The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

people had asked for the book to be translated. 20 Then Tabata also admitted his own
affinity for Taylor’s book, and claimed a seemingly acknowledged hand in its creation:
What am I supposed to feel about it? Proud or jealous? I
must confess I had what I imagine to be the pride of a father
when he receives the news in the next room that his wife has
successfully delivered a son after a difficult labour. He feels
as if he had something to do with it.... 21
Taylor recorded in her diary that the anonymity of the book’s authorship and its
publication in SOYA’s name had been agreed upon “so as to protect me if the police
should make enquiries”. Taylor may not have been a public activist, and the historical
text may not have been the primary means of expression by which she may have wanted
to enter the public domain and influence young minds. In addition, she had become
accustomed to an unacknowledged and unacknowledgable position of the clandestine
and anonymous facilitation of political strategy and written political expression.
Nevertheless, with only a few in the movement in the know, Taylor’s politically charged
historical research entered the public sphere in a way that directly influenced young
activists in the movement and outside. The publication of The Rôle of the Missionaries may
have made up somewhat for her public unacknowledgability. However in the form that
it was published, it also simultaneously deepened her public anonymity. Ironically, this
anonymity was decided upon and came to define Taylor’s relationship with the domain
of public politics at the same time as Tabata had begun to emerge publicly as an
individualised political leader and author of works under his own name. While Tabata’s
position was consolidated as an individual leader, the publication of Dora Taylor’s
historical writing contributed to the entrenchment of her selflessness.
And it was Tabata who provided Taylor with access to the public sphere. Their space of
mutually supportive intellectual production was simultaneously a space of
interdependence. As Taylor depended upon Tabata for affirmation, for knowledge of
20 I.B. Tabata to Dora Taylor, 1 July 1953, Tabata Collection, BC 925.
21 I.B. Tabata to Dora Taylor, 1 July 1953, Tabata Collection, BC 925.
404