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JOHN TENGO JABAVU |
| Although John Tengo Jabavu was a towering intellectual figure in the late nineteenth-century for having founded Imvo Zabantsundu newspaper in 1884 which he made a forum of ideas for the Native Educational Association and Lovedale Literary Society intellectuals (Elijah Makiwane, Pambani Jeremiah Mzimba, Thomas Mapikela, Isaac Wauchope, Walter B. Rubusana and others), in the twentieth century as a political leader he had completely destroyed his reputation by in 1898 supporting the white Afrikaner Bond which was inimical to the progress of Africans, in 1912 opposing the formation of the African National Congress (ANC), in 1913 supporting the Natives Land Act which in effect confiscated land from Africans and was oppossed by all New African intellectuals and political leaders, and in 1914 in order to prevent Walter Rubusana from being returned to the Cape Provincial Council from Tembuland ran against him and thereby making it possible for a white candidate to win. It was because of his shift towards conservatism and sycophancy towards white oppression and European right wing politics that compelled Allan Kirkland Soga, Walter B. Rubusana to launch in 1897 the Izwi Labantu newspaper as counter-balance to Imvo Zabantsundu. By the time of his death in 1924, John Tengo Jabavu was in complete disrepute in African circles, a situation that has prevailed throughout the twentieth-century. This is totally understandable even though he was the principle force behind the founding of Fort Hare University in 1916. In a biographical study of his father which in effect is an apologia, The Life of John Tengo Jabavu: Editor of Imvo Zabantsundu, 1884-1921, whose publication coincided with his death in 1924, his son D. D. T. Jabavu wrote the following estimation of him in the Foreword: "In all probability the future African historian will class John Tengo Jabavu as the great celebrity of his generation who through sheer industry, rising from the most obscure origin to the pinnacles of fame, raised the Bantu race a stage upward by virtue of his political and educational achievement. Many of the present generation in South Africa, whilst they realise, in a way, that Jabavu was a dominating historical figure during the eighties and nineties, nevertheless know very little of the actual services he patriotically rendered to his country." Later in the body of the monograph D. D. T. Jabavu writes this fascinating and adulative paragraph, which in many ways can be argued with and deserves to be quoted in full: "So with our hero. In his day he rose to all occasions and opportunities that presented themselves before him, rising higher than all other Native leaders and educated men who are reckoned as his rivals. For a quarter of a century the word of Tengo Jabavu in the Imvo was dogmatically accepted as authoritative, and unchallengeable, as the index of right policy in connection with Native affairs throughout South Africa. His political strength and popularity was lagely due to his journal which was the only Native paper read in Cape Colony, Transvaal and Orange Free State. His prolonged success and poipularity aroused envy and opposition on tribal and other grounds, and his country-men, whom he had so well trained in the value of journalism, endeavoured to imitate his methods and floated short-lived rival journals to dispute his sway. At the same time his limitations began to be apparent for his political trust in men rather than measures led him to commit his one great mistake that of supporting Sauer's 'Natives Land Act' of 1913" (p.47). For sure, Allan Kirkland Soga and Walter B. Rubusana to be sure disagreed with such a positive profile of John Tengo Jabavu. In a chapter on John Tengo Jabavu in his classic book Native Life in South Africa (1916), Solomon T. Plaatje wrote harsh things about his support of the Natives Land Act, but we contend ourselves with these relatively calm words: "God forbid that we should ever find that our mind had become the property of someone other than ourselves; but should such a misfortune ever overtake us, we should at least strive to serve our new proprietor diligently, and whenever our people are unanimously opposed to [such] a policy, we should consider it a part of our duty to tell him so; but that is not Mr. Jabavu's way of serving a master. . . . Poor fellow!" (p.197). Given Solomon T. Plaatje's high reputation not only in post-Apartheid South Africa, this justifiable condemnation of John Tengo Jabavu makes it unlikely that his reputation will in the near future be re-assessed. The extraordinary Reader's Digest Illustrated History of South Africa: The Real Story (1994; expanded third edition; completely updated) refers to Plaatje as a South African intellectual and political giant. At the closing ceremony of the 25th anniversary of the signing of the treaty that established CARICOM (the Caribbean Community and Common Market) and of the 19th neeting of Caribbean Heads of Government, which took place on July 4, 1988 in St. Lucia, President Nelson Mandela referred to Solomon T. Plaatje as 'the founding father of the African National Congress'. Perhaps the bottom line is that the later outrageously tragic political acts of John Tengo Jabavu should not obviate the fact that early in his career the founding of Imvo Zabantsundu in 1884 facilitate the intellectual expression of the Xhosa cultural renascence that happened in the Cape at the moment of their entrance into modernity. For example, the early poetry of the great Xhosa poet S. E. K. Mqhayi was published in this newspaper. It may be this is what Z. K. Matthews had in mind when he wrote the following in his intellectual sketch of John Tengo Jabavu: "This is not intend to imply that Jabavu's views were always sound or correct. His contemporaries did not always agree with him. In fact he was often bitterly opposed by them. For example, his views on the Native Land Act of 1913 were strongly condemned by leaders such as Solomon T. Plaatje, whose book Native Life in South Africa gives a gripping account of what that Act meant in terms of hardship to thousands of Africans. Similarly Jabavu's action in contesting the Tembuland Cape Provincial Council seat against Dr. W. B. Rubusana which led to the defeat of the latter by a European candidate has always been looked upon with disfavour by Africans to say the least of it. But throughout this period, he kept going the Imvo and not only delighted his readers with his mastery of the English Language in his leading articles, but also contributed to the development of the Xhosa Language through the vernacular columns of Imvo" ("The Jabavu Family", Imvo Zabantsundu, June 10, 1961). | |