Mother of Azania a true revolutionary

On or about August 15, occupied Azania woke up to the sad news of the passing on of Mama Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe, the wife of the talismanic Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe.

Mama Sobukwe was a revolutionary Pan Africanist in her own right. In 1947, she was one of the leaders who organised and led a nurse strike at the Victoria Hospital.

Among other things, Mama Sobukwe remained true to two of her husband’s teachings:

“True leadership demands

● subjugation of self, absolute honesty, integrity and uprightness of character, courage, fearlessness and, above all, a consuming love for one’s people”; and “Watch our movements keenly and if

● you see any signs of ‘broad-mindedness’ or ‘reasonableness’ in us, or if you hear us talk of practical experience as a modifier of man’s views, denounce us as traitors to Africa.”

In the midst of brutal settler colonial adversity and the toughest times, she remained resolute, unflinching and would stop at nothing until the land issue – that is the principal contradiction in occupied Azania – is resolved and the land is returned to its rightful owners.

Even in the so-called new South Africa, when she and her husband were relegated to the footnote of history and pariahs, she never remonstrated, but continued to display her high revolutionary morals and discipline.

When you reach the pantheon of Africa’s revolutionaries, tell Sobukwe, Pokela, Lembede, Mothopeng and Poqokazi Nomvo Booi that the struggle for the repossession of the dispossessed land has metamorphosed into “land expropriation without compensation”, thereby legalising and/or justifying the colonial conquest and the land dispossession of the indigenous African majority. You served, suffered and sacrificed. Kwaheri nzuri binti, Pumzika kwa Amani!

Dr Leslie Seth Kgapola

Tshwane