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30907 results in African history

Page 156 of 1546

  • Agents of dissent: African student organizations in the German Democratic Republic

  • Sara Pugach
  • Journal:
    Africa / Volume 89 / Issue S1 / January 2019
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 January 2019, pp. S90-S108
    Print publication:
    January 2019
    • Article
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  • African students in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) often belonged to national student clubs (NHG) that were arranged for them by the East German government. Many were also members of an umbrella organization for all African students and workers in the GDR (UASA). While the GDR authorities thought that the NHG and UASA would adopt political positions that reflected those of the GDR, this article demonstrates that the students instead used them to criticize both their own governments and their host country. It shows that the students often held positions contrary to the GDR's, and were not shy about expressing them. Although they were usually unable to organize as openly as students in the West, African students in the GDR held meetings and wrote letters to protest about a variety of issues, including Sékou Touré’s repression of a teachers’ strike in Guinea, the Biafran crisis in Nigeria and ethnic separatism in Kenya. They also took the GDR to task for the racist behaviour of East German citizens. The GDR's Socialist Unity Party claimed that the country was anti-racist and anti-imperialist, and that all vestiges of Nazism had been expunged; the students, however, were able to point out multiple racist incidents, and through the UASA demanded that the GDR address its racism problem.

  • 1964

  • from Letters
  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 53-126

  • Summary

    Robert Sobukwe

    to Veronica Sobukwe,

    23 January 1964 (Bc11)

    Hello Darling!

    Thank you for your most interesting and delightful letter. It was a pleasure to read, reminiscent of the 1950s when you were still a little girl jumping around the Tennis Court!

    Benjie had already assured me that you were well. I had been worried by your silence particularly as you had been unable to secure bookings for you and the children. I should have known better, of course, but I did expect you to send a telegram if only to assure me you had arrived safely.

    Thanks for news about the kids. They really are a bouncing & energetic lot! Dini will have his hands full disciplining those two. Incidentally I sent him a birthday card and have asked Benjie to buy him a book as a birthday gift from me.

    Fabian has written and has promised to send R50 to cover the cost of the book I require. Benjie has taken the lists away with him to try and raise the books from friends. I am extremely fortunate really & am constantly reminded of God's challenge and promise. “Prove me now, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of Heaven for you and pour out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3: 10).

    Thank you for your prayers, Kid. Keep on, do not despair. He is ever faithful to His word. We are in His hands and we are, therefore, safe. I was extremely pleased and happy to hear Mili and Dini pray so freely. After all prayers are conversation with a Father whose love for us is unmeasurable and who is so rich that there is nothing we can ask Him that He cannot give us provided it is for our good.

    A lady in Cape Town sent me biscuits and sweets for Christmas and Buti and Fabian had also brought me some fruit, sweets and cakes. But I still had all the tinned stuff you had left and I almost overate during that week!

  • 1968

  • from Letters
  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 415-490

  • Summary

    Veronica Sobukwe

    to Benjamin Pogrund,

    13 January 1968 (Ba6.1)

    Dear Benjie,

    I was extremely disappointed to have missed you at Cape Town station. Bob asked me to thank you very much for the food parcel you sent him.

    He was in good health and happy to be surrounded by his family.

    I have a pair of his trousers with me which he said should be handed over to you. I shall try to see you sometime next week.

    I have received a final notice from school that I should always send them wire money. Miliswa's address: 11 St Mary's Hostel, P.O. Box 43, Leribe. The boarding fee has been increased to R56.00 a yr. School fees R8.00 a yr. The twins’ address is: Mrs. E. Mokhele, P.O. Box 47, Leribe. I think their boarding fee is still the same, i.e. seventy-two rands each.

    I shall be very grateful if you are able to send it as soon as you can.

    Yours sincerely,

    Veronica

    Benjamin Pogrund

    to Robert Sobukwe,

    7 February 1968 (Ba6.2)

    My dear Bob,

    I have had a letter from Veronica telling me of your happiness in having your family with you. I am so glad that all the arrangements for the visit worked out, and that you had the opportunity of having Veronica and the children with you. Veronica and I hope to see each other within the next few days and I am looking forward then to receiving first-hand news of you. As you know, I did not see her at Cape Town station. I still do not know just what happened. I was there with Jenny, and also with Clive McBride and Eulalie Stott. We all reached there only a few minutes after the train had arrived, while the passengers were coming off the platform. But no Veronica. A bedding attendant on the train then told us that, although she had been booked, she had not been on the train. I was amazed to read in the paper the next morning that she had in fact arrived. Not knowing what to do, I did, however, deliver to the ferry boat that afternoon some of the food you had requested, and the warder there promised to put it into the fridge.

