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ROBERT SOBUKWE - INTELLECTUAL SKETCH |
| It continues to be difficult in the year 2000 to make a focussed reading of Robert Sobukwe’s permanent position in the political history of South Africa, although he has been dead for more than two decades. The difficulty resides principally in the fact that he was the leader in 1959 of a breakaway faction from the African National Congress (ANC) which came to be known as Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). The ostensible reason Sobukwe gave for leaving the ANC was his suspicion that it had been infiltrated by Communists and was operating under the influence of Communist ideology. This act led to a great schism in African Nationalism. What Sobukwe achieved in 1959 had been attempted before in 1950-51 by the great R. V. Selope Thema. Where Selope Thema failed, Sobukwe succeeded in leaving with a sizable contingent of cadres and members. What was really at the center of Robert Sobukwe’s action was the interrelationship between Communism and Nationalism, within the ANC, or for that matter, within an African Liberation Struggle. This dialectic between Communism and Nationalism at the center of African people’s struggle for justice and liberty thoughout the whole twentieth-century in South Africa was also in many ways a defining historical force within the New African Movement as it struggled with the issue of modernity. In an essential way, the historical figure figure influencing the actions of R. V. Selope Thema and Robert Sobukwe was Anton Lembede, although he was not closely associated with them, may not even have known Sobukwe personally. The reason for Anton Lembede’s overshadowing their actions is because at the time of the founding of the ANC Youth League in 1944-5 he formulated a new, dynamic and revolutionary definition of African Nationalism, as we shall see in a moment. In many ways, Lembede’s re-definition of African Nationalism was at the vanguard position of African politics for nearly two decades. One way of indicating the overshadow of Anton Lembede over the actions of Robert Sobukwe in 1959 is that the only senior member of the ANC who marched with Sobukwe out of the ANC was A. P. Mda. Although A. P. Mda never officially joined the Pan Africanist Congress, he was present at its founding, it is safe to say he was its early guiding light. A. P. Mda happens to have been not only Anton Lembede best friend from their early days to the last days of Lembede in 1947, he was ideologically the closest to Lembede when the latter reformulated African Nationalism and shaped the ideological vision of the ANC Youth League, not Nelson Mandela or William Nkomo or Walter Sisulu or Oliver Tambo, who were also Youth Leaguers. The other indicator of the overshadow of Anton Lembede on Robert Sobukwe’s actions in 1959 is that the only major New African intellectual to give endorsement to these actions was Jordan K. Ngubane. Ngubane happens to have been not only a close friend of Anton Lembede in the historic year of 1944-5, he was also the one, as editor of the Inkundla ya Bantu bi-monthly in the years 1943-51, who transformed it to an ideological organ of the ANC Youth League. It was on this bi-monthly that all the important writings of Lembede on nationalism appeared. Jordan Ngubane’s endorsement of Robert Sobukwe’s actions in 1959 was an implicit evaluation of the extent to which it was a continuation of the legacy of Anton Lembede concerning African Nationalism. Whereas practically all the New African intellectuals and political leaders in the upper echelons of the ANC viewed the actions of Robert Sobukwe as counter- revolutionary and betrayal of the cause of the African people, Jordan Ngubane praises him as moving forward in the cause of African Nationalism. In fact, revealingly Jordan Ngubane entitles his article “Mr. Sobukwe Moves Forward” in the Indian Opinion newspaper (July 3, 1959). Interestingly, Jordan Ngubane was taxing Robert Sobukwe with a narrow and particularistic conception of African Nationalism which was not expansive enough to accommodate other races and ethnic groups in South Africa in a comprehensive multi-racialism. All of this is sufficient indication that Robert Sobukwe was in the early 1960s developing into a major New African political leader. This attribute was appended to him because of the actions of the PAC that led to the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960. His stature was on the rise that Lewis Nkosi wrote an assessment of it. This was revealing in its unusualness because like other members of the Sophiatown Renaissance cultural movement Lewis Nkosi very rarely ventured into political matters. Appraising him in the context of the Sharpeville Massacre that had occurred two years before, Lewis Nkosi wrote: “In March 1960 Robert Sobukwe, president of the banned Pan Africanist Congress, helped to orchestrate a crisis that panicked the South African Government and nearly brought about the kind of political anarchy which all too often makes possible the transference of power overnight. . . Who is this man who so nearly paralyzed the country? What is his claim to political power and leadership, and what is his future in this perplexing country where power and influence