The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

ureaucratic abuse and of trying to make the movement his personal fiefdom,
Livingstone Mqotsi had turned his back on a leadership that had become entrenched
and that had placed itself beyond challenge by closing down possibilities for discussion
of differences. It had become impossible to exercise political initiative in the interests of
the movement if the leadership did not first sanction this. Mqotsi’s critique of Tabata’s
politics represented a significant attempt to break from a relationship of political
patronage that had altered in nature and become despotic. Just as in the case of Neville
Alexander, this challenge was also biographic in that it questioned key elements of
Tabata’s official biography that had become a feature of the movement’s political
engagements. In this critical narrative, the rise of Tabata’s leadership was deemed to
have culminated in moral decline and bureaucratic deviation, with Tabata having
usurped the presidency of the movement and utilised it for his own personal gain.
Ironically, the effect of this biographic challenge in UMSA was the consolidation of
presidentialism and greater attention to the upkeep and defence of Tabata’s biography.
During the late 1960s and 1970s, Tabata continued to consolidate his leadership of
UMSA in exile and his position of liberation movement president in spite of the
movement’s deep decline. This came even after APDUSA’s political structures inside
South Africa were virtually destroyed by repression. The movement’s efforts at
mobilisation for military training abroad had largely ended in failure, especially with
the arrest of dozens of its cadres in 1970‐1971. 122 Little was left other than ageing, exiled
leaders, surrounded by a small group, who faithfully kept up a programme of
publishing and republishing Tabata’s speeches and writings, and arranging more
fundraising tours of the United States. 123 A politics of presidentialism was maintained in
122 In 1971, members of APDUSA in South Africa, such as Kader Hassim, J.B. Vusani, Kwezi Tshangana,
Bobby Wilcox, Frank Anthony and Sonny Venkatrathnam tried to leave South Africa for military
training and were arrested, charged under the Terrorism Act and imprisoned on Robben Island (See
Transcript of trial, State v K Hassim and 13 Others, Natal Provincial Division, 1972, William Cullen
Library, University of the Witwatersrand, AD 1898). These arrests formed part of a larger crackdown on
the movement in different parts of the country, with arrests of over 200 activists. This is the estimate
presented in APDUSA Views, April 1989.
123 See Circular Letter from W.M. Tsotsi, 9 February 1971, Deirdre Levinson Bergson Collection. This
letter, to which was appended a special note to Deirdre and Allen Bergson (of New York), made
reference to a “successful tour” just completed by “Our President”, Tabata and the AAC president,
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