  • 1967

  • from Letters
  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 333-414

  • Summary

    Secretary for Justice,

    Pretoria,

    to Veronica Sobukwe,

    14 January 1967 (Ba5.3)

    Greetings,

    RE: PERMISSION TO VISIT YOUR HUSBAND MANGALISO ROBERT SOBUKWE.

    With further reference to your letter of the 28th November, 1966, I wish to inform you that the Honourable the Minister of Justice has granted permission to you and your four children to visit your husband on Robben Island five times a week during the period 9th January, 1967, to the 20th January, 1967. No provision, however, exists to the effect that you are entitled to free transport or a refund of rail fares in the event of visiting your husband.

    Greetings,

    SECRETARY FOR JUSTICE

    Robert Sobukwe

    to Benjamin Pogrund,

    5 February 1967 (Ba5.11)

    Dearest Benjie,

    Thank you for both your letters which I received on the 3rd and 20th January respectively.

    I am glad to know you are working on your thesis and I have no doubt you will produce an outstanding work. You know, of course, that I shall be happy to give whatever assistance it is in my power to give.

    In my letter of the 14th September, 1966 I told you what I thought of our relationship. On this occasion all I'll say is thank you very much.

    First of all, please give my thanks to Ernie, Jill and their friends for the presents to the family. And then thanks ever so much to you and Margie for the enormous trouble you took to make my family comfortable. They have never had such a full two weeks. I'll be very glad if you could send me Father McBride's address so that I should thank him myself. And also please thank Mrs Stott on my behalf for all she has done.

    I have received all the books you have sent, both textbooks and reading matter. I have enough reading matter for a year and some! And I have all the textbooks I need, Benjie, thank you very much.

    The records I have not yet received. But as I said to you some years back, this is the type of music that sends me!

    When I receive your book packages, what I read first are the Argosy copies. I enjoy them immensely. And thank you for the Hemingway books.

  • 1960–1962

  • from Letters
  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 3-14

  • Summary

    Robert Sobukwe

    to Major-General C.I. Rademeyer,

    Commissioner of Police,

    Cape Town, 16 March 1960

    Sir,

    My organization, the Pan Africanist Congress, will be starting a sustained, disciplined, non-violent campaign against the Pass Laws on Monday the 21st March 1960. I have given strict instructions, not only to members of my organization but also to African people in general, that they should not allow themselves to be provoked into violent action by anyone. In a Press Statement I am releasing soon, I repeat that appeal and make one to the police too.

    I am now writing to you to instruct the Police to refrain from actions that may lead to violence. It is unfortunately true that many white policemen, brought up in the racist hothouse of South Africa, regard themselves as champions of white supremacy and not as law officers. In the African they see an enemy, a threat, not to “law and order” but to their privileges as whites.

    I therefore, appeal to you to instruct your men not to give impossible commands to my people. The usual mumbling by a police of an order requiring people to disperse within three minutes, and almost immediately ordering a baton charge, deceives nobody and shows the police up as sadistic bullies. I sincerely hope that such actions will not occur this time. If the police are interested in maintaining “law and order,” they will have no difficulty at all. We will surrender ourselves to the police for arrest. If told to disperse, we will. But we cannot be expected to run helter-skelter because a trigger-happy, African-hating young white police officer has given hundreds of thousands of people three minutes within which to remove their bodies from [the] immediate environment.

    Hoping you will cooperate to try and make this a most peaceful and disciplined campaign.

    I remain

    Yours faithfully,

    Mangaliso R. Sobukwe

    President

    Pan Africanist Congress

    PAC press release announcing

    anti-pass campaign,

    18 March 1960

    CALL FOR POSITIVE ACTION

    In accordance with a resolution adopted at our National Conference, held in Orlando on the 19th and 20th December, 1959, I have called on the African people to go with us into Positive Action against the Pass Laws. We launch our campaign on Monday, the 21st of March 1960, and circulars to that effect are already in the streets.

