The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

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To this end, the SBF was not unsupportive of the “Afro‐chic” design outfit Stoned Cherrie, when it placed a colourful image of Biko’s face on to a fashion T‐shirt as a means of introducing “the image of Biko to the otherwise uninformed youth”. This may have served to take the cause of “Biko preservation” from the domain of the party ideologue and to “liberate [him] from the mausoleum”, but it did not stop Black Consciousness activists from objecting to “the pop idolisation of our legends”. As one public intellectual wondered how the proceeds of Biko’s face (at R 310, 00 a T‐shirt) might be directed to the poor, another expressed his support for the “refreshing mobilisation effort” of the design move, but added his hope for a transition “from the imagery of Biko to the content of his writings”. Perhaps Stoned Cherrie might have considered selling its T‐shirts “with an accompanying paperback copy of Biko’s I Write what I Like”. 288 In the first 10 years of South Africa’s democracy, institutions in the public domain became sites for the production of history in the form of heritage projects, museum displays, new memorials, and the performance of identity. A central element of these heritage productions has been biographic, with the construction of heroic memory in many sites. Many of these constructions occurred ‘from above’ as part of the engineering of a new nation in accord with new identifiable discursive frameworks and also involved processes of heritage commercialisation and image branding. While some projects and initiatives have sought to contest these hegemonic constructions, this chapter argues that the most significant biographic challenges have come from the work of critical biography in such museum domains as the District Six Museum and the Hector Pieterson Museum, which have shown how it is possible to pay attention to issues of knowledge production and mediation in the work of biographic representation. Biography needs to transcend the frames of documentary realism and triumphant celebration in order to be effectively marshalled in the work of developing a critical citizenship. 288 ‘Finding Biko’, in SL, November 2003; Bongani Madondo, ‘Not just a pretty face’, Sunday Times Lifestyle, 24 August 2003; Nadia Davids, ‘Public art out of our present’, Cape Argus, 26 August 2003. The public intellectuals cited are playwright, Davids and former AZAPO executive member, Gomolemo Mokae. 291
PART TWO BEYOND MODERNIST HISTORY: THE PRODUCTION AND CONTESTATION OF ISAAC BANGANI TABATA’S BIOGRAPHY
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The Individual, Auto/biography and
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation
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committee members selected me to ta
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements
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Authorship, individuation and the b
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ABBREVIATIONS AAC All‐African Con
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INTRODUCTION The research for this
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transformation in the Eastern Cape?
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South African society provided the
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manifest dishonesty. Through a case
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genealogy of biographic mediation w
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tribute to Tabata that Taylor const
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CHAPTER ONE AUTO/BIOGRAPHY, NARRATI
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self‐constitution and the “styl
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intercourse entailed in this metaph
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1930s, with decreasing institutiona
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psychological characteristics” wh
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entextualised in diverse ways”, c
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While all mankind may be the subjec
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life’ and career as the focus hav
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development, a “narrative of inte
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denies the centrality of the subjec
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story, creating a ‘transferential
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een backward‐looking. Their commu
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[w]e need to attend to the historic
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enacted, lived in particular conjun
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‘representivity’ would constitu
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through particular enunciative stra
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ones. 114 Modernity gave rise to li
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These, in turn, have a profound eff
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are also to be found in the ‘stor
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historian, personal and political,
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sites of the ‘memorial complex’
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These biographies of ‘great polit
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der Post family. 17 Even Bertolt Br
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While the limitations of Jones’ b
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and work had emphasised the serious
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accused Mother Teresa of promulgati
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Mother Teresa, “hoping some of he
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sainthood”, the amount of miracle
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This biographic world of saint vene
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dared to be that person”. She “
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and popular circuits of exchange an
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institutions that make up the exhib
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participation in annual heroic comm
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Biographic memorial productions hav
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myths, while radio and television p
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the monument was removed during the
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about the past, as “political eli
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suggesting that use was merely made
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and “The Annual Salute to Greatne
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the use of his image”. 106 Moreov
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In this radical biographic interpre
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In addition to this standard biogra
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National Civil Rights Museum in Mem
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Although Mao’s image had been use
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more varied … [and] far more exci
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esistance hero in general, of hope
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issues about image‐making and aut
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Lumumba who could stand in oppositi
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CHAPTER THREE RESISTANCE STUDIES AN
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in “a wide range of inventive pol
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marginalised, grassroots people [an
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Since the 1970s, the terrain of res
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In an obvious sense, these studies
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Under the conditions of deepening r
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Crucially, this feature found expre
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established through his professiona
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scepticism, 35 the use of this noti
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“glimpse into the inner mind of o
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Higgs and Steven Gish also followed
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understand the background, politica
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national and land questions” conc
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Higgs’ study was largely a chrono
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South Africans to protest against t
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In these traditional ‘masculinist
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1980s in South African scholarship,
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academic institutions involved in t
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struggles over municipal controls d
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that during the 1950s, a period see
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away from biographic images of cons
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orthography with “self‐appointe
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middle section had vacillated. Anot
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Biography has also been a vehicle f
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After collecting oral testimony fro
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and ‘jumping the fence’ led to
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whose value depended on their accur
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(probably Nkadimeng) in a resettlem
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determine the voice and style in wh
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memory into a written academic prod
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Biography for social history was a
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esistance history sought to provide
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and La Hausse were completed by sch
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consciousness, conversations, and/o
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A foray into biography in the work
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ceased to be the major site for the
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study did not go far enough in the
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continued political role”. It was
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In exploring these issues of image,
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While Clingman’s study has posed
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state they contested”, as the col
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focusing on the creation of systems
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and survival against the onslaught
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and reconciliation in South Africa.
