Lie on your wounds

Robert Sobukwe

Description

Robert Sobukwe, the founder and first leader of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), was silenced throughout his life, a condition which has been extended into the post-apartheid present. This book, comprising approximately 300 letters, provides access to his words via the single most poignant resource of Sobukwe’s own voice that exists: his prison letters. Not only do the letters evince Sobukwe’s storytelling abilities, they convey the complexity of a man who defied easy categorisation. More than this: they are testimony both to the desolate conditions of his imprisonment and to Sobukwe’s unbending commitment to the cause of African liberation.
Although jailed for nine years, including a six-year period of near complete solitary confinement on Robben Island, Sobukwe was better known during rather than after apartheid. Given his antagonistic views to both white liberalism and the African National Congress (ANC) it is unsurprising that he has been subjected to a ‘consensus of forgetting’. With the changing political climate of recent years, the decline of the ANC’s hegemonic hold on power, the re-emergence of Black Consciousness and Africanist political discourse and the growth of student protests, Sobukwe is being looked to as a leader once again.
Preface by Otua Sobukwe

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Letters

1960–1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969

Address at Fort Hare College Delivered by Mr Sobukwe, October 21, 1949

References

Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• África
• Letter
• Diaries
• General officer
• History of Africa
• General
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: WITS University Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776142422
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

LIE ON YOUR
WOUNDS
LIE ON YOUR
WOUNDS
The Prison Correspondence of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe
Selected and edited by Derek Hook