in the black community have been constant? . . . It is difficult to make an impartial evaluation of Sobukwe. He is not the racialist some ANC leaders have charged that he is. However, the tactics he is using for strategic reasons encourage chauvinism and, ultimately perhaps, genuine racialism. It seems to me that this strategy is a very dangerous one. It can work in those parts of the continent where the population is by and large homogeneously black, but a consciously racial African nationalist party cannot muster all the help that will be required for liberation in a part of Africa which is compellingly multiracial in character. Black and white in South Africa are Siamese twins and neither can explain itself coherently without taking into consideration this existential nature of the black-and-white encounter” (Lewis Nkosi, “Robert Sobukwe: An Assessment”, Africa Report, April 1962). Indeed the question posed by history to a New African intellectual or political leader such as Robert Sobukwe in the South African context, so well articulated by Lewis Nkosi is: how can black nationalism totalize the complex nature of a multi-racial society? The inability to give a historical response to this question, gradually forced Robert Sobukwe to modify his black nationalism very profoundly to the point of nearly negating the historical legitimacy of the splintering of the PAC from the ANC. The disaster of the PAC in exile from 1960 to 1990 under the tragic and opportunistic leadership of Potlako Kitchener Leballo and the miniscule support of only 4% in the free elections of post-apartheid South Africa in 1994 and in 1999 seems to indicate that PAC never overcame the historical contradiction of black nationalism! But all of this history does not necessarily gainsay the quality of political mind that Robert Sobukwe possessed, especially in the late 1950s and in the early 1960s. The quality of his brilliant mind is apparent in the interview he gave from prison following his arrest as a consequence of his role in mobilization of the people which the state repressed through the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960. Expressing his belief in the ultimate triumph of the African people against oppression and apartheid, Robert Sobukwe articulated his political vision in the following manner: “One is convinced of the ultimate triumph of our cause, because it is a just cause. While we are fighting for the vindication of every man’s right to life abundant, those wjo oppress us are fighting in defence of greed and baaskap arrogance. We have a strong intellectual and moral case. They have none. Ultimately they rely on pure brute force. We can justifiably look upon ourselves as the champions of mankind, because our aim is to restore to and preserve for mankind the best in human civilization---and we use the term ‘human’ advisedly, for we don’t subscribe to the view that civilization is the proud possession of any particular group of people or any particular part of the globe. We are sure to win because right must triumph over might, freedom over serfdom. We are sure to win because the lessons of history are that those who are fighting in a struggle such as our own are assured of victory.” Aligning his historical vision with that of Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmore, Robert Sobukwe continued: “Let me state why a union of African states is necessary. There are those reasons which can be summed up as follows: 1) It is necessary to give form of expression to the desire of the African people for unity; 2) It is necessary for the defense of every country in the continent. For just as the oppressor set tribe against tribe in the earlier struggle for Africa, he will most likely set country against country in an attempt to maintain foothold on the continent; 3) Today the historical lesson is that it is those countries which are territorially expansive and have large populations which have taken over world leadership, as in the case of America and Russia. It is only a United States of Africa that can mould Africa into a power strong enough to ensure its independence in world politics. A common programme for the economic and social reconstruction of Africa will contribute to this, with a combined effort for the exploitation of the vast mineral and human resources of the continent for the benefit of every part of it” (Matthew Nkoana, “Sobukwe Speaks From Gaol”, Contact, April 6, 1961). Nkoana obtained this interview while he was imprisoned with his great master. Released early, he went to propagating and disseminating widely the ideology of the Pan Africanist Congress. In the early 1960s in exile in London Matthew Nkoana became a major ideologue of the political organization. In his brilliant writings of South African political history, Nkoana traced significant parallels between the political heritages of Anton Lembede and that of Robert Sobukwe (Matthew Nkoana, “South Africa’s heroes in the struggle for emancipation”, The New African, September 1966). But the actual unity of perspectives between Robert Sobukwe and Anton Lembede still awaits a serious political and scholarly evaluation. Nevertheless, Robert Sobukwe because of his brilliant intellect was a major political figure within the New African Movement. | |