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accustomed to clear hierarchies bet
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South African public history. This
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unifier and a liberator of the mind
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these ways, the Mayibuye Centre was
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together, these booklets attempted
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Biography also provided the basis o
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As part of these transformations, M
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leader, Bill Andrews. 58 Written fr
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It is this biographic impetus which
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the post‐apartheid present, and t
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Ngcelwane, whose family had had bee
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of softnesses and roughnesses” of
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extended to other arenas of public
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These images of the Business Day re
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once stood in central Pretoria, was
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declared a national monument on 12
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University’s Mark Haywood felt th
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Ministry of Water Affairs and Fores
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to the present. This project would
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was missed to develop a complex her
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contemplation and celebration were
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Morris Isaacson High School, Regina
Page 253 and 254: The Museum was really inaugurated,
Page 255 and 256: through biographic presentation. Bu
Page 257 and 258: 2003. Thabo Mbeki expressed the poi
Page 259 and 260: In contrast, Ronnie Kasrils, Modise
Page 261 and 262: narratives and moral trajectories o
Page 263 and 264: visual terms as part of a president
Page 265 and 266: especially one who had been a long
Page 267 and 268: applications had to make a biograph
Page 269 and 270: In April 2003, the Nelson Mandela F
Page 271 and 272: ooklet was organised as a chronolog
Page 273 and 274: single sitting”. 191 However, it
Page 275 and 276: In 1999, Anthony Sampson, who had b
Page 277 and 278: eating breakfast and even shaving a
Page 279 and 280: (Mandela’s birth place), on the b
Page 281 and 282: “triumph of the human spirit”,
Page 283 and 284: sought to contest the tendency for
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Page 287 and 288: follow the advice of Anthony Sampso
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Page 291 and 292: new conditions of exile was the con
Page 293 and 294: importance of relations of cultural
Page 295 and 296: construction of Nelson Mandela has
Page 297 and 298: iography in public and commercial s
Page 299 and 300: artist, Jacob Khumalo, who had exhi
Page 301 and 302: epresentatives on the Nelson Mandel
Page 303: eliance, self‐respect and self‐
Page 307 and 308: marginality. Among the materials in
Page 309 and 310: Gradually, in drips and drabs, the
Page 311 and 312: While Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape
Page 313 and 314: for the field of political biograph
Page 315 and 316: microfilm collection contained a su
Page 317 and 318: and Karis may have received from Ta
Page 319 and 320: and reserve dwellers, arguing that
Page 321 and 322: Indeed, in this genealogy, the most
Page 323 and 324: and was conducted as part of a wide
Page 325 and 326: In making these assessments, Hirson
Page 327 and 328: policy that had envisaged redivided
Page 329 and 330: formation of APDUSA in January 1961
Page 331 and 332: “effectively … smashed within t
Page 333 and 334: opportunities that presented themse
Page 335 and 336: and verbal performances, which have
Page 337 and 338: political leadership was exercised
Page 339 and 340: CHAPTER SIX FROM COLLECTIVE LEADERS
Page 341 and 342: special protest meetings in convene
Page 343 and 344: upture was coming to a head, when h
Page 345 and 346: principles”. 18 Another aspect of
Page 347 and 348: included on the back cover of such
Page 349 and 350: political training did not take pla
Page 351 and 352: pertinent to the themes of this cha
Page 353 and 354: cause, rather than the leader”. T
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341
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343
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345
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347
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asic passport‐type pen picture sa
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their prominent placement in public
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353
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of individualised leadership may ha
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political positions which rejected
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interesting that Taylor’s first w
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handwriting, which had been prepare
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ehabilitation. 96 This did not stop
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ooted in the past”, he suggested,
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During 1949 and 1950, amid mounting
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“colour and strength” were impo
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Elsewhere on the left, Tabata’s b
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occurred in which Tabata was subjec
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Tabata, as an individual, bore a po
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making them “more careful about w
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teachers qualified to speak on matt
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Education for Barbarism marked Taba
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fulfil the same function” as ‘T
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state of anonymity to their true st
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of persecution and state harassment
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While Tabata’s presidency may hav
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final choice between the subterfuge
