The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

in 1959. The election of Sihlali as president of the NEUM at the Eighth Unity Conference
thereafter led to a dispute when Tsotsi accused the executive of “plotting” against him
behind his back. 52 Tsotsi wrote to Tabata that
If my services as President were no longer required, all that
was necessary was for any senior member to have asked me to
stand down in the interests of the organisation and I would
have done so without the slightest hesitation. 53
Tabata was compelled to step in amid tensions between Sihlali and Tsotsi, and made it
clear to Sihlali that he, Tsotsi and Honono, “the obvious candidates for the two
presidencies”, should see to it that there was “no competition” among them. If there was
“a concerted feeling” against Tsotsi, then he needed to be informed of this directly. “A
fellow comrade”, Tabata emphasised, was there “to be spoken to frankly and honestly at
all times”. 54 Tabata also expressed the opinion that “the time had come” for Wycliffe
Tsotsi to relinquish the AAC presidency in view of his increasing profile as a lawyer of
the peasants who were being drawn into Convention in “ever increasing numbers”.
Moreover, the organisation deserved “greater consideration” than the “private feelings”
of each person. For “the position of president”, Tabata argued, was “a matter not of
honour but of duty”. Behind the scenes, thus, Tabata dispensed his patronage even over
senior leaders like Tsotsi, Sihlali and Honono in determining their availability, in
directing their deployment into formal leadership positions in the movement, in
preparing incumbents for these positions, and in deciding when they needed to vacate
52 Ikhwezi Lomso, February 1960; Wycliffe Tsotsi to I.B. Tabata, 24 & 29 December 1959, I.B. Tabata
Collection, BC 925.
53 Wycliffe Tsotsi to I.B. Tabata, 24 & 29 December 1959, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
54 I.B. Tabata to Leo Sihlali, 4 December 1959, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925. Some of these tensions arose
when Tsotsi became a member as well as the president of the Fort Hare Union, which some construed as
“politically wrong” especially for the AAC and NEUM president. Tabata himself had worried that this
may be construed as a willingness “to preside over Verwoerd’s representatives, the architects of Bantu
Education and university apartheid”. In the end, Tsotsi agreed that if he had “compromised” the AAC
and NEUM, he would “consider whatever suggestions” in order “to save the situation”. By then some
members of the AAC executive had already requested that he not stand for the NEUM presidency. If his
“political judgment” on this was deemed to be “faulty” then he felt he might no longer be “fit” to head
the NEUM or any organisation inside it. See Wycliffe Tsotsi to I.B. Tabata, 4 December 1959, I.B. Tabata
Collection, BC 925.
456