The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

I.B. Tabata and the photographic image
In 1946, when Mnguni asked Tabata for a photograph of himself along with an
autobiographical sketch for publication in Inyaniso, it is not clear anyway that Tabata
would have had such a portrait readily available. Indeed, he might have struggled to
find an appropriate image, even if he had chosen to oblige. For the photographic record
of Tabata for the 1940s and 1950s is indeed scant. It is possible to argue that this paucity
of photographs needs to be seen in relation to one aspect of the description of Tabata in
Drum in 1954, that he ‘dislikes photographers’. Not only was there a paucity of
photographs of Tabata, but it also seems as if, up until 1952, the political spaces of the
Unity Movement, its gatherings, and activities and personages had a shallow existence
in the domain of visual representation. 1952 seems to have been a turning point, when
the Claremont photographer, Ralph Taylor, deliberately photographed podium and
crowd scenes from the 30 March 1952 Anti‐CAD mass assembly at the Grand Parade
held to protest against the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary Festival. This series of
photographs was fairly widely circulated after The Torch had offered copies for sale as
commemorative images of the Parade meeting. 46 This is undoubtedly the reason why
these photographs have survived in a number of private collections, why they have
subsequently entered into the files of collecting institutions, and why they became the
quintessential images of the Anti‐CAD as a mass movement (Figure 1). 47
In spite of the ‘shunning of publicity’, there were a few fairly informal photographic
occasions associated with the Unity Movement before 1952. One rare gathering that was
photographed was the Spring School of the Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA),
which was held in Simonstown in October 1950 (Figure 2). It is not apparent why the
participants posed for the photograph at some point in the proceedings, but it is likely
that the photograph was intended for private use. The photograph is an outdoor group
46 The Torch, 15 April 1952. See more generally, Tina Smith and Ciraj Rassool, ‘History in Photographs
at the District Six Museum’. Tabata was billed as a speaker at the 1952 meeting, but it is doubtful
whether he did in fact speak. He does not appear in any of Ralph Taylor’s photographs.
47 See for example Allison Drew, ‘Social Mobilisation and Racial Capitalism in South Africa, 1928‐
1960’, pp 438; 455 and Allison Drew (ed), South Africa’s Radical Tradition: A Documentary History,
Volume Two, between pp 16 and 17.
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