The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

Britten (UMSA executive members) and F Julie for APDYM. Before the word of thanks
and the funeral procession down to the graveside, songs associated with socialist
activism and memorialism would be sung. The lyrics of ‘The Red Flag’ and ‘The
Internationale’ were circulated, as were the words of a lament that would be sung to
music of the New World Symphony. Indeed, the funeral programme looked much like
an open‐air, secular political meeting, which was an appropriate commemorative form
for a socialist political leader. The printed programme also had a suitable photograph on
its front cover, which was the same as the image that had been used on the biographic
back cover of his last book. Tabata’s presidential portrait had become a memorial
image. 153
On the podium, after emphasising that it was his remains that would be buried and “not
his spirit, not his example”, Leonard Nikane linked the trajectory of Tabata’s political
development in Cape Town to a history of his and his comrades’ efforts “to put the
struggle of the oppressed on its proper course”. Tabata had left a “tradition” and
“example” of “a revolutionary road which he carved out” for South Africa’s people.
Wycliffe Tsotsi began with his earliest impressions of Tabata as a student at Lovedale
and Fort Hare, and went on to discuss Tabata’s political work in AAC and the Unity
Movement after he had come into contact with Goolam and Jane Gool in Cape Town.
Tsotsi also related his memories of Tabata’s eloquence in his public addresses, and
referred to his use of metaphor to explain political relations. Tabata had referred, for
example, to domesticated dogs, which had been called upon to shake off their ‘slave
mentality’ and “return to the forest to live in peace”. He had also described the AAC as
“a big blanket which covered … the oppressed of South Africa”. Tabata had been “a
master of the art of talking to the people”. He had left “a rich legacy in terms of
liberatory ideas”. In mourning his death, Tsotsi also expressed the Tabata family’s pride
153 Funeral Programme: Isaac Bangani Tabata, 27 October 1990 (flyer), author’s possession. The same
photographic image was used on the back cover of Apartheid: Cosmetics Exposed, a selection of Tabata’s
speeches and writings which Norman Traub put together.
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