Mangaliso Sobukwe: The lessons of his life

As we mark the 35th anniversary of Mangaliso Sobukwe’s passing, one of the questions that his legacy poses to our generation is: what have we done, in our time, to contribute towards the realisation of his vision for our country and continent? Sobukwe is our nation’s and continent’s niggling conscience and his legacy compels us to ask tough questions of ourselves and what we have become.

A system of oppression induces in the minds of the oppressed a state of hopelessness, which creates a lingering psychological condition wherein the oppressed end up believing that their lives are worth nothing, and that the only purpose for which they exist is to serve those who hold them in bondage and contempt.

Once this condition becomes a pathology, the oppressed end up rationalising that their state of nothingness is part of the natural order of things, and that the system that produces it is invincible. And then, to the dismay of the system, a special breed of men and women emerges from among the oppressed. These men and women, through the sheer force of their convictions, take a stand and challenge this seemingly invincible machinery, on behalf of their psychologically defeated compatriots.

Through their valour, these people infuse those who have become resigned to domination by the system with the belief that they too deserve a dignified existence, and that this kind of existence is attainable. One such special human being is Mangaliso Sobukwe. Sobukwe was an indefatigable Pan-Africanist, theoretician and revolutionary humanist, who selflessly dedicated his life to one thing only—the liberation of humanity and, in particular, the liberation of black people.

As the beneficiaries of his sacrifices and heirs to his legacy, Sobukwe would commend us for those things we have done correctly and rightfully, and admonish us for those things we have failed to do.

His heart would bleed with the realisation that, despite declarations of formal independence, many African states are at war with themselves and continue to allow themselves to be manipulated by foreign interests.

He would be deeply disturbed by the conduct of some of Africa’s ruling elite, who engage in rapacious looting orgies that are driven by the ravenous ‘It’s our turn to eat’ mentality. It is this greed that has ensured that, despite its vast mineral wealth, much of Africa remains a charity case of the West.

He would expect Africa’s intelligentsia to lead the struggle against Western cultural imperialism by ensuring that, among other things, Africa’s indigenous languages and their attendant cultural norms are preserved and developed. This task extends to ensuring that the content African’s young people are taught at school and university doesn’t transform them into technically skilled professionals, who, at graduation, come out with a negative self-concept that convinces them that nothing innovative can come from Africa.

In the South African context, Sobukwe would remind the black intelligentsia that for as long as wealth ownership patterns remain racially skewed in favour of the minorities there can never be genuine and sustainable reconciliation among the various groups in South Africa.

Sobukwe would also be disgusted by the indifference of the black intelligentsia who, instead of fighting side by side with the black peasants and workers of our country, prefer to pour scorn over their suffering and dismiss their struggles as senseless orgies of violence when they are in fact legitimate expressions of discontent by the economically alienated majority.

In the intellectual tradition of François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, Frederick Douglass, Cyril James, William Du Bois, George Padmore, Carter Woodson, Sékou Touré, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon and many other great black thinkers before him, Sobukwe courageously placed the question of the dignity of black people at the centre of the discourse on human dignity in the 20th century.

His life is a towering monument of supreme personal courage and extraordinary vision. Even when he found himself cornered by the naked brutality of the white power structure, not once did he wince. He stood his ground and fought the system with every ounce of his being.

Sobukwe was simply a man among men and the only way we can earn the privilege of being associated with him is if we, in our time, continue the fight to restore the dignity of black people.

* Veli Mbele is a writer and social commentator.