LITMIR.BIZ

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would continue to be promoted within the ANC and win new converts. Mda lectured on Lembede from time to time, but formal Lembede commemorations did not get off the ground until the mid-1950s.72 Promoting Lembede’s views became critical after 1949 as the ANC (and Youth Leaguers) began to split into two camps – those who retained their commitment to a “pure” African nationalism and those who were prepared to forge alliances with political organisations representing other racial groups and the Communist Party. The former, who called themselves the “Africanists”, were the nucleus of the faction that eventually broke away from the ANC to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1959. The Africanists also held Lembede memorials and used their journal, The Africanist, to reprint some of his essays as well as tributes to him and his ideas.

      CONCLUSION

      “No man outside the lunatic asylum can shamelessly maintain that present leaders are immortal. They must, when the hour strikes, inexorably bow down to fate and pass away, for: ‘There is no armour against fate, Death lays his icy hands on Kings.’” When Lembede penned these words in early 1947, he was not anticipating his own death seven months later, but the inevitable transfer of leadership from one generation to another. However, the fact that his life was cut short before he realised his full potential inevitably influences the way in which people view his contribution to South African political life.

      A parallel that people often turn to is the Old Testament story of the Israelite search for the promised land. At a Lembede memorial held in mid-1955, a prominent African Methodist Episcopal minister, Nimrod Tantsi, compared Lembede to Moses, who “led the Israelites out of Egypt and died before reaching Canaan”, and he appealed for new Joshuas to step forward to lead Africans to their freedom.73 In 1992, when we asked A P Mda to reflect on Lembede’s contributions, he used the analogy of Moses not only to describe Lembede, but also to reinforce a point that Lembede repeatedly stressed about the importance of African leadership in the freedom struggle.

      A leader of the African people must come from the Africans themselves. A true leader who’s going to lead them to their freedom … Moses belonged to the Jewish people, the Israelites … He gave them the direction. They followed that path which he gave them. In this situation the road to salvation is this one. Let’s be together, gather our forces, and then march forward and cross the Red Sea. There can be no freedom unless we cross the Red Sea. We can cross the Red Sea only if we, the Israelite leaders, lead you because we are part and parcel of you – we see the way as you see it. And we’ve got a clear vision of where we can go … Moses is part of you. He is yourselves. And he can lead you through the dangers of the Red Sea and the desert and march you to unity across the desert facing all the difficulties until we end up in the promised land.74

      Lembede may not have lived to see freedom in his lifetime, but he packed a full life into the roughly four years he was active on the political scene. At his death he was emerging as a major figure in the ANC, and one wonders what his impact on the course of South African politics would have been if he had lived longer. Would the Youth League have put his name forward as their candidate to succeed Dr Xuma as ANC president in 1949? If he had become ANC president, would he have moderated his strong views on African nationalism or would he have kept African nationalist ideas to the fore in the ANC? Could he have defused the dissension in the ANC and staved off the breakaway of the PAC in the late 1950s?

      Lembede was an incandescent figure whose diverse talents and educational and professional accomplishments marked him for distinction. A self-made man, he overcame his humble origins and devoted his meagre resources and his considerable energy to complete three university degrees. A gifted linguist, he communicated with ease in seven languages. A lawyer, he was the first of his contemporaries to qualify to practice. A committed Christian, he sought to translate his beliefs into political action. A political philosopher, he crafted an ideology of liberation centred around the cornerstones of African unity and a spiritual Pan-Africanism. To his age-mates he was a standard-bearer for their aspirations. And his untimely passing was deeply mourned by his friends and opponents alike. After his death, some teachers went so far as to hang his picture in their classrooms to inspire their pupils.

      Lembede’s achievements as a politician were modest. Unseasoned politically when he moved to Johannesburg in 1943, he came under the tutelage of more experienced young politicians and he rapidly rose to leadership positions in the Youth League and parent ANC. Impatient, zealous and uncompromising, he was a ferocious combatant who led the Youth League charge to shake up an ANC reluctant to adopt militant tactics. These qualities were both an asset and a liability when it came to practical politics. On the one hand, he was prepared to take up causes, however formidable the odds; and he was not daunted by the prospect of taking on the power elites of both the white government and the ANC. On the other hand, his brashness and intolerance of other people’s views could lead him into blind alleys. Moreover, his attempts to pressure ANC leaders to boycott government bodies such as the NRC and expel communists from the ANC executive were easily thwarted by the ANC’s old guard.

      Lembede’s temperament was more suited to the barricades than the backroom. His strength was as a polemicist, not as a tactician. Thus it is his ideas which are his primary legacy. His advocacy of an exclusive African nationalism, that Africans had to emancipate themselves psychologically and rely on their own leadership in order to challenge white domination, and that national liberation took primacy over class struggle provoked heated debate, even within Youth League circles. But his ideas struck a popular chord with many; and they fuelled debates on race, class and national identity that reverberate to this day.

      Perhaps it is fitting to conclude this introduction by turning again to the words of Mda:

      Anton Lembede became the most pronounced and the most forceful and uncompromising exponent of the new spirit. It is not that he was a prophet or a saint. There were other men around and behind him who were just as great. It is just that his language touched the inner chords in the hearts of the African people, and intensified the stirrings and the ferment which were already there. Anton Lembede spoke a language which reminded the people of their past greatness, and their present misery, and which opened up new boundless vistas of freedom and joy in a new democratic Africa. He gave “clear and pointed expression to the vaguely felt ideas of the age.”75

      On 27 October 2002, Mandela was one of the speakers paying tribute to Lembede at the reburial of his remains at his home at Esijwini in Umbumbulu:

      From the moment I heard Lembede speak I knew I was in the presence of a dynamic thinker and his ideas immediately struck a chord in me. What I particularly remember from the ideas put forward by Lembede in those vigorous and stimulating discussions was his insistence that black people should rid themselves of a debilitating inferiority complex. This inferiority complex he saw as the greatest barrier to liberation. He also insisted that ethnic differences were disappearing and that the young men and women of that time were thinking of themselves as Africans in the first place rather than as members of an ethnic group … As we today remember Comrade Anton Lembede … let us recommit ourselves to be dynamic agents for changing our society for the common good of all our people.

      Foreword

      A P MDA

      When I reflect on my memories of Lembede, two things stick out in my mind – his scholarliness and the innovative analysis he made of the freedom struggle. When he was young he got a lucky break. He had performed very brilliantly in Standard VI, so he was given a scholarship to further his education at Adams College. And he did well on that scholarship. He laid a good foundation for his later studies. He became a teacher, and this enabled him to work and earn some money – to support himself and his parents and prepare for his future.

      He made rapid strides in his studies – all through self-study. Once he completed his BA, he began working towards his LLB, the Bachelor of Laws. And then he rounded off his education by earning an MA degree in Philosophy.

      While he was studying and preparing for his thesis for his MA degree, we were staying together in Orlando East. We had extensive discussions because he was studying the philosophers from Descartes to the present day. Now that was very fortunate for me because he used to invite me to take part in discussing some of the issues raised by the philosophers. Very often we took opposite positions. I had to defend a certain position

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