  • The political life of the dead Lumumba: Cold War histories and the Congolese student left

  • Pedro Monaville
  • Journal:
    Africa / Volume 89 / Issue S1 / January 2019
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 January 2019, pp. S15-S39
    Print publication:
    January 2019
    • Article
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  • This article examines Patrice Lumumba's afterlife among Congolese students in the 1960s. Mobilizing oral histories, it also interrogates the stakes of remembering Lumumba at different moments in Congo's postcolonial history. It shows how Lumumba's assassination became a collective and personal landmark in the biographies of a generation of student activists and clearly helped facilitate a turn towards the left in 1961 and in the years that followed. Overlooked by Cold War histories, this political process was nonetheless also a by-product of the internationalization of the Congo crisis and proved central to the historical imagination of a generation of educated Congolese. The dead Lumumba pushed young educated Congolese to revisit the meaning of decolonization. The article argues that the students’ extroverted political imagination was an important explanation for Lumumba's posthumous popularity in Congolese universities. Through their affiliation with the figure of Lumumba, young Congolese could expect to receive support and attention from real and imagined allies around the world. The international communion around Lumumba's name was sometimes the result of productive misunderstandings; nonetheless, his legacy played a crucial role in transnational mediation throughout the 1960s and made possible the circulation of new political repertoires among Congolese students.

  • 1965

  • from Letters
  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 127-220

  • Summary

    Benjamin Pogrund

    to Robert Sobukwe,

    19 January 1965 (Ba3.4)

    My dear Bob,

    This letter, I know, will be reaching you at a time of mixed emotions for you: joy at the reunion which you will recently have had with your wife and children; sadness that it has passed so quickly. My prayers, as always, are that the spirit and courage of both you and your family will be maintained, and that your ordeal will soon come to an end. These prayers are especially strong at the start of this New Year; 1964, thank God, is over and no year could be worse than it was.

    I am now looking forward to your wife's return to Johannesburg to have first-hand news of you. I hope that, in seeing her, you found that neither she nor the children are lacking for anything.

    Your letter of December 7 was gladly received. I have sent you the books you wanted, together with a few others, via Vanguard Books of Johannesburg.

    The parcel of 20 books comprises:

  • 1. [Giusesppe Tomasi di] Lampedusa: The Leopard

  • 2. [William Golding]: Lord of the Flies

  • 3. [Randall Jarrell]: Pictures from an Institution

  • 4. Warren Commission Report

  • 5. Priestley: Good Companions

  • 6. Priestley: Angel Pavement

  • 7. Priestley: Priestly Companion

  • 8. Priestley: Bright Day

  • 9. [Jean-Paul] Sartre: The Reprieve

  • 10. [Joseph] Conrad: Lord Jim

  • 11. [Roald] Dahl: Kiss Kiss

  • 12. [Franz] Kafka: The Trial

  • 13. [Honore] Balzac: Droll Stories

  • 14. Balzac: Country Doctor

  • 15. [J.W. von] Goethe: Faust (I and II)

  • 16. [Yevgeny] Yevtushenko: Selected Poems

  • 17. [C.P.] Snow: Time of Hope

  • 18. Snow: [The] Light and [the] Dark

  • 19. Snow: The Affair

  • 20. [Antoine de] St.-Exupery: The Little Prince.

    • Please let me know whether the choices are suitable ones. As far as I can recall, I have not previously sent you any of these books. But if I have, try and return duplicates to me so that I can change them. In the meantime, much happy reading! Incidentally, I think you would like to know that the money for the books came from a variety of people, including Jill and Ernie Wentzel, Allister Sparks, Jill Chisholm, Terry Bell, Peter Hazelhurst, Lawrence Mayekiso, Terence Clarkson, Tim Rossi, Mike Phahlane and others (all newspaper colleagues of mine).

  • Nationalists with no nation: oral history, ZANU(PF) and the meanings of Rhodesian student activism in Zimbabwe

  • Dan Hodgkinson
  • Journal:
    Africa / Volume 89 / Issue S1 / January 2019
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 January 2019, pp. S40-S64
    Print publication:
    January 2019
    • Article
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  • In Zimbabwe after 2000, ZANU(PF) leaders’ past experiences of student activism in Rhodesia were celebrated by the state-owned media as personifications of anti-colonial, nationalist leadership in the struggle to liberate the country. This article examines the history behind this narrative by exploring the entangled realities of student activism in Rhodesia throughout the 1960s and 1970s and its role as a mechanism of elite formation in ZANU(PF). Building on the historiography of African student movements, I show how the persistence of nationalist anti-colonial organizing and liberal traditions on campus made student activism in Rhodesia distinct from that in South Africa and independent African countries to its north. The article then examines how and why three former activists, who took up elite political careers in the party that they subsequently left, contested the ruling party's anti-colonial, ‘patriotic’ rendering of these experiences. These three men's stories invoked imagined and older forms of nationalism or institutional ethic that had been abandoned by the party as it turned to more authoritarian rule. Stories of Rhodesian student activism thus provided space for justifying alternative political possibilities of nationalism, which implicitly critiqued the ruling party's ‘patriotic’ narrative, as well as for nostalgic anecdotes of life on campus, their journeys into adulthood, and the excitement of being part of a dynamic, transformational political project.

