Lie on your wounds. Robert Sobukwe

of non-racialism. Sobukwe, on the other hand, while maintaining a vision of a future Africa beyond the divisions of race, nonetheless favoured an explicitly Africanist agenda. As leader of the PAC, he had prioritised the immediate needs of the oppressed African majority. Doing so necessitated asserting independent African political agency and leadership beyond the scope of white influence. Hence, the PAC’s policy of political non-collaboration with whites (an approach that would likewise be adopted by Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement in the 1970s). Given that this has long been a contentious – and misrepresented – issue, it helps to cite Sobukwe directly. In an article he wrote for the liberal newspaper Contact on 30 May 1959, Sobukwe says: “Our contention is that the Africans are the only people who, because of their material position, can be interested in the overhaul of the present structure of society. We have admitted that there are Europeans who are intellectually converts to Africa’s cause, but, because they benefit materially from the present set-up, they cannot completely identify themselves with that cause… Politically we stand for government of the Africans for the Africans with everyone who owes his only loyalty to Africa and accepts the democratic rule of an African majority, being regarded as African.” Contrary to those who accused Sobukwe and the PAC as racist for excluding whites, Sobukwe makes it clear that while his primary political loyalty is to Africa, all who share such a democratic political loyalty to Africa should be regarded as African and eligible to join the Pan Africanist struggle. Although Sobukwe’s stance was politically defensible, it did earn him the suspicion of many whites (including liberals) who alleged that he was guilty of reverse discrimination. For more on Pogrund’s discussions with Sobukwe on this – the dangers of a type of black racial exclusivity within the PAC, and the PAC being perceived as anti-white – see Pogrund’s Robert Sobukwe: How Can Man Die Better, (2015: chs. 8 (p. 104 particularly) and 13 (pp. 204–5). For a helpful discussion of the ideas of non-racialism in the South African historical context inclusive of the perspectives of Sobukwe and the PAC, see Soske (2015).

      ⁴⁹Pogrund conducted a series of interviews for reports in the Rand Daily Mail in which he questioned a number of South African church leaders on their views on apartheid (see Pogrund, 2015: 195).

      ⁵⁰Z.B. Molete.

      ⁵¹A joking reference to a gradualist model of political change, one to which Sobukwe’s own political activities within the PAC clearly did not adhere.

      ⁵²Sobukwe is referring to Pogrund’s interviews with South African church leaders mentioned in Pogrund’s letter of 7 November 1963.

      ⁵³Number.

      ⁵⁴Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (1958).

      ⁵⁵This is a quote drawn from an article by Israel Zangwill entitled “Without Prejudice” which appeared in the Pall Mall magazine in January 1894. The reference is to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous poem “To a Skylark”.

      ⁵⁶A “location” in Cape Town.

      ⁵⁷The series of articles was entitled “The Church and the Race Problem” and was based on interviews with a number of churchmen, white and black.

      ⁵⁸The State Library, now part of the National Library of South Africa.

      ⁵⁹Sobukwe’s brother Ernest and his wife.

      1964

      Sobukwe’s isolated living quarters during his time on Robben Island.

      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).¹

      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!

      Benjie complains that you do not ask him for assistance as often as he would like. And Professor Wellington has repeated his plea that I should ask you to see him because both he and his wife are anxious to meet you and to help in whatever way they can. I [illegible] have warned both him and Benjie that knowing you as I do you will have to be in real difficulty before you will ask anybody for assistance and that includes your husband!

      I am glad to learn Mili and Dini are back to normal. By the way, I read that there is difficulty now in getting children to schools in the Protectorates.² How have you fared? I know you must be frantic with anxiety. Don’t worry, darling, if you don’t get your way. God is the only one who can see into the future. And nothing will interfere with His plan. I mean this. I am not just trying to console you. Do your best and He will show you the way.

      Buti has written. He says they reached home safely. He left Cape Town before Tshawe. I was wrong. They both came by train. They left the car behind. He says [Charles?] arrived home penniless and gave me his excuse that he is saving for Mercy!

      I am praying you get that week end.³ To see you is to be back at Lovedale, “under the oaks”. Cheerio Darling. Love to the kids, Mama & Jabie.

      Your loving husband,

      Mangi

      Robert Sobukwe

      to Nell Marquard,

      23 January 1964 (Bd1.2)

      Dear Mrs Marquard,

      Thank you very much for the Christmas card, your letter, and the books. I have enjoyed the Smith of Smiths⁴ immensely. I haven’t had such entertainment for years! Not even [Jonathan] Swift with all of his dissections could so effectively ridicule and demolish dearly-held “convictions”!

      What struck me most forcibly, of course, is how unoriginal the “mass-mind” is. The same arguments are used, generation after generation, to justify prejudice. What does “change” are the locale and the objects of prejudice. It does prove, doesn’t it, that education as such is no cure for prejudice.

      I must say that I was not a little surprised to learn that you were in your sixties. I met your husband⁵ in Pretoria, in 1959 when we both attended the “Bantu Authors’ Conference” and I put him down as an executive in his late forties.