The be-wrinkled and sinewy hand of history is not only renown for writing but it is also infamous for un-writing. This is because the hand of history is first and foremost a human hand and as such it is beset with frailties of all kinds; apoplexy, amnesia, myopia, hypersomnia and all the other ‘ias’. Being human therefore the hand of history often dips its writing quill not into an inkpot but into a head that could be political, supremacist and deceitful all at once. Therefore before we bow our proud and egotistical heads in obeisance before the ancient and yellowed scroll of time let us be warned that we might not be bowing before the works of the gods but before the works of very treacherous fellow human beings, so fellow, so human and so treacherous it is not even amusing. Even holy books pale into a shameful commonness when one considers the unhallowed hands that wrote them and insisted upon their ‘being received for better or for worse in the superlative degree of comparison only’ with the fiery and murderous eyes of religious fundamentalists.
Pardon my furious long-windedness I am only responding to Heather Hughes’ article based on her book, The First President: A Life of John L Dube, founding president of the ANC. As much as I would not want to delve into and dispute certain of the details of her writings which are disputable by me, it is very important for you dear reader to note that the phraseology used John L. Dube “the founding leader of the ANC “ is misleading to say the least. And in historiography you do not need more than one false thought or innuendo to alter an entire history of a people, even their destiny. Let’s diverge and take a look at the biblical story of Noah and The Curse of Ham (Genesis 9:20-27). First of all nobody knows for sure that there was ever an historical Noah. The mythical story is told while you are six years old and amenable to mythology. Forty years later if you have not questioned the story you are therefore no different from a six year old Sunday school pupil in theology, only a lot taller. But anyway the story goes that Noah drank wine and got so inebriated that he took on the nude and slept. His son Ham found him all dressed up in epidermis and amused himself over that. He then told his brothers Shem and Japheth who didn’t think it was funny and covered their father’s nakedness. The then half-drunk Noah woke up and discovered what his son did. Whether out of sheer drunkenness or God knows what else he cursed not Ham the doer of the deed but his (Ham’s) fourth born son Canaan. This ridiculous story of doubtful credibility has been used over centuries by so-called Christians to justify the African slave trade and the general ill-treatment of darker humanity by the pallid races. That is why I am very sensitive over distortions be they smallish and innocent-looking. These distortions stand sentinel over white supremacy and the status quo.
Fact: John Dube was the first President of the ANC who happened not even to attend January 8, 1912 by reason of ill health. The ANC like most organizations has a founder and that was the thirty year old Pixley ka Isaka Seme. Getting this one particular detail wrong can distort a whole history of a people. Initially I did not know if this phrase was placed there out of ignorance, over-enthusiasm or carelessness but now I know that it couldn’t be. It cannot be because of the decorated education and experience of the woman who wrote the book. To accuse Heather Hughes of ignorance is simply slander. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Our history that is written by white people is written carefully with a lot of knowing and deliberateness, not ignorance. It is written to inform, to disinform and to avert the eye from what must never be told. To elevate John Dube as the founding leader of the ANC is to avert the eyes from Pixley ka Isaka Seme. Why do that? Because the founder of the ANC held certain ideas that are different from those of the nice ANC leaders like Nelson Mandela. Dr. Seme was not very nice to his oppressors. He falls in the league of Anton Lembede, Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko, or I should rather say they fall in his league. He was the first Africanist who stood for African self-determination without sponsorship or involvement by whites. He fought fiercely for the scrapping of the 1913 Land Act that impoverished the natives and he would not have signed the Freedom Charter had he been alive when it was promulgated. That is the reason that Hughes gives his shining garments to his benign cousin John Dube who did not have beef with the good white people and found the Land Act of 1913 and its 1936 amendment rather generous. So Hughes’ pen is a white pen and it is not writing out of ignorance it is deliberately distorting. As a result of these kind of writings Pixley Seme saw death before his name could be carved in stone and this century and centennial event is to be used by such as Hughes to bury his name into the tombs of un-memory by carving others’ names on the rock that was meant for him. Moss forbid!
