The future is in the past

Dear Diary

A few years ago, June 2009 to be precise, I sat inside my car nervously laughing at myself while speaking to my best friend on the phone.

With each unforgiving giggle from her, I wanted to bang my head even harder on the steering wheel while praying that the ground swallows my car and all its contents at that very minute. 

See it would have been better if I was parked outside my house or some other familiar and friendly territory like the local pub or something. But no! I was right outside what was to me once “the rival TV station”. I’d just updated my facebook status with two words – Patrice Lumumba.

After impulsively quitting my job as News Anchor/Producer at SABC TV in May 2009, with no plan in place, I convinced myself I would travel around the world until such time that I needed to be back in the rat race again…when all the savings were gone.  A part of me though said I should keep looking out for vacancies in the media industry and so I reluctantly did.

That day when I sat in my car, that day I quickly wanted to forget, was the day I had just come out of a job interview - an interview which right at the end saw me seeing fireworks and my tongue suddenly begging for saliva.

Who is Lumumba?

The interview [now, perhaps deliberately, I don’t even remember the exact title of what it was for but something along the lines of producing Africa News content] was going well until he said, “Last question for you, what do you think Patrice Lumumba’s relevance to Africa and the world is today?”. Quick. Think. Shit. Think. Shit. Think. Did he say TODAY?  Think. Quick. Think.

I inhaled and looked at all three men in the interviewing panel calmly and confidently [needless to say, I wasn’t feeling too confident at that point] and responded. My response made thorough sense but even I admit; it was vague. Had it been a written test, I would probably have gotten at least 3 out of 5 marks for my answer to that question.

Unfortunately for me it was an oral test so the follow-up question was inevitable; “Please elaborate, and give us examples to motivate what you’ve just told us.” Phew! That’s when even I knew I couldn’t escape because at that point in my life, all I knew about Lumumba was vague and summarized as “the guy who liberated Zaire [now the Democratic Republic of Congo] but was brutally killed for his efforts”. Don’t ask me by whom, why, when and when. Ok, maybe NOW you can ask. I have all the answers.

Back to THAT day. As I sat in the car updating my facebook status, before quickly directing my phone to Google “Patrice Lumumba” and getting ready to call my friend, I whispered to myself, “What kind of interview question is that anyway? What does it have to do with my ability to execute my duties because if I’m in a newsroom and I don’t know who Lumumba is I will simply Google him and get the FACTS and what my OPINION of him is shouldn’t matter? That’s what journalists do right – report FACTS…and not based on opinion?”

Anyway, I remember this not so colorful day in my professional life because last week as I watched a documentary about this other man that I’d never really heard much about, THAT question that was asked of me about Lumumba suddenly had an answer. Boom! Just like that. Like an epiphany.

Like Lumumba, I knew this man’s name from somewhere within the struggle for South Africa’s freedom, but I didn’t really know his story and what he’d specifically done to contribute so positively and remarkably to the anti-Apartheid struggle.

This is the point where I [and you too must] forgive me for knowing so little about African heroes because firstly I grew up in a small sugar cane town in Swaziland - sheltered from Apartheid.

Secondly the South African history I was taught in Secondary school made no mention of black South Africans with the exception of Shaka Zulu and his warriors, the Mfecane wars and one young woman named No-nkwaa-cee as my Afrikaner history teacher pronounced it (years later I learnt the correct pronunciation is No-ngqa-wuse).

Thirdly, outside of the history of Swaziland, this South African history was actually the only “African” history I was exposed to all through my undergraduate studies at the University of Swaziland.

Mind you at this time (teen years) I didn’t even know that I had a relationship with “blackness”, it’s still something I struggle with everyday because where I come from, although we acknowledged each other’s differences in terms of skin color, we moved beyond that to always acknowledge each other first as human beings, only with different cultures. Story for another day anwyay.

