WeeklySA_AdminINTEGRITY: Stage play pays homage to a revolutionary icon who had juggle his life between utter commitment to the liberation struggle and family…
By Amanda Ngudle
The late Robert Sobukwe’s name resonates profoundly with the pain, resilience, and relentless struggle of apartheid South Africa. His legacy is so interwoven with the era’s oppressive sorrow that even the arts have hesitated to immortalise him through music or other creative expressions.
Yet, Palesa Mazamisa, the young director of “Lala Ngenxeba”, a theatre production paying homage to Sobukwe and currently running at the Market Theatre, views him through a different lens, one of love.
In this centenary homage, she highlights this in her interpretation of his words: “True leadership demands complete subjugation of self, absolute integrity, honesty and uprightness of character, courage and fearlessness and – above all – a consuming love for one’s people”.
This consuming love, however, is not confined to the political sphere. The play delves deeply into the intimate and profound bond shared between Sobukwe and his wife, Veronica Zondeni Sobukwe, presenting a dimension of the leader that is often overshadowed by his political contributions.
“Sobukwe’s actions demonstrated that his personal love for Zondeni was inextricably intertwined with his love for the country,” Mazamisa explains.
The story is told as a braid between the tender love story of Robert and Zondeni Sobukwe, and the tempestuous political history that defines their lives.
Mazamisa says this storytelling style is similar to braided bread: two strands-twisted into one, namely, love and politics – merged into one single narrative for which the ideals of devotion and sacrifice are the key. This creative decision helps the audience see Sobukwe in a new light – that of a revolutionary icon, but also a man deeply involved with his family.
At the centre of the storyline is, of course, the many letters exchanged between the couple after Sobukwe was thrown into prison. The letters became both a structural and emotional anchorage for the play.
They are more than just historical artifacts; they are windows into Sobukwe’s gratitude and unyielding admiration for Zondeni.
While he endured years of isolation and oppression, it was Zondeni who bore the brunt of raising their young family alone; often denied the basic dignity of visiting her husband. The play pays homage to her resilience, revealing a partnership that exemplified strength in the face of unimaginable hardship.
Mazamisa and her company have created a production that treads a fine line between the density of history and emotion. Works of theatre of this nature often risk losing the audience in their intellectuality, but “Lala Ngenxeba” finds its roots in something very human: love.
Sobukwe is humanised and immortalised through his relationship with Zondeni, making viewers connect with the man and not just the struggle to which he sacrificed so much for a dream.
Through its close-to-the-bone telling of the parallel journeys of Robert and Zondeni, the play does not only pay tribute to a national hero, but also gives voice to the silent, unassuming ones who stood beside him.
It reminds us that even in the bleakest of moments of political turmoil, love can be a beacon to draw strength, hope and humanity from.
* “Lala Ngenxeba” has been running since 13 November and will end on 08 December 2024 at the Market Theatre
JOBURG HOSTS EXHIBITION ON ROBERT SOBUKWE’S LIFE
JOURNEY: Public to have peek into his legacy through photos, writings and publications…
By WSAM Reporter
The City of Joburg Arts, Culture and Heritage is hosting a seminal exhibition from December 5, that reflects on the life and legacy of one of the giants of South Africa’s liberation struggle, the late Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe.
This inspiring tribute will outline the moving journey of a courageous with a razor-sharp mind whose life served as a perfect case of courage, conviction, and unrelenting commitment to justice, equity, and freedom.
This eulogia exhibition of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (5 December – February 27 1978) to be held at Umhlabathi Gallery in Newtown on December 5 – his birthday – , will allow visitors to delve deeply into the life and times of Sobukwe through photos, writings and publications.
Sobukwe’s fight against apartheid was a publicised affair with snaps of his every move recorded. The collections of those culminated in some of these exhibition items.
One of the least known facts about Sobukwe is that he was once a junior language assistant lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand and resigned on March 21 1960 to start fully serving his organisation, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), which he had established and was the president of. The resignation letter is in the collection.
In another letter, his wife, a nurse by profession, writes to the authorities to express her fear for her husband’s ailing health and writes that she knows his health better than anyone. This letter is written in 1966 around which time Sobukwe had earned a degree in economics from the University of London.
Shortly after, Sobukwe was offered a job by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in the US, a few days later the same offer was made to him by the University of Wisconsin, but was denied both opportunities by the then Minister of Justice and later Prime Minister of South Africa, John Vorster.
He had added a law degree to his stripes by the time he died.
The exhibition opens at 3pm.
