The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

unleashing different forms of biographic dissent as Tabata’s leadership was called into
question.
The ambiguities of affinity and authority, of enablement and obedience are
characteristics of the institutions of the family and the school, both of which are useful
metaphors for understanding the rituals and relations that unfolded in the political
organisations that Tabata was associated with. The position of mentor and advisor that
Tabata adopted was often like that of the father figure in a social unit that in many ways
resembled a family. In some cases these relationships were actual family relations as was
the case with Wycliffe Tsotsi and his wife Nozwe or Blanche, who was Tabata’s
youngest sister. 2 Moreover, Tabata was personally and politically close to the Gools. 3
Other relationships for Tabata were almost like family, and recognition was given to this
close relationship through the language of address. This was the case, for example, with
the AAC General Secretary, Tatius Sondlo, who, during the 1940s, he referred to
respectfully as “KaBawo”. 4 But beyond ties of blood, kin and clan, these relationships
were developed as close, dependable and intense, and often bore an emotional
resemblance to family relations of closeness and authority. And Tabata exercised
authority as if he were a pater familias.
2 See for example Noswe Tsotsi to I.B. Tabata, 24 January 1948; I.B. Tabata to Wycliffe Tsotsi 14 March
1948, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925. Tabata referred to members of his family who supported the
political cause of the AAC and NEUM as the ‘tribe’ or the ‘clan’.
3 There are some who have understood the political involvement of Jane, Goolam and Halima Gool
(known also as ‘Hawa Ahmed’, Goolam’s wife) and I.B. Tabata (understood as Jane Gool’s ‘life‐long
partner’) as representing a sort of extended family dynasty that incorporates Cissie Gool (sometime wife
of Jane’s elder brother, A.H. Gool) and Minnie Gool. Perhaps the most poignant example of this
approach is the valuable antiquarian research of Goolam Gool’s son, Selim Gool. See Circular Letter
from Selim Gool on the project ‘Contested Legacies – A Critical Interpretation of the Lives and Politics of
the Abdurahman and Gool families of Cape Town in the early and mid‐twentieth Century’, June 2003.
For a convoluted report on this project, which addresses Selim Gool’s approaches to family history, see
Hilary Benjamin, ‘History of a fascinating political family’, Athlone News, 3 March 2004. Another study
that slips into the notions of Gool family gloriana is that by the son of a Gool half‐sister, Yousuf S (Joe)
Rassool, District Six‐Lest We Forget: Recapturing Subjugated Cultural Histories of Cape Town (1897‐1956)
(Cape Town; Faculty of Education, UWC, 2000).
4 See I.B. Tabata to KaBawo (T.I.N. Sondlo), 20 May 1943; 9 August 1943; 17 September 1945; 17 January
1946, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
439