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| Robert Sobukwe R.I.P. Friday 1924/12/05 Monday 1978/02/27 |
POSTHUMOUS DESECRATION IS THE REAL PROSPECT FOR SOUTH AFRICAN PATRIOTS WHO, ON THE BASES OF NARROW PARTY INTERESTS, TRIBALISM AND RACISM, REFUSE TO STAND FOR ONE ANOTHER ON A NATIONAL RATHER THAN A SPOKEN-LANGUAGE AND REGIONAL BASIS.
It was one of the Fridays of December 1924.
Workers, those among them who were not overworked, were looking forward to a weekend's respite.
It was all good. Except, one woman was in labour; and she was giving birth to Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, a future father of South Africa's political party called the "Pan Africanist Congress of Azania"[1] a.k.a “PAC”.
The PAC is credited for the June 1976 Uprising whose epicentre was not only in Soweto (a traditionally black and poverty-wracked megasuburb on the outskirts of traditionally white and economically vibrant Johannesburg), but left the indelible mark as the one political campaign that hastened the day of South Africa’s liberation.
Sobukwe among others, a former member of the ANC's Youth League, left the ANC to pioneer the PAC because of the fear that “the ANC, by virtue of adopting in Soweto's Kliptown the Freedom Charter, was in fact leaving the teachings in the founding principles of the ANC back in 1912. Sobukwe and his fellow Africanists were particularly irked by a clause in the Freedom Charter reading: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”
“How can our land become ihenyukazi....[2]?” The Africanists were asking in exquisitely justified indignation.
"...where [Germany belongs to the Germans, Tanzania to the Tanzanians but South Africa 'to all who live in it'?].
"...where [Germany belongs to the Germans, Tanzania to the Tanzanians but South Africa 'to all who live in it'?].
The late Sobukwe, like his fellow-youthleaguer (current Nelson Mandela), is a shining example of South Africa's robustness in issues of human rights, if not issues of qualitative world-class leadership acumen.
Sadly, though, this post emerges from a website where the grave of Sobukwe, indeed, the very symbol of his heritage, was vandalized for the third time!
The PAC is NOT the ruling party currently in South Africa, but the ANC is. Now, can you foresee in the distant future when Mandela will have gone to his ancestors, to see someone vandalizing his grave?
I guess your answer is: IT SHALL NEVER HAPPEN TO MANDELA!
On the contrary, I humbly beg to differ!
I submit that (may God forbid it though) that may well be in the pipeline seeing that the two Xhosa-speaking men (Sobukwe and Mandela, among others) were ostensibly vying for the title "WHO, BETWEEN THE ANC AND THE PAC OF THE 50’S IS HOLDING THE HELM OF THE FOUNDING PRINCIPLES OF THE ANC BACK IN ITS 1912 SWADDLING CLOTHES?"
Sadly, neither Mandela nor Sobukwe mentions Pixley Seme in all seriousness in any of their recorded jewels and intellectual zeniths.
In this regard, the Xhosa-speaking gentlemen Sobukwe and Mandela who had dined and supped with Zulu-speaking ANC-founder Seme are even outshined by a young man who was born long after Seme had died in articulating the founding principles of the ANC back in 1912. They are outshined by30-year-old Pedi-speaking Julius Sello Malema) by way of "land-first-demands" recognizing the self-same Seme's close-to-the-heart efforts of getting at least farming land for the native like he did for some African residents of Volksrust in South Africa's Mpumalanga Province.
Thinking South Africans put the reason for Sobukwe-Mandela muteness on Seme in the fact that both Mandela and Sobukwe came from the Eastern Cape while Pixley Seme from KwaZulu Natal! In short, TRIBALISM.
There is even a school of thought suggesting that the rise of another Zulu to the highest office in the land was deliberately encumbered by yet another Easterncaper, President Thabo Mbeki and as we go on print, [Mbeki is supposed to be weighing his availability as well as options of whether and if whether when and how to respond to what amounts to allegations of yet another instance of regionalism by an Eastern-Caper against a weaker person by means of the abuse of state power just because the victim is not from the president's favoured home region].
There is even a school of thought suggesting that the rise of another Zulu to the highest office in the land was deliberately encumbered by yet another Easterncaper, President Thabo Mbeki and as we go on print, [Mbeki is supposed to be weighing his availability as well as options of whether and if whether when and how to respond to what amounts to allegations of yet another instance of regionalism by an Eastern-Caper against a weaker person by means of the abuse of state power just because the victim is not from the president's favoured home region].
Now both the ANC and the PAC will eat you alive for any suggestion of tribalism in the philosophies of their icons like Mbeki, Mandela and Sobukwe (particularly in the area of rhetorical execution of those philosophies in the leadership to the ANC and the PAC). Yet logic dictates that parties who are going to survive ["till the Second Coming of Jesus"] are those who will not only spurn denialism, but will also be bold enough to accept that the truth is irrepressible and that perhaps Xhosa-speaking Sobukwe did not say enough about his political ancestor and protege, Zulu-speaking Seme. Full stop.
P.S. As of December 8, 2011 in relation to allegations that President Thabo Mbeki was personally instrumental in preferring several charges against his then weaker rival, current President Jacob Zuma, a response has since at last issued from teh Mbeki camp. Convincing? You judge!
[1] "Azania" is the preferred name for South Africa stemming from Arabic's "Zinj" for "The Black Man's Country" or "Zion" which is the preferred interpretation from the ancient scribes' "Zn" seeing that the original writing and the first the world had ever seen (made in Africa by the name of "hieroglyphics") never used vowels.
[2] The IsiXhosa Language for “a prostitute”. The Zulu word for it it would be “isifebe” and the Siswati word, “ingwababane”, while Kiswahili would be “malaya”.
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