Robert Sobukwe--How can Man Die Better by Benjamin Pogrund

Author:Benjamin Pogrund
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Robert Sobukwe, How can man die better, Benjamin Popgrund, apartheid, anti-apartheid, Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa, pass laws, Sharpeville, NP, white regime, Hendrik Verwoerd, Pan-Africanist Congress, Sobukwe Clause, banishment, Kimberley, Rand Daily Mail, Israel, Jerusalem, War of Words, Nelson Mandela, Drawing Fire
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Published: 2015-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

15

One of the first steps in 1965 was to pass on to Sobukwe news which I had only just learnt — that Lincoln University in the United States, which counted Azikiwe and Nkrumah among its alumni, wanted to confer an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on him. ‘Has this information reached you?’ I asked, and continued tongue in cheek: ‘The decision was taken last year and was conveyed to the South African government with a request for information as to when you could attend to receive your degree. Apparently no reply was received.’ In due course, his reply came in words in which I could hear the chuckle: ‘No, I have had no information about Lincoln University at all. I don’t think the government should cause any difficulty over the matter. After all Lincoln is a Negro university: I won’t be getting a white degree: I’ll be getting a Negro degree.’

But the racial bait wasn’t enough and the government never did allow him to travel to the US to receive the degree. Instead, as I wrote in a lengthy report in the Rand Daily Mail on 4 May, Sobukwe had, the day before, entered his third year on Robben Island — ‘and there is no indication when he will be released’. A few days earlier, Justice Minister Vorster had told Parliament that no decision had yet been taken whether to extend the Sobukwe Clause beyond 30 June, when it was due to expire.

The government decided by mid-June. It did not dare free Sobukwe. Newspaper headlines told the story: ‘A further year for Sobukwe. Only way I can prevent his escape — Vorster.’ In Parliament, even the United Party rejected the law, although its reason for doing so was not entirely clear: a spokesman, T. Gray Hughes — he was well known among blacks as he represented a constituency in the Transkei — said the party strongly opposed the law, especially as it was intended for one man only; the government did not need such a drastic measure for one man. But the arguments counted for naught: the Nationalist majority ensured a comfortable eighty-six to forty-six vote endorsement for reasons explained by Vorster in exchanges which convey some of the flavour of his arbitrary decision-making:

Vorster: ‘If I did not have this power, I could not keep him in prison.’

Hughes: ‘But you could banish him.’ [that is, to a remote rural area].

Vorster: ‘I have considered that, but how long do you think ... he will stay there?’

Sobukwe’s attitude was still that, if released, he would continue where he had stopped, said Vorster. He had been organising revolution and bloodshed at the time of his imprisonment. He was a model prisoner but that did not make him potentially less dangerous should he be released.

A Member of Parliament: ‘Did you not say you had broken the back of the organisation which Sobukwe led?’

Vorster: ‘Yes, but if I let him out he will start again.’

One of the elements affecting the situation, no doubt, was evidence presented in a court in Basutoland, still under British rule.

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