Honour for great liberator
Lecture, fun run in memory of Nkosi Tyali’s vision, generosity
NKOSI Mkrazuli Tyali, the son of legendary King Ngqika of the AmaXhosa, who died on May 12 1842, will be honoured by the University of Fort Hare and his Foundation for his role in colonial resistance and for bequeathing a portion of his ancestral land for educational purposes.
A series of events are earmarked for next month to honour this gallant warrior, including a memorial lecture expected to be delivered by former South African president Thabo Mbeki.
While the lecture will be delivered at the University of Fort Hare, Alice campus on September 15, it will be followed by the inaugural Nkosi Tyali Fun Run the next day.
This run will follow a route that passes Nkosi Tyali’s Great Place in Woburn, Alice.
The memorial lecture will coincide with the university’s graduation ceremony scheduled for the same day in Alice.
Also on September 16, Tyali’s Woburn tombstone, which was unveiled last year, will be visited, while his life-size statue will be unveiled at a yet to be confirmed date.
Nkosi Tyali’s statue is set to be erected inside the University of Fort Hare’s main campus in Alice. His family are still engaging with government officials and the university as to when the statue will be erected.
The events will take place during the country’s Heritage Month.
The iconic Nkosi Tyali of the Imingcangathelo Kingdom is famous for donating the land on which the historic Fort Hare University and Lovedale College in Alice are located.
During his reign in 1839, Tyali gave explicit instructions that some of the area along the Tyhume Valley should be overseen by Scottish missionaries to ensure there was an educational springboard for the African nation.
One thousand hectares of land, irrigated by the Tyhume River, enabled these missionaries to consolidate the Lovedale school and training centre.
In the early 20th century, Lovedale in turn donated some of this land for the South African Native College to be built in 1916 which later became the University of Fort Hare.
Nkosi Tyali, according to the Nkosi Mkrazuli Tyali Foundation chairman and one of his descendants, Prince Banzi Tyali, was a thoughtful, strategic and calculating visionary.
“This is the man who, while there was physical confrontation between AmaXhosa and the English colonialists centuries ago, decided to bequeath his land for the later construction of schools that would be beneficial to the African populace in its mission to overthrow the colonial and apartheid policies of South Africa and the wider African continent.
“His vision, [to empower] Africans through education, [allowed] young people from across the African continent to flock to his land in search of academic and intellectual training that would prepare them against the various colonial and apartheid policies that were inhibiting the freedom of African masses.
“He was a great visionary who understood the importance of education in the quest to find modern strategies for the pursuit of anticolonial and anti-apartheid purposes,” said the prince.
He further said it was his greatgreat-grandfather’s forward thinking nature that conceived the idea that modern-day education would be integral in the struggle against colonialism and apartheid policies.
Prince Tyali said his foundation was mandated to develop socially relevant programmes and activities that were related to education, leadership, tradition, arts, culture, sport and tourism.
He said the purpose of the memorial lecture on September 15 “was to facilitate frank deliberations and discussions about what could be learned from Nkosi Tyali, as we are still yearning for a truly democratic South Africa that is underpinned by the importance of education in the struggle of Africans against imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism within the 21st century”.
“The memorial lecture will definitely open up a dialogue which will intertwine the legacy of Nkosi Tyali with the contemporary challenges facing South Africa today,” Prince Tyali said.
The foundation wants to use Nkosi Tyali’s leadership prowess to inspire traditional leaders to be progressive and to develop champions.
“We hope to see parallels drawn between yesterday’s leaders and current dispensation leaders in the quest to find ways that would lead us to the true meaning of our democracy.”
Prince Tyali said his foundation would work with youth through school intervention programmes, “that aim to fight social ills that seem to dominate our rural communities and destroy the future of tomorrow’s African leaders”.
“The moral decay and hopelessness among our people is certainly not what Nkosi Tyali envisaged when he made a meaningful contribution towards the establishment of higher education institutions.”
He said the September Fun Run would be used as a platform to engage young Africans about the dangers of substance abuse and the promotion of education, while instilling discipline, pride and a healthy African identity.
Nkosi Tyali was born in 1798 as the son of King Ngqika of the AmaRharhabe Kingdom.
Together with his brother Maqoma, he became a leader in several resistance movements against the colonial government in the 1800s.
During the unveiling of his tombstone last September, Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders chairman Nkosi Ngangomhlaba Matanzima likened Nkosi Tyali to former president Nelson Mandela.
He said the two were the only traditional leaders who stood out as champions and propagators of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.
“The two great traditional leaders have something in common.
“They were liberators of their people, but went on to do the unbelievable, to forgive their bitter enemies whom you and I would not dare to forgive.
“For nation-building, they believed in creating a world of forgiveness, full of happiness rather than a hell full of hatred, indecency and hostility,” Matanzima said at the time.
University of Fort Hare spokesman Khotso Moagi this week confirmed that the university, in partnership with Tyali’s foundation, would host a series of events in honour of Nkosi Tyali.
He said Mbeki, who is currently chancellor of the University of South Africa, has not yet confirmed his availability to deliver the planned memorial lecture
Prince Tyali said such celebrations would, going forward, be held on an annual basis. — asandan@