In his classic song, ‘Some day we'll all be free’, the legendary, black American soul singer, Donny Hathaway, sings:

Keep your self-respect, your manly pride
Get yourself in gear
Keep your stride.
Never mind your fears
Brighter days will soon be here

Keep on walking tall, hold your head up high.
Lay your dreams right up to the sky.
Sing your greatest song.
And you'll keep, going, going on.

He ends his song by saying:

Just wait and see, someday we'll all be free.
Take it from me, someday we'll all be free.
It won't be long. Take it from me, someday we'll all be free.
Take it from me, take it from me, and take it from me

Even though Donny Hathaway was on the other side of the Atlantic when he released this inspirational song in 1973, there is a sense in which this song encapsulates the essence of what Mangaliso Sobukwe was about.

Monday, 27 February, marked the 34th anniversary of the passing of Sobukwe and because of the kind country we have become there wasn't a grand state-sponsored event in his honour or speeches by our president or any other senior government minister.

There may be a few credible commemorative events organised by the Pan Africanist Congress, or perhaps some other organisations that share Sobukwe's vision. Other than that, the day that should have been National Sobukwe Day passed like any other day.

Those who worked with Sobukwe or have read any credible account of his life and contribution will inevitably find themselves asking the question: How it is that a man who gave so much to our people's quest for dignity has become a mere footnote in the contemporary narrative of our people's liberation struggle?

The story of Sobukwe is simply one of supreme personal courage, extraordinary vision and pure inspiration. Together with people like Ntsu Mokhehle of Lesotho, Joe Matthews, Denis Siwisa and Duma Nokwe, he started his political activism in the ANC Youth League as a student at Fort Hare University. Because of this extraordinary leadership and oratory, he later became the president of the Student Representative Council at the same university.

Later, ideological differences emerged between him and some within the African National Congress, relating essentially to the leadership of the liberation struggle. As a result of these differences, he and those who shared his point of view initiated a break away from the ANC and, in 1959, they formed the PAC, which Sobukwe led as its founding president.

Even though the PAC was relatively new on the political scene, in March 1960, Sobukwe and his peers decided to organise anti-pass protests across South Africa. On 21 March, Sobukwe led the protest to the Orlando Police Station in Soweto and, on the same day, in a related march to the Sharpeville Police Station, also organised by the PAC, the apartheid police responded by shooting and killing the protestors.

The official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, and 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children. Many were shot in the back as they turned to flee. This tragedy later became known as the Sharpeville Massacre, today commemorated as Human Rights Day.

As a result of his political activities, in particular his leadership role in the anti-pass protests, Sobukwe was arrested by the Vorster regime for incitement, among other things, and was given a three-year sentence. At the end of his sentence, the Vorster regime quickly rushed to parliament to pass the General Law Amendment Act of 1963, which empowered the then Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, to review the sentence of a political prisoner annually and prolong it at his discretion. This procedure later became known as the ‘Sobukwe Clause’ and, as a result of it, Sobukwe was moved to Robben Island for an additional six years.

After his release on 13 May 1969, Sobukwe joined his family in Kimberley, but was placed under 12-hour house arrest, under the notorious Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, and restricted from political activity because at the time the PAC was banned.

It is interesting to note the time and resources the apartheid government spent on dealing with just one man. It is also reported that, even on Robben Island, the guards were given strict instructions to make sure that Sobukwe was kept isolated and that he did not mingle with other prisoners because the authorities feared he might influence them.

The paranoia of the apartheid regime is perhaps best explained in the words of then Prime Minister of Apartheid South Africa, John Vorster, who said of Sobukwe:

‘He was a man with a magnetic personality, great organising ability and a divine sense of mission’.

At an early age, Sobukwe showed a keen interest in literature and was blessed with an incisive mind. He was also a theoretician and intellectual of such note that his peers insisted on calling him ‘Prof.’, although he never actually held that position at a university. In fact, some of the pioneers of mid-20th century African nationalism in South Africa, like Godfrey Pijte and AM Mda, credit him with having enhanced their own intellectual development.

