The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

Fashioning Tabata’s biography
Virtually from the beginning of Tabata’s secret sojourn in Britain, Taylor undertook the
work of fashioning a written political biography of Tabata’s life. This work started off as
a letter of introduction, written to the Chinese and other embassies, which sought to
explain the political history of the AAC and NEUM and its attempt at building a
national movement structured on a federal lines and premised on the principled basis of
non‐collaboration. It also outlined the purposes of the formation of APDUSA. The letter
presented an analysis of the apartheid state’s attacks on the ANC and PAC who were
seen as “the protégés of the liberals”, while reiterating that repression was also meted
out on the leaders of the AAC and NEUM, who had been “imprisoned, banned and
banished”. In spite of these attacks, the letter asserted that “the spirit of the people [was]
hardening”, and the “movement … spreading”, with new challenges exercising “the
minds of the leadership”. 71
What is significant for our purposes is that the letter was written as an autobiography of
I.B. Tabata’s life as a political activist, author of political histories and analyst of political
conditions. An eleven‐page draft in Dora Taylor’s handwriting suggested that its
creation in Hemel Hempstead probably entailed dictation and careful thought over its
composition and argument. Written in the first person, it started off introducing Tabata
as follows: “I am an African born in South Africa. I have been associated with the
liberatory struggles in SA since 1934. Shortly after leaving the College of Fort Hare, I
joined the African Voters’ Association in Cape Town”. The letter explained the
emergence of the AAC, which had been set up to be “the mouthpiece of the African
people”, and whose founding he had “participated in”. 72
Accra and Algiers, there were “great possibilities” of having the Committee of Nine’s decision
reversed.
71 I.B. Tabata, Letter of Introduction to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, UK (“Letters of
introduction to Embassies in the UK”), June 1962, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
72 I.B. Tabata, Letter of Introduction to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, UK (“Letters of
introduction to Embassies in the UK”; Draft in Dora Taylor’s script), June 1962, I.B. Tabata Collection,
BC 925 (Draft in Dora Taylor’s script). This document also bears an annotation by Taylor that it had
been “dictated”.
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