In association
AFRICAN LIVES
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Compilation © Derek Hook 2019
Published edition © Wits University Press 2019
Images © Copyright holders
First published 2019
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/22019012408
978-1-77614-240-8 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-241-5 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-242-2 (EPUB)
978-1-77614-272-9 (Mobi)
This book is number 14 in the African Lives series, an independent writing and publishing initiative that aims to contribute to a post-colonial intellectual history of South Africa. The series editor is Professor Andre Odendaal, Honorary Professor in History and Heritage Studies, University of the Western Cape.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
All images remain the property of the copyright holders. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders of the images reproduced here; please contact Wits University Press in case of any omissions or errors.
The letter on page 524 reprinted with kind permission of Frances Suzman Jowell and the Helen Suzman Foundation.
Images on pages 53 , 127 , 333 , 415 and 491 taken by Derek Hook.
Images on pages xv and 3 courtesy of Peter Magubane.
Images on xvii and xx courtesy of the SA Jewish Museum and the Jewish Digital Archive Project.
Images on back cover and on page 221 reproduced with permission from the Sobukwe family.
Image on page 15 courtesy of Wits Historical Papers, photographer unknown.
Project manager: Julie Miller
Editor: Russell Martin
Proofreader: Janine Loedolff
Indexer: Sanet le Roux
Cover design: Hybrid Creative
Typesetter: Newgen
Typeset in 11 point Crimson
Table of Contents
Preface by Otua Sobukwe
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Letters
1960–1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
Address at Fort Hare College Delivered by Mr Sobukwe, October 21, 1949
References
Index
Preface
By Otua Sobukwe
My Robben Island Awakening
D uring the apartheid regime, Robben Island was the most notorious prison in South Africa. Enclosed in its prison walls were struggle icons whose names we continue to celebrate today – Sisulu, Mandela and many other unsung heroes. Amongst them but purposely separated was Robert Sobukwe, a freedom fighter who was banned to solitary confinement for leading an anti-pass march campaign that galvanised people on the path to the country’s democracy. About thirty years later, the same island became the home of a young, adventurous little girl – me; his granddaughter. I lived on the island with my uncle who worked there for 8 months.
Paradoxically, Robben Island is one of the most beautiful places in the world. But when you put yourself in the shoes of a prisoner, there comes a shift of perspective.
Suddenly, things begin to lose their beauty.
The blueness of the sky loses its colour, as candyfloss clouds morph into grey patches, the singing tune of seagulls begins to mimic a pained cry, the once tranquil ebb and flow of the sea is now melancholic, yearning, and, more so, the mainland, its shimmering lights, their faintness, is no longer picturesque, no longer romantic, but just a cold reminder of the separating distance and the harsh reality, the harsh juxtaposition, that you are indeed alone.
The seven-year-old me was oblivious to this atmosphere of solitude. The place where my grandfather stood for his battle, longed for his family, and wept in his loneliness was the same place that framed my warm, explorative childhood. I didn’t realize the weight of the island nor the significance of its history.
But ten years later, I understood. Intimately complex and profound – I realised that somehow my surroundings had brought me closer to a man that I had never met and opened my eyes to an identity I had never fully grasped.
That my roots are of an African soil has never been an incongruity to me. I have always wholly embraced my African identity; I am of its branches, its rivers, its auburn sunsets. However, when I returned to Robben Island, now seventeen, it occurred to me, this sudden epiphany, that I am not only a reflection of Africa, but a continuation of AfriKa. And these two Afric(k)as are not the same; one is the vessel and the other the spirit.
I stood there, in its beauty. My Afrikan seed beginning to germinate, I let my grandfather’s words “Love your Afrika” water my roots, and as I felt the connection of our souls, it dawned on me, quite frighteningly, but beautifully too, that I am not only of his blood, but of his battle.
You see, Africa is not free, I whispered. She is a frightened bird in a rusting cage, with bent bars painted in crusting promises. She limps on a beaten leg too exhausted to bleed and bows her head when she speaks. She needs to be freed. But only Afrika can free Africa.
Like most young people, I didn’t get this at first. My life was my own and my goals were fixed. I didn’t understand that there was a continental vision or an ancestral goal that I was intertwined with. Yet the clues were there, my grandfather being one.
What Sobukwe started in South Africa, the unconditional passion he devoted to his movement, I realized, was the same fire that would ignite mine, whatever it be, in my life. Energy can never be created or destroyed, but only transferred or changed from one form to another.
And so there I was. A growing, energised Afrikan plant. One that would grow tall and blossom and, as if self-pollinating, return to its home, my Afrika, and give back to what it previously could not help fix. For education was three things: One, to break the shackles of my circumstance and end the cycle of my poverty. Two, to achieve a monumental freedom which my grandfather was never granted. And three, to be part of the key that would one day release the frightened bird.
How ironic life is, that Robben Island prison was to me not only a home, but one of the most liberating experiences of my life. And so, it is in this spirit that I encourage you to read the letters that my grandfather Sobukwe wrote, because captured in his words is not only his pain, but the beauty of his pain as a sacrifice for freedom.
Acknowledgements
T he Sobukwe family – Dini, Miliswa and Otua in particular – were supportive and encouraging at each step of the book’s production. I am particularly grateful to have been invited by the family in December 2014 to Graaff-Reinet to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe’s birth. Benjamin Pogrund deserves thanks not only for having the foresight to save all his correspondence with (and related to) Sobukwe – the historical value of these documents speaks for itself – but for being so willing to review and provide expert commentary on my attempts at transcription and editing. I visited him in Jerusalem in late 2014, and the time I spent with him was invaluable. Although I have worked with many people whom I have respected in my career, rarely have I had the privilege of such generous support by a person with the moral integrity and courage – as the letters collected here will certainly demonstrate – of Benjamin Pogrund. It goes without saying that people interested in the life of Sobukwe would benefit from reading this volume alongside Benjamin Pogrund’s book How Can Man Die Better: The Life of Robert Sobukwe (2015).
Transcribing and editing Sobukwe’s letters was a difficult task, although I had excellent help. Lucas Goodwin and Alida Bonnet were tireless transcribers, each painstakingly converting in excess of a hundred (often poorly copied) handwritten and typed letters into text documents. They were assisted by Merryn Hook, Otua Sobukwe-Whyte (to whom I am also much indebted for her preface to this book), Julie Miller and Russell Martin. David Tomaselli helped with further editorial additions and checking dates, and Sanet le Roux compiled the index. My thanks to both.
I visited the Department of Psychology at Wits University during the time I was preparing this manuscript. I am hugely appreciative both of my colleagues in the department – Sumaya Laher and Michael Pitman particularly – but also of the research funding from both the Department of Psychology and the Faculty of Humanities at Wits. It seems fitting that the university where Sobukwe taught should have played such an important role in publishing his letters.
Gabriele Mohale at the Historical Papers Research Archive at Wits University was gracious both in helping me access the original handwritten letters and in guiding me to documents I would have overlooked. The Wits University Library deserves commendation for their upkeep of the Sobukwe letters (archived among the Robert Sobukwe Papers, Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa), and for making much of this material available online: see http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/index.php?inventory/U/collections&c=A2618/R/6325 . I would also like to thank the SA Jewish Museum and the Jewish Digital Archive Project for permission to reproduce a photograph of Robert Sobukwe with Benjamin Pogrund, as well as a photograph of Robert Sobukwe's children with Benjamin Pogrund's daughter.
Thanks are due also to Norman Duncan, and David and Marinda Maree, at the University of Pretoria, the South African university to which I am affiliated. Terblanche Delport and Ndumiso Dladla at Unisa were great colleagues to work with (especially in setting up a research seminar on the topic of “Sobukwe Today” at the University of Pre