  • 1969

  • from Letters
  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 491-544

  • Summary

    Robert Sobukwe

    to Benjamin Pogrund,

    8 January 1969 (Ba7.1)

    Dearest Benjie,

    Thank you for your letter of 18th December. All I am thankful for is to learn that you are all right. You have been through a great deal, Benjie and it shows an extremely high degree of consideration on your part to have thought of my interests. Thank you.

    As you know, Veronica and the children are here and we are very happy to be together. I have seen the toys you got them, Benjie, and they are very fine toys indeed. Thanks a lot. And thank you too for Miliswa's watch. I can't thank you enough for all you are doing but I can assure you that I appreciate it more because it is done by you.

    I have not yet received the dictionary you and Ernie sent: so I can't comment on it. But I can thank you, as I now do, for sending it.

    Thank you for renewing the “Reader's Digest” subscription. The “Cape Times” and “Cape Argus” subscriptions expire in May while the “Sunday Times” will continue to be delivered until the 9th September. I am not sure whether I shall ask you to renew subscriptions for the latter. It has become quite barren.

    About my studies. The syllabus arrived and I noted the requirements. As I told you, I had applied for registration but have not yet received confirmation. I suspect that the snag is my lack of a classical language. I, therefore, intend to write to Senate House and find out whether I can do the required language at the same time as I am doing the degree or whether I must have the language before I can study for the degree.

    After much thought I have decided to attempt Arabic, in spite of the emotions such a choice might arouse! The reason is, really, that it is an African language in which a great deal of early African history has been written. I hope you will have no Yiddish objections.

  • Preface by Otua Sobukwe

  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    My Robben Island Awakening

    During 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.

  • Creating a ‘monster’: the National Youth Service pre-university training programme, student activism and the Kenyan state, 1978–90

  • Luke Melchiorre
  • Journal:
    Africa / Volume 89 / Issue S1 / January 2019
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 January 2019, pp. S65-S89
    Print publication:
    January 2019
    • Article
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  • In May 1984, the Kenyan government of Daniel arap Moi introduced a National Youth Service pre-university training programme (NYSPUT) for prospective university students. The programme was designed to instil discipline in Kenyan university students and inculcate them with a sense of loyalty and commitment to the Moi regime prior to their arrival on campus. This article argues that, in practice, however, the scheme had unintended consequences: it served to alienate student recruits from the ruling party and helped radicalize a small but vocal group of student activists, who, when they arrived on campus, confronted the Moi state with some of its most defiant political challenges of the 1980s. Relying on extensive interviews with former student recruits and archival research, this article highlights the key role that the NYSPUT played in shaping Kenya's young generation of 1980s student activists, who represented one of the most united and militant student movements in the country's history.

  • 1963

  • from Letters
  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 15-52

  • Summary

    Robert Sobukwe,

    Pretoria Prison,

    to Veronica Sobukwe,

    26 March 1963 (Bc2)

    Hello Darling,

    Since my future is still so uncertain, I thought I should take this opportunity to tell you just how much your courage and love have meant to me during all these years of my imprisonment. Human nature is a queer thing, Darling. It is quite possible that after a time I may forget what you suffered on my behalf. That is why I want you to have this written testimony from me so that we both of us can go back to it in future. I just wish to say, Child, that you have been a magnificent wife and mother. You have been everything I could have wished my wife to be. And I mean that, Little Woman. And the children, too, will agree with me!

    I received a letter from Buti. He didn't have much to say except to express the hope that we will soon meet. By the way is J.D. back yet or does he no longer intend to return to Joh'burg?

    Then there is the question of my wood & coal business in Standerton. Segegede and I went 50-50 and money can be withdrawn from the bank only if the cheque bears the signatures of both of us. We placed some amount in fixed deposit, renewable every year in July. This was [illegible].

    Please tell Stan that Emmanuel's wife has written to say she won't be coming to see him any further. She is employed and finds it impossible to come during the week. Will he please arrange that somebody else visit the boy? We would be extremely pleased if Z.B. could do so even if it is just once. And of course Perry can do so – as a prospective sister-in-law.

    I shall be getting the next Reader's Digest early next month. You can write immediately to the Head Office in Cape Town to tell them to send the May Issue to 684 Mofolo and all the other issues from then on. You can forward them from Joh'burg to wherever I am or we can make further arrangements later. But please inform them, Sweet, of the change of address. It requires six weeks advance notice.

