The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

The youth on which we had placed such trust had NEVER
belonged to us…. Their arrogance, their crudeness, their
studied rudeness, their lying, their very bearing and swagger
were things which evoked a mixture of disgust, anger and
pity. 59
Further, Sihlali was moved to compare the political lives of these young renegades with
his own process of biographical formation. These youth and their mentors, he suggested,
had an “absolute lack of skill in producing anything like a proper and worthy human
being”. 60 In contrast, he recalled how central Tabata’s political mentorship and example
had been in his own formation in spite of infrequent face‐to‐face contact:
During the process of ‘making myself’, I had the privilege of
meeting men like B only once in 12 months and for only a
few days at a time. That was no reason why I should have
decided to mutilate myself or turn myself into a caricature of
a man as these have done. 61
It was Tabata’s biography of leadership that had been the beacon of political lessons and
that had served as the model for Sihlali’s own political activism and loyalties, leadership
capacities and sense of discipline. Relations of patronage were at the same time
biographic, with models of political lives produced in the cut and thrust of mentorship
contests in the political movement.
In 1958, Leo Sihlali and Wycliffe Tsotsi journeyed to Johannesburg in order to address
the “stultifying divisions” that had emerged in SOYA. Some youth had come under the
influence of Baruch Hirson, who had just written and circulated a critique of The
Awakening of the People as advocating abstentionism. 62 Others, on the other hand, had
become “neo‐Africanists”. While “Hirson’s boys” had been “eloquent” in voicing their
criticisms, they had stopped short of “[going] the whole hog of their mentor”. In the case
of three of them ‐ Mpehle, Lepolisa and Mathlare ‐ the political differences they
59 Leo Sihlali to Dora Taylor, 22 December 1957, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
60 Leo Sihlali to Dora Taylor, 22 December 1957, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
61 Leo Sihlali to Dora Taylor, 22 December 1957, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
62 R Mettler (Pseudonym for Baruch Hirson), ‘It is Time to Awake!’ (mimeo), November 1957, Carter‐
Karis Microfilm Collection, 2: DA13:84/9.
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