By Thami ka Plaatjie
On a cold and windy August 21, 2022 the last of Sobukwe’s sons left this side of life to journey to the other side of eternity to unite with the departed spirits of his kith and kin. On October 6, 1958 Robert Sobukwe and Veronica Zondeni begot a set of twins to much aplomb and jubilation. The young couple was had a total of four children who made their modest Mofolo house in Soweto a beehive of joyous activity.
In 1958, Sobukwe doubled and dribbled between two critical assignments in his life: he was the editor of the Africanist Bulletin and was also studying for an honours degree at Wits. The Africanist Bulletin was the official mouthpiece of the ANC Youth League members who were increasingly becoming sceptical of what they perceived as ideological deviation since 1952.
They had coalesced around the enigmatic Ashley Peter Mda and styled themselves as the Africanist. Sobukwe took over the editorship from Peter Molotsi and threw a radical gauntlet on their ideological opponents.
Sobukwe also recalibrated the ideological direction of the paper as a veritable battleground for the soul of the ANC. The ideological gravamen between the Orlando Youth League and the ANC was sharpened and his biting articles were issued in rapid succession to the chagrin of the old guard. Sobukwe became a piercing thorn in the side of the ANC leadership as he breathed fire and brimstone through his sharp pen and biting tongue.
Amid all the above struggles, Sobukwe was also teaching at Wits when he started a family. Their first-born daughter arrived in 1954 and was aptly named Miliswa, which in Xhosa can be loosely translated to mean rooting firmly in the ground. The second-born son was named Dinilewizwe. His name means the sacrifice of the nation. This phrase was used by the famous Xhosa poet S E K Mqhayi in his classical poem titled, “The Sinking of uMendi”.
Mqhayi referred to those soldiers who fought against Germany in 1917 as the “Sacrifice of the Nation”.
He wrote :
“Could we have sacrificed anything more precious?
What did it mean to sacrifice a village?
Was it not giving the bull calves of your homestead?
Sending those very ones who loved you as a nation.”
The last-born twins were named Dalindyebo (Creator of wealth) and the one that just passed away recently was Dedanizizwe. Every child’s name was a political statement and every child was embosomed with a historical mission to attain the true meaning of his or her name. It could also mean that each child was not just a purveyor of the meaning of his/her name but was a fondly held desire of his/her parents for their people’s destiny and their struggle.
Dedanizizwe means “Give way ye nations”. It’s an emphatic reassertion and rebuttal of the presence of colonialists. This was his father’s ultimate goal that self-determination could only be attained with the liquidation of colonialism and its marauding greed. It was to this end that Sobukwe and his peers inscribed a solemn plea in the Pan Africanist Manifesto thus:
“We are indeed witnessing a twilight of the twin gods of white domination and imperialist exploitation – a Götterdämmerung.”
From 1960 until his death in 1978, Sobukwe never had a stable family life. The modest Mofolo home was devoid of him and his wife shouldered the burden of chaperoning his children single handedly. His wife was routinely assisted by the older children to raise the last-born twins. In his letter to his wife from Robben Island, Sobukwe wrote: “Thanks for news about the kids. They really are a bouncing and energetic lot! Dini will have his hands full disciplining those two.”
Two decades of their infancy was spent in an agonising childhood bereft of the love and care of their father. When his children came of age they had to endure the drudgery and pain of seeing their father in prison. It wan an unedifying sight when Dedani first visited his father on Robben Island.
Their father was kept in prison long after he had finished his lawful sentence. He was the most feared of the political leaders in South Africa. Sobukwe looked forward with great fondness at every visit from his children. His children did not just mean the world to him but they were the world itself. Faced with isolation from other prisoners and kept in solitary confinement for six years, every visit from his children was a treasured moment.
Like any parent, Sobukwe derived comfort that his children would grow up one day and hoist the flag of his family name. He had great expectations that one day they would grow old and live to the true and intrinsic meaning of their names. Alas, it was not to be because the trauma of long spells of separation from their father, the anguish of loneliness and the sudden death of their father proved too much to bear. Their youth was stunted, their upbringing tragic and their lives haunted, ghastly experiences.
Sobukwe’s last remaining child is Miliswa on whose shoulders lie the onerous responsibility to sustain her father’s legacy. She has worked hard to establish the Sobukwe Foundation as a vehicle to reclaim her father’s legacy.
The doors of the Sobukwe home are closed but not shut. He lives far beyond the confines of his family and has amply sacrificed the youthful life of his children for the liberation of his people. That family was constantly raided, harassed and vilified by the police and knew no rest and peace. We hope that Dedani will find eternal rest and peace in the ethereal life. Had his childhood been normal much more could have come from that penetrating mind. Farewell noble son of the Baboon Clan.
* Thami ka Plaatjie is a director of the Pan-African Foundation.