So committed to the pursuit of knowledge and truth was Sobukwe that, when he lost his post as a teacher in Standerton in 1950 (for speaking in favour of the Defiance Campaign), he moved to Johannesburg, where he took up a post as a lecturer in African Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. During the same period he also took up the editorship of ‘The Africanist’.

Not even prison could diminish Sobukwe's hunger for knowledge. While he was incarcerated, he went on to obtain an Honours Degree in Economics from the University of London and later studied law. He completed his degree in Kimberley, where he served his articles, and started his law firm in 1975. In recognition of his intellectual and academic depth he was offered several teaching posts in the United States of America, but he was unable to accept appointment because the Vorster regime would not permit him to leave the country.

There is an interesting story about how the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who was a peer of Sobukwe at Fort Hare University and in the ANCYL, attended Sobukwe's funeral in 1978 and was supposed to speak at this event, but for some reason or another was unable to do so.

However, in February 1998, twenty years later, Mrs Veronica Sobukwe, the wife of Sobukwe, invited Dr Buthelezi to Sobukwe's commemoration, which was held in his home town of Graaff Reinet at the Civic Centre. There Dr Buthelezi delivered the eulogy he had intended to deliver at Sobukwe's funeral twenty years earlier.

In his eulogy, he said of Sobukwe:

‘No one who had the privilege to know Mangaliso Sobukwe could miss that he was a gifted leader with a great potential, and with a great role to play in the liberation struggle of his people’.

He went on to say:

‘Time has proven how his life and his sacrifices have contributed to bringing South Africa to its present stage and to making us what we are today. Today, more than twenty years later, we see how the multi-faceted nature of our struggle has reflected the great variety of problems and challenges now confronting all of us. History had to produce Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe so that Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe could give such a great contribution to produce our country's history. He now belongs to history as he belongs to South Africa and to the whole of Africa. South Africa and rest of the continent shall continue to resort to the legacy of his memory and wisdom in order to complete our unfinished agenda of commitments to the cause of liberation and justice for all’.

Dr Buthelezi is correct – Sobukwe's contribution to our democracy was great and he belongs to all of South Africa and Africa. This is why it is a monumental shame and profound paradox that, in the era of political freedom, there has to be periodic protests just so Sobukwe and others could be afforded the honour they deserve.

This kind of sectarianism is understandable when it comes from a racist minority government, but when it comes from a government that is led by an organisation that was part of our people's liberatory efforts- it is totally baffling.

In helping us to understand the parochialism of Africa’s post-colonial elite, in his is celebrated book, The Wretched of the Earth, in the chapter ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness’, the Algerian thinker and revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, makes the following point:

‘National consciousness, instead of being the all-embracing crystallization of the innermost hopes of the whole people, instead of being the immediate and most obvious result of the mobilization of the people, will be in any case only an empty shell, a crude and fragile travesty of what it might have been. The faults that we find in it are quite sufficient explanation of the facility with which, when dealing with young and independent nations, the nation is passed over for the race, and the tribe is preferred to the state. These are the cracks in the edifice which show the process of retrogression that is so harmful and prejudicial to national effort and national unity’.

The story of our people's quest for dignity typifies these pitfalls and this is why our story cannot be complete if it does not accurately reflect the contribution and role of all our freedom fighters. If Sobukwe's story dies-our collective memory as a people suffers. It is too precious a story and we must do everything in our power to make sure it lives.

Like Hani, Biko and many others, Sobukwe's every thought and every action were dedicated to the struggle to the restore the dignity of the dispossessed in our country. When confronted by the racist brutality of the white power structure, he did not wince-he stood his ground and fought the system with every ounce of his being.

He was a man among men, and it doesn't matter what our political affiliation is or in which part of South Africa we may live, if it had not been for the fearlessness of men like Sobukwe, we would not be breathing the air of freedom as we do today.

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