Strydom and walking into a massacre on Strijdom Square. However, that is a defining aspect of Bradley's life.

[Bradley Steyn]

But I mean, he's, he's not, I mean, as said in the, you know, the introduction, you know, that, that, that's led him to, I mean, it was an extremely unfortunate circumstance, but he made that not only, he made it a pillar of his life, that he has lived an incredible life. I mean, an incredible life, seriously. I mean, he has traveled the world, more places than most people bear to boast.

And not for reasons, you know, where most, you know, corporate, no shots to anybody, but, you know, traveled the world and seen different places and with different people where most people would pay millions just to sit with next to that person would be, you know, that, that life is, is it's, it's just unobtainable. And, and then on top of that, it's, you know, where most people are just attaining either, you know, some wealth or fame, he's gone and also found a deeper sense of meaning in life in terms of, you know, career path, in terms of family, in terms of mental health, in terms of actually finding himself as a person. And then also coming back to the country that he fought so hard for and, you know, getting the, reaping the rewards, but still fighting.

And on top of that, I think that that's, that's huge.

[Janet Smith]

I think what I, what I wanted to, to reflect on in closing is your urging when I first met you to meet Strydom and you weren't sure what you would do if you met him. And when we were discussing these various opportunities that you had open to you to engage with him, what made me curious was why, why do you want to be in the space of Barend Strydom, who brought you so much pain? And as Steven has said, such a strange and involved life, but you did meet Strydom in the end.

And so as we, as we close this, this podcast series, I wonder if I could ask you just to mention what that was like. Yes, you met Strydom under what one would assume are false pretenses. You didn't say you were Bradley Steyn.

You didn't say, I am, you know, that boy who was holding one of your victims on the square and you made eye contact with me. And in fact, you tried to have a conversation with me while I had a dying man in my lap. You will not have forgotten me, but you handled it a little differently.

I think you just wanted to have a sense of him and then you could develop a little bit more closure, but that will go on. Your mental health journey goes on.

[Bradley Steyn]

Yeah. And, you know, this is an ongoing thing and it's an ongoing story. You know, we still working on a podcast, a bigger part and on a documentary that talks about, you know, this journey that I've been on witnessing this traumatic event as a child and, you know, my journey with mental health and this incredible life, you know, that Steven just spoken about.

You know, my wife of almost 20 years and who's my rock and my pillar and, you know, who's just been remarkable and my support group, my mentors have just been incredible from Los Angeles all the way to South Africa. But to answer your question, Janet, we, it was important that we got some face time with Strydom. So I spoke to some of my former intelligence community friends and we set up a bit of a ruse and took some artwork to Strydom's business.

He's a art framer in a community outside Pretoria called Hartbeespoortdam. And I took some old Boereoorlog Boer War memorabilia to him to frame. And, you know, I was, because I've been in the States for many years, I have picked up a bit of an American accent, I've got a bit of a twang.

And so I didn't say very much. I just accompanied two people under the auspices of getting these pictures framed. And, you know, I just summed this man up and how lonely his life is, how scared he must be every day when he walks out of his house, and the biggest gratification that I got from that whole encounter was paying him with Madiba's face on the money.

You know, that brought me a lot of joy. But just to also see that this man...

[Janet Smith]

He has his own loss.

[Bradley Steyn]

He has his own loss. And he lives in a very cold and and dark and lonely place. And I'm just glad I'm far from that.

So, yeah.

[Janet Smith]

Thank you both.

[Steven Bosman]

Thank you. 

[Janet Smith]

Very much. 

[Steven Bosman]

Appreciate it.

[Janet Smith]

Thank you.