Enter the Professor (1924-1978)

Fast forward to my epiphany and this OTHER MAN - This man who answered my Lumumba question is the legendary Mangaliso Robert “Prof” Sobukwe, founder of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

Like many anti-Apartheid activists during that era, he was subjected to solitary confinement for being “defiant” – firstly as a freshman at the University of Fort Hare and then for six years on Robben Island where many of the most feared political prisoners were banished to.

Sobukwe confronted the Apartheid regime head on one morning in March 1960. He led throngs of people in a peaceful march to the Orlando Police Station in Soweto. They had all left at home their  “pass books” which black people had to carry on their person at all times, failing which they would be jailed.

It was on this day in 1960 that at a similar march in Sharpeville, outside of the city of Johannesburg, Apartheid police opened fire and killed 69 people in what is now remembered as the Sharpeville Massacre, and commemorated by all South Africans as Human Rights Day on March 21^st.  

It was during his periods of isolation that he kept himself busy by reading, writing and studying, receiving amongst others a degree in Economics from the University of London.

Whilst under house arrest in Kimberley, after being released from Robben Island in 1969 (without an explanation from Apartheid authorities) this brilliant orator studied further to qualify as a practicing attorney, focusing on offering legal representation to South Africa’s poorest and vulnerable people.

If I had to narrate all his experiences and achievements here, this article would turn into book material so I will just stick to how his life story impacted me, thanks to that series of documentaries on SABC 1.

Beyond what he had personally overcome in his life and for the struggle for a democratic South Africa for all i.e. missing out of the daily lives of his wife and children; being tortured by Apartheid police, being isolated for years on end etc… the other thing that captured me about Sobukwe is not how the media or other liberation leaders described him; “radical”, "revolutionary", “inspiring” etc but how the people he lived with, in Kimberley in particular, spoke of him.

The way they spoke of him made me realize that the term “inspiring” is too narrow to describe the great man that Sobukwe was.

A Human Being, being human

Most of them described him fondly as “a PERSON…” who greeted and interacted with everyone and always asked how their families were doing.

And to him this wasn’t just small talk, if there was something he could do to improve any family’s situation, he tried his best….and always with a smile. That’s how most of the people who were fortunate enough to be physically touched by Sobukwe’s greatness describe him; a PERSON.  

That’s the essence of what he was fighting for – always first and ultimately recognizing and respecting each other as people, human beings, equals and disregarding race and other prejudices.

Yes, this is what Sobukwe believed in and only fought a SYSTEM of governance that forced human beings into relating differently from this natural human to human being level. It was Sobukwe who said “There is only one race to which we all belong, and that is the human race.”

This, Sobukwe’s spirit lives still today in the hearts of many young Africans but perhaps many of us such young Africans have not awakened to this spirit – the same spirit of Lumumba. The spirit of PURPOSE and RESPONSIBILITY FOR HUMANITY.

I must confess, ever the late-bloomer, I am one of those young Africans who has taken quite a while to awaken to firstly my surroundings, the meaning of these surroundings in the bigger scheme of my life [and death]. But it is never too late.

We can all start today, now, in our own small ways. Start by smiling at your partner, your neighbor, from one human being to another – just a smile. You will be amazed at the ripple effect of that smile – you would have started a movement.

It may not be as big a movement as founding an organization like the PAC or Organization of African Unity, but it is definitely a movement.

That’s what the spirit of Sobukwe, Lumumba, Biko, Nkrumah, Garvey, Kenyatta, Nyerere, Machel, Guevara….is doing for us TODAY.

It is always alive but it needs to be kept alive and we can only keep it alive by always questioning what our PURPOSE and RESPONSIBILITY is and what we have done to move a step closer to fulfilling our purpose - firstly to our individual selves and to our families, communities and ultimately the world. We cannot leave this world as we found it.

The future is in the past. May we always learn from the past.

Dear Diary, if I may end this session ‘90s love letter writing style this is how it would end ---> Song Dedication: Thandiswa Mazwai – Nizalwa Ngobani?