Freedom in Our Lifetime. Anton Lembede
Africa”, a policy statement that spelled out ANC objectives as well as a Bill of Rights and the relationship between the AAC and ANC were on the agenda. Youth leaders introduced and passed a resolution, proposed by Moerane and seconded by Mda, that stated: “ … henceforth it shall be competent for the African youth to organise and establish Provincial Conferences of the Youth League with a view of forming a National Congress of the Youth League immediately.”34
After winning the blessing of Xuma, who overcame his misgivings about the ideas and roles of Youth Leagues within the ANC, the Youth League issued its manifesto in March 1944 and held its inaugural meeting at the Bantu Men’s Social Centre the following month.35 Speakers included Lembede, Mda and V V T Mbobo, as well as senior Transvaal ANC leaders such as R V Selope Thema, E P Moretsele and Xuma. Youth Leaguers selected W F Nkomo and Lionel Majombozi, medical students at Witwatersrand University, as provisional chair and secretary respectively, until the Youth League drafted a constitution and conducted a formal election for officers.
Nkomo and Majombozi enjoyed popularity among Youth Leaguers, but they were viewed as transitional appointments since it was known they would have little free time as students. In addition, Nkomo’s leftist leanings troubled nationalists in the Youth League such as Mda and Lembede, who believed Nkomo was secretly a member of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). A tip-off, according to Ngubane, was Nkomo’s suggested wording for the Youth League manifesto “which in our opinion would have given it a slightly communist slant.”36
However, a political showdown was unnecessary. When Youth League elections took place in September, Nkomo stepped aside to concentrate on his studies. Lembede was then elected first president of the Youth League, a position he held until his death.
Lembede had already begun making his mark on Youth League policy when Youth Leaguers delegated him, Ngubane and Mda to draft the Youth League manifesto adopted in March 1944. Like Lembede, Ngubane was an Adams product and a newcomer to the Witwatersrand. He had been a reporter for John Dube’s Ilanga lase Natal before moving to Johannesburg in 1943 to become an assistant editor at Selope Thema’s Bantu World. Ngubane, Lembede and Mda were all Catholics and implacable opponents of the Communist Party.
The manifesto remains a classic statement of the African nationalist position. The conflict in South Africa, it asserted, was fundamentally a racial one between whites and blacks, who represented opposite political and philosophical poles. The oppressors, whites, represented a philosophy of personal achievement and individualism that fuelled fierce competition; the oppressed blacks embodied a philosophy of communalism and societal harmony where society’s needs were favoured over those of the individual. Because whites had defined their domination in terms of race, this had led blacks “to view his problems and those of his country through the perspective of race.”
The manifesto was also a blistering indictment of the orthodoxies that black and white leaders had been wedded to for decades. One was trusteeship, an idea promoted by white politicians that blacks were their wards who had to be brought along slowly to a civilized state. The manifesto surveyed the long litany of government laws that had hindered, not advanced blacks, and concluded that trusteeship was a bluff aimed at perpetuating white rule.
Another orthodoxy was the belief of ANC leaders that change could come through compromise and accommodation. The Youth Leaguers charged that senior ANC leaders had grown remote from the black community and were trapped between their apprehensions over losing the few privileges the government granted them and their qualms over mass protest bringing down the wrath of the government. The result was that ANC leaders had become “suspicious of progressive thought and action” and offered no innovative policies or strategies for combatting “oppressive legislation”. They were so locked into segregationist structures, such as the Natives Representative Council (NRC), that they had drifted away from the ANC’s original vision and vitality.
The manifesto’s criticisms of ANC leadership were devastating, but rather than calling on people to defect from the ANC, it invited Youth Leaguers to remain loyal and serve as “the brains-trust and power-station of the spirit of African nationalism” and infuse the ANC with a new spirit. The manifesto’s political goals were clear: self-determination and freedom for black South Africans. But other than calling for a radical reversal of ANC policies, the manifesto did not clearly spell out alternative strategies. This tactical omission was not addressed until after Lembede’s death, when the Youth Leaguers launched their drive to pressure the ANC to adopt a programme of action.
That Lembede was a relative newcomer to Johannesburg and politics did not hamper his rapid rise to prominence in the Youth League and parent ANC. This can be attributed to several factors. One was that he was a lawyer, serving his articles with Seme, and thus in a prestigious position looked upon favourably by the ANC “Old Guard”, who did not take anyone seriously who lacked education or status. Another was that Lembede had completed his legal studies and was therefore relatively immune to direct government pressure. Many of the Youth Leaguers were teachers, and they, like Moerane, had to tread cautiously when it came to their political activism.
Moreover, there was no question over Lembede’s leadership qualities and his zealous devotion to Youth League causes. A tenacious debater and a stirring orator, he showed no hesitancy in staking out contentious positions and promoting them fearlessly in any setting and against any adversary. Even within the Youth League, which had a strong left-of-centre faction, Lembede had to defend his Africanist positions against charges that they were too extreme. Congress Mbata recollected: “He was almost alone and he fought a very brave battle; I must say we respected him for his stand. He was a man who if he was convinced about a thing would go to any length to make his viewpoint.”37
Whatever reservations Youth Leaguers had with Lembede’s ideas and his lack of grounding in practical politics, they recognised that he was willing to take on any challenge, no matter how much opposition it provoked. An example was Lembede’s call for leaders to boycott the NRC, set up by the government in 1937. The government never intended the NRC to be more than an advisory board, but conservative and moderate leaders (including some prominent ANC officials), hoping to exploit the NRC as a platform for expressing black opinion, decided to participate. However, the NRC remained an irrelevant talk-shop.
To Youth Leaguers, the real issue was full political rights for all South Africans, and they appealed to black leaders to refrain from participating in NRC elections. In the aftermath of the 1946 mine workers strike, Lembede introduced a resolution at the ANC national conference calling on NRC members to resign immediately. However, most senior ANC leaders, including prominent communists, argued that a boycott would not succeed unless there was unanimity about the strategy within the black community. Otherwise, some black politicians would participate in the NRC and do the government’s bidding. When Lembede’s resolution was overwhelmingly defeated, it was further proof to the Youth Leaguers of how out of touch ANC leaders were with the militant mood in the black community. “The masses are ready to act,” Lembede challenged the ANC national executive, “but the leaders are not prepared to lead.”38
Although Lembede’s stances provoked harsh reactions, he never shied away from controversy. Indeed, he seemed to revel in it. Mda recalled a meeting in Orlando where he and Lembede shared a platform. Lembede thought the meeting was not lively enough, so he deliberately stirred things up by launching an attack on the Communist Party. The meeting, according to Mda, provoked a ferocious response from the Communist Party newspaper Inkululeko. Quoting a member of the audience, Inkululeko reported: “He spoke firmly but like a qualified Nazi. In fact, if one were to close one’s eyes, one would certainly think one was listening to Hitler broadcasting from Berlin.’”39
Joe Matthews recounted another occasion where Lembede and Mda were invited to address the debating society in the geography room at St. Peter’s School, where Youth Leaguers Oliver Tambo and Victor Sifora were teaching.
So Lembede got up, and he was dressed … in a black tie, black evening dress, which in itself was quite something. And he started off, “As Karl Marx said, ‘A pair of boots is better than all the plays of Shakespeare.’”
This provocative statement roused his predominantly student audience, but it also prompted a sharp retort from the school’s geography teacher, Norman Mitchell,