Shadrack O. Guto that doyen of African intellectuals highlighting the unqualification of “Others” to write our story or the story of our “otherness” argues, “the propensity for falsification of reality by those who construct knowledge under racist paradigms is quite real and manifest.” He continues that, “…modern scientific methods have recently being used to reconstruct the image of the youthful King Tutankhamen (Egyptian Pharoah of approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) and to reveal his true negroid features.” Yet we have been told by the hand of historians and glossy Hollywood constructs that the builders of the pyramids were Arabs. Africa according to others could not own that civilization and therefore Africa as the ancestors of civilization had to buried in some grave that would never be opened, a grave dug so deep by the same be-wrinkled hand. That we taught the world to write, to build in great sophistry, to organize and to administer had to be buried in a hole so deep so that the African child would have to go through time with nothing to show and the burden to prove to others that he or she too is human. The vulture that is hovering over black historiography is white scribes who suffer from organized amnesia and general phantasmagoria.
Like most organizations the ANC had one founder and its engine room before it was birthed was made up of four lawyers, Pixley ka Isaka Seme the convenor, Alfred Mangena the first ever black lawyer, George Montsioa and Richard W. Msimang. Dube and them were invited.
The same Heather Hughes has participated in numerous projects to refurbish South Africa’s neglected heritage, the most notable of which is the Inanda Heritage Route in Durban. In this Heritage Route names of our activists are honoured including Mahatma Ghandi the Indian activist that had nothing to do with the black struggle yet Seme’s name has not being mentioned there. The Inanda Heritage trail takes visitors on a journey into the history of South Africans who helped shape the country. Seme founded the ANC and he is not mentioned in Heather Hughes and company’s Freedom route. You see, Heather Hughes is not an ignorant person. She has taught African politics and history for many years in distinguished universities so she can’t plead ignorance. Deliberate distortions and writing history for purposes of determinism is her guilt.
I am going to quote some older sources for this argument, that Pixley ka Isaka Seme was the founder of the ANC. The first source is the third President of the ANC Rev. Zacheus Mahabane who actually happened to be there on January 8, 1912 when Congress was inaugurated. He said in his first Presidential speech; “The National Congress was organized by Dr. P. ka Isaka Seme with the deliberate knowledge, consent and sanction of the Bantu Kings, Chiefs and Leaders at Bloemfontein in 1912 for the main object of safe-guarding and protecting the interests of the Bantu.”
In Profiles of Africa, a Drum magazine compendium Dr. Seme is titled as “Founder of the African National Congress and the newspaper “Abantu-Batho.”
Richard Rive and Tim Couzens also wrote a booklet about him, 1st American Edition 1931 and a later more complete version in 1991 “Seme, the founder of the ANC.”
In our country we know who founded what. In all instances there is the initiator, but there are other people working with him/her and those people are acknowledged but the initiator is the one who is credited with the founding of that organization. JBM Hertzog founded the National party in 1914, he was not alone but he was the initiator and therefore is credited with being the founder. Charlotte Maxeke founded the ANC Women’s League (later name) in 1918 with others yet we acknowledge her as such. Pixley Seme founded the ANC in 1912, his learned colleagues worked untiringly with him over the idea but he was the initiator and therefore must be credited as being the founder. The founding members are many, but the founder is one.
So it is wrong to say that John Langalibalele Dube was the ‘founding leader’ of the ANC, he was the first President and a great man who needs no borrowed robes to shine. He is the scorching sun in his own right not the moon that shines on others’ reflected light. Let nobody take truth from our history nor medals from our heroes. Let us be humble enough to give accolade when it is due. I am enough with this iniquitous distortion of our history that is prevalent in our times where Seme is relegated to the background of history and not acknowledged for what he is.
Moss Mashamaite is a historian and author of “The Second Coming,” The Life and Times of Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the founder of the ANC and ten other books.
