Biko: A Biography. Xolela Mangcu
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government down in the 1898 elections. Going into those elections the Afrikaner Bond, under the leadership of JH Hofmeyr, wooed African supporters by promising them the vote, and Jabavu threw in his lot with them against his erstwhile liberal supporters, including Rhodes. The second mistake Jabavu made was to come out in support of the Land Act of 1913. This earned him the ire of one of the leading radical modernisers of the time, Sol Plaatje. Plaatje was a well-known author and edited Koranta ea Becoana – The Bechuana Gazette. He had been elected secretary of the South African Native National Congress (later the ANC) in 1912. Plaatje challenged Jabavu to a public debate, offering to travel all the way from Mafeking in the north to Jabavu’s home in King William’s Town:
Now I challenge Imvo or Mr Tengo Jabavu to call a series of three public meetings, anywhere in the district of King William’s Town. Let us both address the meetings from the same platform, or separately, but on the same day and at the same place. For every vote carried at any of these meetings, in favour of his views on the Act, I undertake to hand over 15 pounds to the Grey Hospital (King William’s Town) and 15 pounds to the Victoria Hospital (Lovedale), on condition that for every vote I carry at any of the meetings, he hand over 15 pounds to the Victoria Hospital (Mafeking) and 15 pounds to the Carnarvon. That is 30 pounds for charity.[72]
As if to demonstrate that he would not stoop to respond to Plaatje, Jabavu asked someone else to reply on his behalf with a pithy but characteristically arrogant response:
I am instructed by the editor of Imvo to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, and to inform you that as he has not been reading and following your writings etc., he cannot understand what you mean by it. In short, to let you know that he takes no interest in the matter.
Plaatje regarded Jabavu as nothing less than a sell-out:
God forbid that we should ever find that our mind had become the property of someone other than ourselves; but should such a misfortune ever overtake us, we should at least strive to serve our new proprietor diligently, and whenever our people are unanimously opposed to a policy, we should consider it a part of our duty to tell him so; but that is not Mr Jabavu’s way of serving a master. Throughout the course of a general election, we have known him to feed his masters (the SA Party), upon flap doodle, fabricating the mess out of imaginary native votes of confidence for his master’s delectation, and leaving them to discover the real ingredients of the dish, at the bottom of the poll, when the result has been declared.[73]
Jabavu’s other nemesis was the highly respected teacher and priest Walter Benson Mpilo Rubusana, who, in 1909, became the first representative of Africans in the Cape Parliament. In 1914 he lost in a three-way race to a white candidate – mainly because Jabavu chose to enter the race and split the black vote. Rubusana and a number of more radical modernisers such as Allan Kirkland Soga – one of Tiyo Soga’s sons – had broken away from Jabavu to form Izwi Labantu – The Voice of the People – in protest against Jabavu’s politics. However, as Frantz Fanon warns, we should be careful not to overlook the contradictions that come with fighting modernity – for Izwi Labantu was financed by none other than Cecil John Rhodes, who was bitter at Jabavu for breaking ranks and siding with the Afrikaner Bond in 1898. Not only did Rhodes finance Izwi but he also entrusted its finances to CP Crewe, a member of the Cape Legislative Assembly. That did not stop Izwi from calling for a national convention to support the Progressive Party while also becoming the springboard for the formation of the South African National Convention (SANC) under the leadership of Rubusana – 14 years before the formation of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC). By this time Rubusana had “eclipsed Jabavu as the leading Cape African politician”.[74] The SANC sent a delegation to protest the passage of the South Africa Act of 1910, consisting of Thomas Mapikela, Daniel Dwanya and WB Rubusana – who was picked over AK Soga, to the latter’s enduring bitterness, swearing to the end that he would oppose any form of unilateralism.
Perhaps the one individual who would come to symbolise a more radical African nationalism was SEK Mqhayi – the founding genius of Xhosa literary culture. Mqhayi was a man of many talents. As a journalist he served as editor of Umteteli waBantu and Imvo Zabantsundu; as a novelist he wrote uDon Jadu and the classic Ityala Lamawele; as a non-fiction writer he wrote the biographies of several prominent African leaders including Rubusana; but it was for his poetry that he was best known, earning himself the title of Imbongi Yesizwe Jikelele – The Poet of the Nation.
Mqhayi was unusual in that even though he graduated from Lovedale College and qualified as a teacher, he spent a great deal of time at his father’s kraal in Centane, where he learned the rituals of his people. This gave him an enormous amount of self-confidence and pride in himself and in the history of his people. For instance, he refused to write in English. Presaging Biko’s call for African people to study their history before they can begin to define a new course for themselves and their new nation, Mqhayi enjoined the Xhosa to study the history of their people. The great writer AC Jordan had the highest praise for Mqhayi, calling him “the soul of his people”: “Mqhayi takes the highest place in Xhosa literature.”[75]
In his autobiography Nelson Mandela remembers a display of cultural nationalism by Mqhayi at his college in Healdtown:
There was a stage at one end of the hall and on it a door that led to Dr Wellington’s [the headmaster’s] house. The door itself was nothing special, for no one ever walked through it except Dr Wellington himself. Suddenly, the door opened and out walked not Dr Wellington, but a black man dressed in a leopard skin kaross and matching hat, who was carrying a spear in either hand.
To Mandela’s surprise, Mqhayi proceeded with a blistering critique of white racism despite the presence of Dr Wellington himself. Mqhayi said:
. . . we cannot allow these foreigners who do not care for our culture to take over our nation. I predict that one day, the forces of African society will achieve a momentous victory over the interloper. For too long we have succumbed to the false gods of the white man. But we will emerge and cast off their foreign notions.
Mandela concludes:
I could hardly believe my ears. His boldness in speaking of such delicate matters in the presence of Dr Wellington and other whites seemed utterly astonishing to us. Yet at the same time it aroused and motivated us, and began to alter my perception of men like Dr Wellington, whom I had automatically considered my benefactor.[76]
Although Mqhayi falls squarely among radical modernisers such as the later Tiyo Soga, WB Rubusana and Sol Plaatje, it is important to keep in mind that all these individuals were complicated. They were part of the very modernity they were contesting, and thus their lives were often characterised by contradictions. AC Jordan reminds us, for example, that Mqhayi had a “double loyalty”:
As a Xhosa he was loyal to the Xhosa chiefs and their ancestors, and as a British subject he had to be loyal to the British king. A poem written during the Anglo-Boer War in the Izwi Labantu of 13 March 1900 shows how very sincerely Mqhayi had accepted British guardianship. Each stanza has a refrain, SingamaBritani – We are Britons.[77]
It was only in the 1940s that a younger generation of radical modernisers emerged through the formation of the ANC Youth League under the leadership of Anton Lembede, AP Mda, Robert Sobukwe, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. To this day the Unity Movement claims it was the first to preach non-collaboration with government institutions, which became an important plank in the Black Consciousness Movement. An even more radical group of modernisers arrived on the scene with the breakaway of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) from the ANC in 1959. As we shall see in the following chapter, this breakaway would have a direct bearing on Steve Biko’s life in Ginsberg Location. In his brilliant summary of Steve’s testimony, Millard Arnold notes that “there was no indication