Sobukwe and Apartheid [new epilogue ed.] 0813516927, 9780813516929

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Sobukwe and Apartheid Benjamin Pogrund Thirty years ago, Robert Sobukwe led a mass defiance of the pass laws in South Africa. He persuaded blacks to present themselves at police stations and demand arrest, but the nonviolent protest turned to tragedy when the police opened fire, killing sixty-nine. It was March 21, 1960, at Sharpeville, Sobukwe’s last day of liberty. He died while in internal exile nearly eighteen years later of lung cancer. Leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress, Sobukwe was both a colleague and rival of figures better known today: Tutu, Mandela, and Buthelezi. Because the Pan-Africanist idea was not in the end supported by the antiapartheid leadership, Sobukwe and his contributions have been largely forgotten. It is more than appropriate that his story be told now. Understanding his life is essential to a full understanding of the tensions among contemporary black leaders in South Africa.

Benjamin Pogrund, former Deputy Editor of the Rand Daily Mail, is now on the Foreign Desk of The Independent, London. He was a personal

friend of Robert Sobukwe.

SOBUKWE

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First published in cloth and paperback in the United States by Rutgers University Press, 1991 First published as How Can Man Die Better . . . Sobukwe and Apartheid by Peter Halban Publishers Ltd., 1990 First published in paperback in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1990 Copyright © 1990; epilogue copyright © 1991 by Benjamin Pogrund No reproduction, copy, storage, or transmission of this publication may be made without prior written permission of the Publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pogrund, Benjamin [How can man die better] Sobukwe and apartheid / Benjamin Pogrund. ' pro rein: Reprint. Originally published: How can man die better. London :P. Halban, 1990.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8135-1692-7 (cloth) — ISBN 0-8135-1693-5 (pbk.) 1. Sobukwe, Robert Mangaliso. 2. Pan Africanist Congress— _Bi

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Acknowledgements Many people helped in the preparation of this book. The names of most of them are in the text. Anonymity has been necessary in some instances because of the South African political situation or other factors. I hope they all find that they have been accurately and reasonably reported. I owe particular thanks to Randolph Vigne, who read the text and offered

a host of informed

and constructive

comments;

to

Hamilton Zolile Keke, who was always cheerfully willing to share his knowledge; to Dennis Siwisa, who unfortunately died in 1990 shortly before publication of this book; he had been a source of invaluable information and had read the text. And I thank Veronica Zodwa Sobukwe, not only for many years of friendship, but for her support in the writing of this book and for reading the text. My thanks are also due to my literary agent, Shelley Power, whose enthusiasm never flagged, and to Simon Richardson for his sensitive editing. I wish to thank Humphrey Tyler for permission to publish his report on the Sharpeville shooting; Jan Tystad for allowing reproduction of a report he wrote for Dagbladet, Oslo; The Times, London, for permission to publish excerpts from a column by Nicholas Ashford (who sadly died in February 1990); and The New

York Times in regard to a column by Anthony Lewis. Although Desmond Tutu did not have the chance to read the text, he generously provided his view of Robert Sobukwe for publication on the cover. Despite the help and goodwill of these and other friends, I bear full responsibility for the information and views in what is, ultimately, a personal view of Bob Sobukwe. Finally, my gratitude to my wife, Anne, for sharing so much with me and Bob. vil

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Preface Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: ‘To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods?’ Thomas Babington Macaulay: Lays of Ancient Rome, Horatius

As the sky began to lighten on a late summer’s morning in South Africa, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe left his home in Soweto to walk to the nearest police station. He was going to demand that he be arrested. Six other men were with him. Three more joined them during their walk of 4.5 kilometres. All were blacks.* Each newcomer received a salute, right hand raised, the palm open, and a sonorous greeting, ‘iAfrika—Zulu and Xhosa for “O Africa!’. Each responded with the same salute and the cry, ‘Izwe Lethu’—‘Our Country’. * Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to write about South Africa without constant references to racial groups. That is what apartheid has been about, and to avoid the references would be both confusing and require a distortion of reality. There is no universal agreement about the terms to be used and usage in any event changes from time to time. The words I generally use are: Asians, blacks, coloureds and whites.

Benjamin Pogrund

Workers on their way to trains and buses to get to jobs in the city of Johannesburg looked at them with curiosity; some greeted them, others hurried to be away from them. An hour later, by 7.30 a.m., Sobukwe and the small group were at the Orlando police station, a single-storeyed building, the walls and roof made of corrugated iron. They halted outside the high wire-mesh fence and waited for others to arrive. They were uncertain about how many might come. Eventually, about 200 men gathered there, with a cluster of women to wish them well. It was Monday, 21 March 1960. For Sobukwe, it was the day that South Africa was to be transformed by what he had termed ‘positive action’ against the pass laws. Until abolished in July 1986, these laws were the basic method used by white authority to control the country’s black majority.

The laws determined where blacks could live and work, and even

what work they could do. Every black adult; both men and women, had to carry an identity document—the ‘pass’. Officially, it was

known as a reference book. Blacks, however, called it the dompas—

Afrikaans for ‘stupid pass’. The pass had to be carried at all times, to be instantly produced when demanded by a policeman. Failure to have the pass available courted instant arrest, prosecution and a fine or Jailing. Even more important, the pass contained details of a black person’s status: whether he was allowed to be ina particular area or city. A person found where his pass did not specify he was allowed to be was also subject to immediate arrest. In 1958, the number of convictions of blacks under the various

control laws—considerably less than the number of arrests—was 396,836. This was an average of 1,087 on each day of the year, weekends included, in a total black population of less than eleven million. The pass laws were responsible for about one-third of the criminal convictions of black people. The pass laws were hated as the tangible evidence of black subjugation, and for their ravaging effects on the lives of millions upon millions of people. Sobukwe had called on blacks to end the pass laws by making the system inoperable through mass arrests, thus clogging the courts and the prisons by weight of numbers. On 21 March he was giving the lead and doing precisely what he had asked others to do: to leave their passes at home and to go to police stations to demand arrest. It Z

Sobukwe and Apartheid

was the first major public campaign of his organisation, the PanAfricanist Congress, formed a bare eighteen months earlier in a breakaway from the old-established African National Congress. The 200 or so men who offered themselves for arrest at the Orlando police station represented not much more than a couple of days’ work for a Bantu Commissioner’s court where a magistrate usually disposed of a pass case in a few minutes. Taking the plea, hearing evidence and passing sentence was done in sausage-machine style. It was a deceptively small start to a day which was to transform South Africa.

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