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circulated as the embodiment of its
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CHAPTER SEVEN DORA TAYLOR AND THE N
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Soon after Tabata arrived in Cape T
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historical understandings, Taylor
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was “tolerably easy”. In fact,
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her text had been “written in its
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the eastern Cape about which she wr
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While she was writing The Rôle of
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out of the strains and pressures of
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who were involved in the movement c
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moved into Gool’s newly rented ho
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off by expressing his “envy” of
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They had a full life and she a full
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emotional and sexual desires as the
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Fashioning Tabata’s biography Vir
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continued to rework and re‐edit T
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us”. Goolam Gool, he had argued,
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political practice”. Tabata assur
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Nine that the AAC and Unity Movemen
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authored pamphlets aimed at “clar
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production of I.B. Tabata made a mi
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political work in the movement, in
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political leadership. By that time,
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unleashing different forms of biogr
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their political exchanges. 9 Later,
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where “fierce debates and discuss
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education as well as mechanisms of
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identification”. This identity cl
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need for leadership”. Tabata invi
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Likewise, concepts of strategic val
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was also invited to join along with
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fundamental and genuine manner and
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them. Sihlali’s presidentship of
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expressed had been “essentially h
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By the 1950s, increased internal bl
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way of their own greatness?” 76 A
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“suspended” from the movement,
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Thereafter, Alexander and his comra
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“mounting to a climax”. Jane Go
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From around 1960, leaders of the Un
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The movement’s ‘architect’ al
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with the other liberation movements
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The ADC was a means of Tabata “ri
Page 493 and 494:
ureaucratic abuse and of trying to
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econstituted APDUSA represented an
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NUM. They found instead a hostility
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significance of deceased ‘heroes
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A man … surrounded by a sea of pe
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and Alie and Ursula Fataar had assi
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491
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in “his contribution” to the li
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Almost unexpectedly, at his funeral
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497
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community of Lesseyton interred one
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The final entry of Tabata’s body
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heritage sites and collections. I w
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discovered heritage constructions o
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national heritage, even when those
Page 523 and 524:
elevant information from my researc
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disrespectful. And the fact that th
Page 527 and 528:
what I offer here is more than a st
Page 529 and 530:
(e) Central Archives Depot, Pretori
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Ilizwi leSizwe, Vol. 1, No 2, 18 Oc
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(b) Other Videos Hell’s Angel: Mo
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(f) CD‐Roms Nelson Mandela: The s
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Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museu
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7. INTERVIEWS AND RECORDINGS OF SPE
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William Beinart and Colin Bundy, Hi
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Stephen Clingman, The Novels of Nad
Page 545 and 546:
Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Tra
Page 547 and 548:
Dominic LaCapra, Writing History, W
Page 549 and 550:
David Morley and Ken Worpole (eds),
Page 551 and 552:
James D Sexton (ed), Son of Tecum U
Page 553 and 554:
Susan G Wynne (Compiler), South Afr
Page 555 and 556:
Elizabeth S Cohen, ‘Court Testimo
Page 557 and 558:
Brian Elliot, ‘Biography, Family
Page 559 and 560:
Baruch Hirson, ‘Ruth Schechter: F
Page 561 and 562:
Desiree Lewis, ‘Winnie Mandela: T
Page 563 and 564:
Bill Nasson, ‘A Sharecropper’s
Page 565 and 566:
Hilary Sapire, ‘African Political
Page 567 and 568:
Dora Taylor, ‘They Speak of Afric
Page 569 and 570:
Kwame Anthony Appiah, ‘Cosmopolit
Page 571 and 572:
Twentieth Century’, Paper present
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