  • 1966

  • from Letters
  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 221-332

  • Summary

    Robert Sobukwe

    to Benjamin Pogrund,

    3 January 1966 (Ba4.1)

    My dear Benjie,

    I am not writing because I have some great news that will not keep. As you know my wife and the kids haven't arrived yet so I can't entertain you to even a bit of psycho-analysis. I am writing, really, because I want my first letter in the New Year to be for you.

    As usual, I have to say ‘Thank you’ for kindnesses done. My wife has told me a little of what you've done for them and will no doubt have plenty to add when we meet. I know you are happy to do so much for me and mine and do not wish to be thanked for it. But I am an African, Benjie, and one thing we can do is to say “Thank you”. And at my home I was taught to say “thank you” whenever the opportunity offered.

    So, speaking as one African to another, permit me to thank you for:

    (a) The Records. I had a real hootenanny on New Year's day. I played every one of them and enjoyed them immensely. I realize that you young fellows are trying to “modernize” me and I believe you are succeeding. It was a pleasure to hear Miriam again. She bowled me over the very first time I heard her and I have been her fan ever since. The opera pieces were marvellous. It was a real musical extravaganza. Yesaah!

    (b) The books. I went into the Sino-Soviet dispute boots and all and was quiveringly indignant and happily amused in quick succession. There's no doubt about it, these boys are experts in their field and it was intellectually stimulating to follow their discussions and papers. I enjoyed Legum's article (paper) in spite of his obvious sympathies.

    I haven't read far into the “consignment” yet but the little I have read convinces me that your research must be published, Benjie. Even if you were to draw the conclusion that there is no unmistakeable evidence of overt Communist activity, the bare, unadorned facts will make interesting reading, I am certain.

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

  • Edited by Derek Hook, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Book:
    Lie on your Wounds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019, pp 545-552

  • Summary

    Prof. Dent, Ladies and Gentlemen, I intend to follow in my opening remarks the conventional pattern. And for that reason, I will give a very brief review of our doings within the College this year. We saw at the beginning of the year the implementation of the Student's Constitution, whereby all members of the S.R.C (Students’ Representative Council) were elected by secret ballot at a mass-meeting of the students and whereby also certain powers were delegated to the Council. Of that arrangement the worst I can say is that it seems to be working well. We witnessed also at the beginning of the year the promotion of Prof. Dent to the position of Principal of the S.A.N.C. (South African Native College). He was succeeding a man who was highly esteemed, Dr. Kerr. But I do not think we lament the change, for we are concerned not with the personalities, but with policies, and there has been no change in this respect. Moreover, however much we may disagree with Prof. Dent on certain issues, we cannot say that he has ever refused students a chance to state their case. And I believe it is due to this fact that there has been no trouble in the College this year. After all, even the minor demonstration we had last term was not a reaction against the administration of the college. The stimulus came from outside.

    But that does not mean that all is well in the College. I had occasion last year and also at the beginning of this year to comment on some features of our structure of which I do not approve. It has always been my feeling that if the intention of the trustees of this College is to make it an African College or University, as I have been informed it is, then the Department of African Studies must be more highly and more rapidly developed. Fort Hare must become the centre of African Studies to which the students in African Studies should come from all over Africa. We should also have a department of Economics and Sociology. A nation, to be a nation, needs specialists in these things.

Lie on your Wounds
  • The Prison Correspondence of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe
  • Edited by Derek Hook
  • Robert Sobukwe
  • Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    30 May 2019
    Print publication:
    01 January 2019
  • This book, comprising approximately 300 letters, provides access to the voice of Robert Sobukwe via the single most poignant resource of Sobukwe’s 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 categorization. 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.The memory of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, inspirational political leader and first President of the PanAfricanist Congress, has been sadly neglected in postapartheid South Africa. In 1960, Sobukwe led the AntiPass Protests, which culminated in the Sharpeville Massacre, which proved a crucial turning point in the eventual demise of apartheid. Nevertheless, Sobukwe - a man once thought to hold greater promise for the liberation of South Africa than even Nelson Mandela - has been consistently marginalised in histories of the liberation struggle. Jailed for nine years, including a sixyear period of near complete solitary confinement on Robben Island, Sobukwe was silenced throughout his life, a condition that has been extended into the postapartheid present, so much so that we can say that Sobukwe was better known during rather than after apartheid.Given Sobukwe’s antagonistic relations both to white liberalism and to the African National Congress (whom he felt had betrayed the principles of African Nationalism), 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 African National Congress’s hegemonic hold on power, the reemergence of Black Consciousness and Africanist political discourse, the growth of student protests, Sobukwe is being looked to once again.

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