By Seitiso Ntlothebe
A narrator in A Hill of Fools, a novel by former Cricket South Africa president and medical doctor Mtutuzeli Nyoka, admiring the bravery and patriotism of Ajena and Moosa, two leaders of the ‘rebels’ who risked their lives to fight a rotten, corrupt kingdom of King Kutu for the sake of their country, Doma; beaming with pride, he tells us of these men that: ‘For them to lead was to serve.’
In his heartfelt and moving elegy to one of South Africa’s foremost sons Walter Sisulu, former president Thabo Mbeki uses words that one could say elaborate on the observation made by Nyoka’s narrator. Ever the poet, praising this fallen hero of our people Mbeki speaks these glowing words of Xhamela and those who risked their lives for the sake of our country, South Africa. He says: ‘It was not our persuasion that turned you into heroes. No material offerings induced you to choose to serve the people. It was not for dazzling wealth that you chose to sacrifice your lives for the people, nor for riches as fabulous as the stars without number.’ Mbeki went on to describe Sisulu as ‘a patriot who could never be bought or corrupted or forced by fear or fashion or love of material things, to auction his soul.’
Such poetic words chosen by Mbeki directed at one who was a true servant of the people, were not words spoken because they made for good soundbites. Mbeki did not speak of Walter Sisulu the way he did to embellish his legacy nor elevate him to a place of glory because he did not wish to speak ill of the dead. He spoke of Walter Sisulu the way he did because he was such as he was; a caring humanist in every sense of the word, Isithwalandwe Seaparankwe. These words speak of one who was towering in his deeds and dignified in his manner. Juxtaposed with the late Walter Sisulu, those whose only mission in the ANC (African National Congress) is to serve the insatiable gods in their pockets, they stand next to him as gluttonous midgets. These sort of people that unfortunately unlike Walter Sisulu, he who ‘occupied the great galaxy of leaders of our people’, became card-carrying members of the ANC for the sole reason of accumulating personal wealth. Unlike Walter Sisulu, a selfless warrior ‘of our people who had given their all, to ensure that all our people and all Africa were liberated from oppression, from poverty and underdevelopment and the intolerable pain of contempt and humiliation’, these sordid characters for them to lead is to profit. For them to lead is to eat.
The people of South Africa, Africa and the world bade a permanent farewell to the titan that was Walter Sisulu on 17th May 2003 – a day before his 91st birthday – twelve days after he had decided that he like his friend OR Tambo before him had run his race; and what a distinguished marathon it was. It was on this occasion that the then president of the country Thabo Mbeki delivered this searing tribute. Thirteen years since we sadly said sayonara – to borrow from the Japanese people – to Walter Sisulu, his movement the ANC like a hopeless drunk, hobbles from one pool of embarrassment into another with no sign of shame or regret. Under the control of mindless hyenas and half-witted foxes the ANC limps from one ignominious scandal to another, loudly crying for retirement. Those that have joined its ranks not to serve the people of South Africa as Walter Sisulu and his contemporaries did refuse to hear these cries; held hostage by greed and the obsession of opulence they grin to each other, ‘Maqabane, we shall ride this gravy train until the wheels fall off.’
The following year, in December 2017, the ANC by then 105-years old, will hold its 54th national elective conference to elect its new leader. When one pays attention to the grapevines it sounds like only sexagenarians have thrown their names in the hat to succeed its current president Jacob Zuma, himself no longer a youngster who would probably be offended should he be asked about his youth. To be blunt the ANC resembles a party of senior citizens. I imagine there is a notice outside the doors of Chief Albert Luthuli House boldly screaming: No under 60s allowed beyond these doors. The elderly have their false teeth tightly gripped to the rope of power; not that the nation has an alternative of finding hope within the young lions.
The ANC Youth League, an organisation that was founded on the grounds that it will always breathe life into the mother body the ANC whenever fatigue sets in, worships in a temple of luxury at the expense of principle. Its toothless leader, figuratively and literally, a man who cannot be credited with any sign of intellectual glimmer, labels struggle stalwarts ‘empty tins’. Ladies and gentlemen, the irony is impossible to miss. If the dead could speak I would cry out for the voice of Muziwakhe Anton Lembede, a man whose leadership skills and meticulous intellect left an enormous impression on his peers, more so the former president of the ANC Oliver Kaizana Reginald Tambo.
Lembede, the founding president of the ANC Youth League and a scholar of note, died a few years after the birth of the league while reading for a PhD in Law at the University of South Africa. That we have a dimwit named Oros today leading the organisation he established is testament that betting on the future is a game of fools.
Those who came before us once emphatically pronounced: ‘Moipolai ga a lelelwe.’ When she conceived these words Motsogapele was not drunk from the liquids that undermine mental faculties, nor was she high from the herbs that led Moses to believe that he had witnessed a tree that refused to burn. A reservoir of experience is what she relied on. In the ANC, a party that was born in the same year as its humble servant Walter Sisulu, we are seeing a liberation movement that has run its race. When those that pretend to serve it finally let it go to retire, we who have known and loved this movement wholeheartedly without seeking to gain anything from it but selfless service to its people, bereaved at the loss of such a giant of the struggle of our liberation, too emotional to conceive words to express our pain, and inadvertently defying the words of Motsogapele for we loved the ANC so, uncontrollably crying tears of sorrow, we shall find solace in these words of the chorus:
Farewell dear heart
Depart for the heavens
Here on our earthly grounds
There is no rest.
Kgotsong!
Article By Seitiso Ntlothebe
