The mortal fight against apartheid is usually cast in terms of good vs evil, a simple schism in which there are heroes and villains, or racially, in a white against black equation that blots out pretty much all else in between. But of course, this is hardly ever the case.
Apartheid – and the racial segregation it was based on – thoroughly tested ethical principles and stances, made unlikely heroes of some and improbable scoundrels of others. It besmirched moral lenses more often than not.
And because the sight it proffered isn’t usually pretty – and to protect the collective sanity of South Africans – there had to be neat ethical resolutions for untidy political and moral dilemmas.
The result was that many individuals fell through the cracks in the unfolding story of apartheid’s collateral damage.
One such figure is Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the formidable founder of the PAC. He is the subject of a May 2022 Robben Island Museum hosted exhibition titled, “Remember Africa, Remember Sobukwe”.
Sobukwe, in very trying times, remains an unsung hero in the epic moral fight against the evil that was apartheid.
He was a political leader, a social activist and genuine humanist who stood undaunted and undefeated by the deadly curveballs apartheid threw at him.
Sobukwe casually subverts apartheid’s assumed ethical linearity by adding what is now unjustly viewed as a minority voice.
Dubbed “Biko before Biko”, he was once perceived to possess more revolutionary potential than Nelson Mandela.
In attempting to dismantle apartheid’s vice-grip, Sobukwe discountenanced suggestions and methods of integrationism, a stance that saw him part ways with the ANC.
This led to the formation of his own still-surviving movement, the PAC, in 1959.
There’s an African proverb that speaks directly to what many perceive to be Sobukwe’s undervalued status in South African political history.
The proverb, popularised by author and poet Chinua Achebe, goes like this: “Until the lions have become their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
The ANC – and not the PAC – emerged victorious in a winner-takes-all contest that marked the end of apartheid. Due to this outcome, Sobukwe’s historical significance naturally receded.
Even under apartheid Sobukwe could have had a much easier life if he chose.
In 1954, he was appointed as a lecturer in the department of Bantu languages at the historically white University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
The importance of education was instilled in him and his sibblings as a boy by his struggling parents. Even in imprisonment Sobukwe would acquire a degree in economics and another in law after he was released.
However, Sobukwe was not content to live within the comforts provided by academia. He had joined the radical wing of the ANC Youth League. He subsequently became the editor of the uncompromising periodical, The Africanist.
In 1960, Sobukwe launched the Positive Decisive Campaign to peacefully protest against apartheid pass laws.
He had informed the apartheid authorities of his non-violent protest. Nonetheless, the authorities responded by massacring 69 individuals at Sharpeville.
Applying the Criminal Law Amendment Act with criminal intent, Sobukwe was sentenced to three years of incarceration with hard labour served at Pretoria Central and Witbank prisons.
When the time for his release came, parliament promulgated the Sobukwe Clause, which saw him serve another six years at the notorious Robben Island. But he refused to be broken.
After he was eventually released, he was banished to Kimberley where he had no family and friends, which must have felt like another spell of solitary confinement.
Indeed, his life was never the same after his incarceration. From that time until his eventual death from lung cancer in 1978, he was severed from family, friends, medical care and economic opportunities.
The intention of the apartheid regime had been to annihilate him psychologically and physically. They humiliated and starved him and denied him permission to take up opportunities offered to him in the US.
Indeed, the systematic torture and horror meted out to him by apartheid authorities were simply mind-blowing. They created a concatenation of arid dungeons from which there was no escape specifically for him. When he died, his burial in Graaff-Reinet was arranged by Azapo and was attended by 5,000 people.
Sobukwe was principled, uncompromising, dedicated and courageous. When hope faltered and died, he resurrected it, where the enervated cried out for help and succour, he provided it. And as many of his faithful followers at the Robben Island Museum exhibition testified, he was undoubtedly a man for all seasons.
- Osha is senior research fellow at the Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town. This article first appeared on The Conversation.
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