Repent! The pillars of liberation have fallen
birthbed of the ANC, the PAC, the BPC, Cope and the EFF – our chiefs were represented.
We are often told that Chief Oliver (Ah! Dalindyebo) went to donate an unbelievable 50 herd of cattle in Bloemfontein.
Chief Tyhali of the imingcangathelo tribe along the banks of the River Tyhume donated his land for the building of the monumental University of Fort Hare and his people fetched water and sand for the brick and mortar that is today Fort Hare.
What a bequest our present chiefs have from their forefathers! But today our chiefs have ceased to be the inspirations of the people they represent. Their imbizos and traditional gatherings – that is, those that are still convened – are fun games, no longer used to conscientise people about politics and good governance as in days gone by. Think of Mandela’s speech at the Treason Trial.
Which chief has convened an imbizo to inform people of issues around President Jacob Zuma – the criminal allegations, Nkandla (no matter how you pronounce it!), the Constitutional Court judgment, the SABC stubbornness, the SAA bottomless pit, the funding of so many first ladies, the list goes on.
Let us at least take our hats off and salute Bayede! Silo samabandla. Bejane phuma esiqiwini; King Zwelithini, who bewailed the rot in government and within the ruling party at the Ntshanga funeral recently.
Let us also genuflect before Mpendulo Sigcawu (Ah! Zwelonke), King of amaXhosa, who in the wake of poor ANC election results, passionately and publicly advised President Zuma to step down.
Chiefs – to remain relevant – must interest their people in politics, but not in party politics!
We also have the bequest of the religious fathers. Again, leave aside the role played by missionaries, without whom our education would not have reached the levels it has. We had our Tiyo Soga, whose hymn Lizalis’idinga lakho keenly competed with Enoch Sontonga’s Nkosi sikelel’iAfrika at SANNC conferences until the latter nearly became the national anthem.
We had Father Trevor Huddleston, Bishop Winter, Archbishop Yus de Blank, Dr Beyers Naude, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Denis Hurley and many more. These are clerics who knew that a sermon was incomplete without invoking Jesus Christ’s injunction: Thy will be done on earth [therefore in South Africa] as it is in Heaven.
Know ye all, dear clerics of today: your sermons are boring to your congregants as long as you safely avoid preaching for – or against – the evils confronting South Africa.
Bongani Finca, another cleric, preached in the dark of days of apartheid that avoiding preaching against glaring injustices is a sin before God. He was as correct then, as he is today. Yes, preach about the fifth to the tenth commandments, but of what relevance are these to the deprived and robbed poor?
Was Jesus wrong to surmise that it would be as difficult for the rich to enjoy the kingdom of God as it would be for a camel to go through the eye of a needle?
I suggest that our clerics be South Africans, preaching to South Africans in South Africa!
The third bequest was from our educationists. Our indigenous education had, as John Keats would put it, its music too.
Remember the great wisdom passed from generation to generation in the form of fairy tales (iintsomi), music (amagwijo), at circumcision schools, at girl guides (intonjana), at weddings and in our traditional courts (iinkundla).
Speaking of formal education, we had our trailblazers in the last half of 19th century and first half of the 20th. Names such as John Langalibalele Dube (Bayede! Mafukuzela) who became the first president of the SANNC, Rubusana who was its first vicepresident, and Sol T Plaatjie, who declined SANNC presidency in 1917, easily come to mind. John Tengo Jabavu was founder and editor of Imvo Zabantsundu newspaper.
Not to be left unsung are the women. Charlotte Maxeke nee’ Manye, who led women against the notorious Land Act of 1913, was the first African woman graduate. She was a co-founder of the SANNC, the Bantu Women’s League, and the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICWU). Cecilia Makiwane, after whom Cecilia Makiwane Hospital is named, was the first African medical nurse. The trail which these luminaries left is fast fading in the light of the common day.
Today education is made the theatre of foolish politicians where each struts and frets upon the stage and then gives way to an even greater idiot.
No wonder our educational standards are considered the worst in the world.
As if to complement the compliment, our examinations results could not be worse!
Remember the good that has been done. Tambo, Sisulu, Mbeki, Tshwete, Luthuli, Mhlaba, Nzo, Sobukhwe, Stofile ...
A price was paid to build the three pillars of our liberation. It should not end.
Was it along the River Jordan or on the banks of the Limpopo that John the Baptist was heard shouting: Repent! The kingdom of the African is nigh!
And the people thought he was mad.