The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

depended the progress of mankind”. 10 In the face of a politics of collective leadership
and commitment to political ideas, repression was meted out on the individual, and
these instances of repression were the triggers for biographic production.
It is also ironic that the emergence of an autobiographic self‐conception by Tabata
coincided with the production of a ‘repressive biography’ of Tabata by the state, based
on its processes of surveillance by informers and policemen. The Acting Secretary of
Justice responded to an enquiry by Tabata’s lawyer, furnishing reasons for his ban.
These consisted of a list of attendances at gatherings and addresses to meetings by
Tabata between 1948 and 1955 in which he had been accused of “vilifying” whites as
oppressors, and of incitement of “non‐Europeans” to resist this suppression. The
response also listed a sequence of statements allegedly made by Tabata at protest
meetings and organisational forums during this time, as well as formulations contained
in his writings. This list of alleged actions and statements by Tabata constituted a
perverse kind of intellectual and political biography compiled for purposes of
repression. 11
Tabata’s banning coincided with the heightening of internal organisational conflicts and
tensions that had been building up in the NEUM and its constituent bodies through the
early 1950s. The formation of the Society of Young Africa (SOYA) in 1951 was seen by
some as an attempt by Tabata to cultivate an alternative base of young supporters
independent of the New Era Fellowship (NEF). 12 Tabata’s ban came just as this incipient
10 I.B. Tabata to Wycliffe Tsotsi, 20 March 1956; Diary Statement, 29 March 1956; I.B. Tabata to Dora
Taylor, 9 April 1956, I.B. Tabata to Dora Taylor, 19 April 1956, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
11 See Acting Secretary of Justice to Lawyer (name erased), 28 May 1956, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
To this ‘repressive biography’ one can add the records in the files of the Minister of Justice of controls
over Tabata’s movements during his ban. He had gotten permission to attend the funeral of his mother
in Lesseyton during March/April 1957, and that of his nephew, Fezo, in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth
in February 1958. See Adjunk‐kommissaris, S.A. Polisie, Kaapstad na Kommissarisse van Polisie,
Kaapstad en Pretoria, 27 Maart 1957; Vergunning: I.B. Tabata, 27 Maart 1957; Vergunning: I.B Tabata,
31 Januarie 1958, Minister of Justice (MJus) 123 J21/22/ (Thanks to Bob Edgar for tracking down these
documents for me).
12 I.B. Tabata, Pocket Diary, entries for 17 January 1952 and 21 January 1952 (I.B. Tabata Collection, BC
925) report an NEF meeting to discuss him, and the eruption of “incipient conflict”. These tensions of
1951‐2 were confirmed in my interviews with Joe Rassool and Irwin Combrinck (Interview with Joe
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