Some research would paint a truer Sobukwe picture
Cunningham Ngcukana
The article that appeared in City Press on April 5 was interesting in that for
the first time a columnist has tried to invoke Sobukwe in the contemporary
developments taking place in the country.
However, Professor Shadrack Gutto had not read the speeches of Sobukwe, his
interviews and the Pan Africanist Congres’s (PAC) basic documents to enable him
to locate Sobukwe in the proper context.
Also, he had not met with Sobukwe’s colleague and close confidante Zephaniah
Mothopeng to be able to make an informed view of what these giants would have
thought of what is happening today.
A discussion with comrade Letlapa Mphahlele, the current leader of the PAC
would also have been very useful.
Sobukwe believed that the National Question was essentially that of
settler-colonialism resulting from land robbery and the political and economic
subjugation of Africans by Europeans. It is in this context that Sobukwe
rejected the notion of the Kliptown Charter that South Africa belongs to all
who live in it – the coloniser and the colonised.
The second issue was on the question of non-racialism versus multiracialism;
Sobukwe believed that individuals, not groups, should have equal rights.
The third fundamental issue that Sobukwe believed in was that all those who
were oppressed should form one organisation to fight for national
self-determination and independence from European settler-colonial rule. He
further believed that South Africa’s struggle was linked to the struggles on
the continent for national self-determination and independence.
In addition, he believed in the establishment of a socialist democratic society
and had nothing but scorn for the Communist Party of SA that later mutated into
the SACP. The reasons were threefold; the first was the SACP’s support for the
1922 white mine workers strike under the banner “white workers unite for a
white republic”; the second was to seek to conflate the national liberation
struggle to a class struggle. The third reason was their notion of the
leadership of all communist parties by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
and their religious following of Stalinism.
Given Sobukwe’s understanding of the National Question, would he have accepted
the 1990 settlement where the African majority were the greatest losers? As a
result the ANC government is running the state on behalf of white monopoly
capital with the co-option of a few in the name of black economic empowerment.
The material conditions of the African majority have hardly changed. They live
in the apartheid reserves and come to urban areas to live in the squalor of the
shanty towns. Sobukwe would have rejected this.
On service delivery, he would, as a socialist, have rejected
government-by-tender and incompetent managers who run the public service based
not on qualifications but political membership cards. Gutto raises the nature
of our democracy that is celebrated by Europeans, Americans and the few that
benefit from it. Sobukwe would have rejected a democracy that is based on
“cronyism”.
The other issue is the question of the current developments regarding the
National Prosecuting Authority and the judiciary; Sobukwe would look at the
underlying cause, which is the ANC’s deployment policy that undermines the
Constitution and the Public Service Act. The solution lies in separating the
party from the state.
Regarding the work in Africa, Sobukwe would have commended Thabo Mbeki and
condemned the imperialist apologists and disciples of the new missionaries of
democracy. These missionaries from the US, UK and Europe do not want Africans
to develop a democracy that suits them.
Lastly, Sobukwe would be concerned with the tribalism and racism that is
rearing its head as a result of political expediency.
· Ngcukana was internal head of intelligence for the PAC and its Azanian
People’s Liberation Army from 1987 to 1994
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