The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

the movement and the family, by T.M. Ntantala on behalf of the PAC, as well as by
radical intellectuals in Harare. 151 The event seemed to have a strange hybrid quality of
ceremony and modesty, borne out of a mix of partial presidential protocols and an
exiled liberation movement structure in deep decline. Soon after all bureaucratic
impediments had been cleared, Max Tabata flew to East London with his brother’s body
and arrangements began for I.B. Tabata’s funeral.
I.B. Tabata’s funeral took place in Lesseyton, near Queenstown on Saturday 27 October
1990. Having been granted indemnity, Jane Gool arrived from Harare, while UMSA
executive members, Norman Traub, Ronnie Britten and Leonard Nikane came from
Britain and Sweden. Former Vice President, Wycliffe Tsotsi came from Maseru with his
wife Blanche to speak on behalf of the Tabata family. Michael Muskett, Dora Taylor’s
son in law, came from England. Officials and members of UMSA, APDUSA and
APDYM made their way from Cape Town and other places by car and in a specially
hired bus. Many wore T‐shirts exclaiming APDUSA’s slogans: “We buld a nation” and
“Land and Liberty”. An old, bright yellow and red marquee with a makeshift podium
was put up a short distance away from Sarah Magdalene Tabata’s home as the site of the
funeral proceedings. A procession of about 300 mourners walked the short distance of
dirt road through the impoverished village behind the pallbearers and coffin to the
marquee to begin the funeral ceremony underneath the hills of Lesseyton. It was a hot
afternoon, and those who could not fit under the marquee shielded themselves with
umbrellas. 152
The funeral programme (Figure 11) set out the proceedings of the ceremony, which
included tributes and speeches by Nikane (Vice President, UMSA), Tsotsi (for the
family); A.K. Tom (Vice President, APDUSA), Bobby Wilcox, Norman Traub and Ronnie
151 I am indebted to Jane Gool for giving me copies of a few photographs of the Harare Memorial
Meeting for I.B. Tabata. One of the Zimbabwean intellectuals who spoke at the meeting was Ibbo
Mandaza, then director of the SAPES Trust, a radical forum of research and publishing in Southern
African political economy.
152 I am grateful to Jane Gool for letting me have copies of a series of photographs of I.B. Tabata’s funeral,
which had been taken by UMSA photographer, Roger Galant. I have drawn upon these photographs to
describe the unfolding rituals of the funeral ceremony.
490