The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

the organisation”. 80 Jordan was also criticised for “his association with liberals” at UCT
through his participation in a “solemn begowned procession and ceremony” against the
imposition of university apartheid. 81 He was also accused of “collaborating” with the
Commission on the PAC campaign by giving evidence in its proceedings. The
consequence was that in 1961, the Head Unity Committee (HUC) suspended Jordan “on
grounds of his acceptance of ideas alien to us” and for having “opened the door to the
liberals”. In announcing the HUC’s action against Jordan at the Ninth Unity Movement
Conference, Sihlali argued that the HUC had “acted on behalf of Conference to remove a
man dangerous to the movement”. 82
Deirdre Levinson recounted these events in a novel based on her political experiences in
South Africa between 1959 and 1963, when she had been a ‘fellow‐traveller’ of the
NEUM. While teaching at UCT, Levinson had become personally close to Jordan, who
was the inspiration behind the character ‘Boris Duma’ in her novel. Like Jordan, Boris
also refused to translate a pamphlet on the PAC campaign, and participated in the
unveiling of a plaque in the UCT library “to the sacred memory of academic freedom”,
and in the inauguration of an annual academic freedom lecture. Boris had “openly and
deliberately … separated himself” from the movement. The consequence of Boris’
transgression of the principle of the “indivisibility of the struggle” was that ‘French’ (the
novel’s character based on I.B. Tabata), described as “the single‐minded high priest of
the revolution”, “wanted … Boris to suffer isolation”. As a result, Boris was
80 Ciraj Rassool, Interview with Phyllis Ntantala Jordan, Cape Town, 4 November 1993. Jordan had been
the main translator of movement written works into Xhosa. In 1952, when A.C. Jordan was “too busy”,
his wife Phyllis translated ‘The Boycott’ and named it ‘uKwayo: isiKrweqe ne Khaka’. See also Phyllis
Ntantala, A Life’s Mosaic (Bellville: Mayibuye Centre, p 149.
81 I.B. Tabata to Leo Sihlali, 2 August 1960, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925. A.C. Jordan, of course, had
been a Fort Hare college‐mate and long‐time AAC comrade of Tabata, who had taken up the cause of
Tabata’s political trial arising from his arrest at Mount Ayliff in 1948.
82 Deirdre Levinson, Personal Notes of Proceedings of the Ninth Unity Conference, Edendale, 3‐5
January 1962, Deirdre Levinson Bergson Papers. According to Phyllis Ntantala Jordan, this rift between
Jordan and Tabata, former Fort Hare college mates and long‐time political comrades, was the start of a
“very, very painful period between the two of them”. Jordan “died with that pain in his heart and I think
Tabby too” (Ciraj Rassool, Interview with Phyllis Ntantala Jordan, Cape Town, 4 November 1993).
Surprisingly, this experience was unexplored in the auto/biography of Ntantala’s life, A Life’s Mosaic.
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