Govan Mbeki by Colin Bundy (review)

During the antiapartheid struggle in South Africa, Govan Mbeki was a core leader of the African National Congress (ANC), as well as the Communist Party and Umkhonto Wesizwe, the ANC’s armed wing , also known as Spear of the Nation. To document his life and times, Colin Bundy has contributed this biography, listed among the Ohio Short Histories of Africa, a well-known series published by the Ohio University Press.

Mbeki, the father of South African President Thabo Mbeki, lived a long and fruitful life as a family man, an activist, and a writer. He was born on July 8, 1910, and he died on August 30, 2001. Bundy reveals in this biography how Thabo Mbeki got his first name: in many African societies, when children are born, they are often named in honor of persons that their parents respect: “His visits to Johannesburg brought Govan [Mbeki] into contact with Edwin Thabo Mofutsanyana, a leading member of the Communist Party of South Africa, whom he greatly admired (and later honored by naming his oldest Thabo)” (p. 36). Another useful detail revealed in this book is that Govan Mbeki was a hard-liner, compared to Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders. He was a prolific writer, who could be considered an intellectual activist as well as a political theorist and practitioner. He was sentenced to prison in 1964 with Nelson Mandela and other black leaders. What is unique about this biography, as the publishers point out, is that it goes beyond a mere narrative of Govan Mbeki’s life to offer an analysis of his thinking over not less than half a century. It is, therefore, unsurprising that Bundy was selected to write a long introduction to Learning from Robben Island: The Prison Writings of Govan Mbeki, published in 1991 by Ohio University Press.

In the introduction, “Intellectual Activist, or Activist Intellectual,” Bundy starts with information about Mbeki’s birth, when the Union of South Africa was scarcely six weeks old, “a new state, delivered by compromise and negotiations at a constitutional conference” (p. 7). Ironically, when Govan Mbeki died, the Republic of South Africa was only seven years old, still seen as “a fledging state midwifed by negotiations and concessions at a constitutional conference” (p. 7).

Govan Mbeki is divided into eight chapters: “Home Comforts and Family Histories” (pp. 13–24); “Healdtown and Fort Hare” (pp. 25–43); “Permanent Persuader: Mbeki in the Transkei, 1940–1952” (pp. 44–71); “Township Politics: Ladysmith and Port Elizabeth, 1952–1960” (pp. 72–86); “Mbeki as Journalist and Author, 1955–1963” (pp. 87–103); “The Road to Rivonia” (pp. 104–21); “Cold Comfort: The Robben Island Years” (pp. 122–38); and “Release, Retirement—and a Modest Revolutionary” (pp. 139–60). The book’s bibliography is on pages 161–64, while the subject and topical index is on pages 165–68.

There are many reasons why Bundy refers to Govan Mbeki as a journalist and a writer. Among the cited publications are primary source materials that emanated from Mbeki’s pen. Some were coauthored by Mbeki and others. Publications authored by Mbeki alone include Transkei in the Making, published in 1939 by Verulam Press; Let’s Do It Together, published in 1944 by the African Bookman of Cape Town; South Africa: The Peasants’ Revolt, first published in Baltimore in 1964 by Penguin, but reissued in London in 1984 by the International Defense Aid Fund for Southern Africa; Learning from Robben Island: The Prison Writings of Govan Mbeki, initially published by David Philip Publishers of Cape Town; The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa: A Short History, also published by David Philip Publishers of Cape Town; and Sunset at Midday: Latshon’ilang’emini, published in 1966 by Nolwazi Educational Publishers of Braamfontein. The book includes three historic black-and-white photographs, depicting Govan Mbeki in 1950 (p. 6), the house that Skelewu Mbeki built several years later (p. 23), and a headshot photograph of Govan and his grandson, Karl Mbeki (p. 160).

An interesting fact of Govan Mbeku’s life is that...