The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

upture was coming to a head, when he had decided to do something about it. This only
increased his feelings of powerlessness. Tabata had just decided to “clean up within”
and act against “petty intriguing”, by “bursting the infected body to allow the pus out”.
“I had flung aside all stupid modesty and come forth to take the reins in my own
hands”, he declared to Tsotsi. 13
Instead, six months after he was banned, with his abilities to engage cut down, Tabata
found himself accused of having become “regarded and treated as a father‐confessor,
sage or seer”. This accusation of succumbing to a leadership cult was made amid
intensifying conflict over issues such as the value of the identity category of ‘African’
and the future of indigenous languages. 14 In early 1959, following the 1958 AAC
conference, the leadership of the AAC (including Tabata) were accused by a group
which included Tabata’s old WPSA comrades Saul Jayiya, Cadoc Kobus and Ben Kies of
departing from the programme and policy of the NEUM. In terms of this accusation,
Tabata and his comrades had returned “to the old road” and “the swamp tracks of 1936‐
1942”, and reverted to the “glorification of nationalism”. 15 The accusers went further to
allege that Tabata and the AAC leadership had
Rassool, Reading, UK, 1 March 1992; Interview with Irwin Combrinck and Benita Parry, Cape Town,
19 October 1995). See also Joe Rassool, ‘Notes on the History of the Non‐European Unity Movement in
South Africa, and the role of Hosea Jaffe’, .
The NEF was a discussion and debating forum formed in 1937, which often met at the Stakesby Lewis
Hostel. On the formation of SOYA, see ‘To the Young People of Africa’, Issued by the Executive
Committee of the SOYA, Cape Town, 3 rd May, 1951; I.B. Tabata, ‘Opening Address to the First
Conference of the Society of Young Africa, 20/12/51’ (I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925).
13 I.B. Tabata to Wycliffe Tsotsi, 20 March 1956, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
14 Statement by Hosea Jaffe, 2 October 1956, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925. This statement was a reply
to a letter written by Tabata to the Chairman and members of the National Anti‐CAD analysing
propositions allegedly put forward by Jaffe at an Anti‐CAD meeting criticising the continued use of
‘African’ as a basis of organising as racist, and condemning the promotion of “dying tribal languages”
instead of English. See I.B. Tabata to Chairman and Members (Draft in Dora Taylor’s script),
September 1956; I.B. Tabata to Chairman and Friends, 26 October 1956, I.B Tabata Collection, BC 925.
15 R.E. Viljoen, S.A. Jayiya, C.M. Kobus and B.M. Kies, ‘What Has Happened in the Non‐European
Unity Movement?’, February 1959, Baruch Hirson Papers. This was signed by the authors as
“foundation members” of the NEUM. This document, Tabata wrote to Tsotsi, had been “secretly
distributed among a select few”, and appeared to be “only for coloured people”. During these times of
internal turmoil, which came to a head at the 1958 AAC Conference, and which ended in the rupture
of 1958‐5, the banned Tabata and his colleagues started an independent newspaper, Ikhwezi Lomso to
counteract the “vilification” and “dirty business” of The Torch (I.B. Tabata to Wycliffe Tsotsi, 16 March
1959; I.B. Tabata to Enver Hassim, 16 March 1959, I.B. Tabata Papers, BC 925.
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