LEMBEDE, ANTON MUZIWAKHE

Anton Muziwakhe Lembede, (1914-1947), was a founder and first president of the Congress Youth League (C.Y.L.), and was a major figure in the evolution of African nationalist thought in South Africa.

PHOTO CAPTION: Lembede Muziwakhe Anton. SOURCE: EA Library

He was born into a family of Zulu farm labourers in the rural Georgedale district of Natal. His earliest instruction came from his mother, but sometime in the 1920s the family moved to the Isabello Reserve, where he attended a Catholic primary school. An outstanding student, he was awarded a bursary to Adams Teacher Training College, a liberal institution run by American Congregationalist missionaries, with a faculty that included Dr. Edgar Brooks, Albert Luthuli, and Z.K. Matthews. He attended Adams from 1933 to 1935, gaining distinction in his studies.

During the next six years, while holding teaching posts in Natal and the Orange Free State, he acquired a knowledge of Afrikaans and Sesotho. He already had a command of English, Zulu, Latin, German, and High Dutch. Through private study, he gained his B.A. and LLD degrees from the University of South Africa. He abandoned teaching in 1943, and moved to Johannesburg where he was articled under Dr. Pixley Seme, the former head of the African National Congress (ANC). Two years later he gained his M.A. in philosophy after submitting a thesis on the concept of God as expounded by, and as it emerges from, the writings of philosophers from Descartes to the present day. In 1946 he qualified as an attorney and became Pixley’s law partner.

While in Johannesburg, Lembede renewed his friendships with former classmate Jordan Ngubane, later a journalist for the Bantu World, and with former colleague Peter Mda, later a law student. Through them Lembede was introduced into a circle of politically conscious young Africans, many of whom were members of the ANC, although critical of its leadership. Lembede quickly came to share their impatience with the gradualism of the ANC, and in 1944 he helped to found the Congress Youth League.

Among its charter members were Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Lisulu, William Nkomo, and Vivien Ncakeni. At the first convention of the C.Y.L. in September 1944, Lembede was elected president, taking over from William Nkomo, who had served as provisional chairman since April. While working with the C.Y.L., Lembede also made his presence felt in the regular structure of the ANC, first as an officer in the Transvaal organisation, and then as a member of the national executive committee, as well as part of the working committees of A. B. Xuma.

During this period, Lembede began developing his particular version of African nationalism. Much of his thought had been informed by his study of European philosophy, and by his exposure to the fierce Afrikaner nationalism of the Orange Free State in the early years of World War II. Through an intellectual partnership with Mda, Lembede was able to adapt many of these ideas into an ideology of African nationalism or “Africanism.

Two of the prominent features of his political philosophy were his emphasis on indigenous African culture and values, and his insistence on a mass component in ANC programmes. In practical terms, this translated into an active opposition to “foreign elements” (primarily Communists, who were among the most outspoken opponents of “Africanism”) within the ANC, as well as into support for labour and popular campaigns, often in the face of ANC leadership opposition.

In 1945 Lembede, with assistance from Sisulu and Tambo, attempted to oust the Communists from the Transvaal Congress, but lost by a vote of 32 to 30. Later, in 1946, in keeping with his objective of keeping a mass following for the ANC, Lembede was in the forefront of the massive mineworkers’ strike, and the anti-pass law campaign.

He was also a strong proponent of the boycott and of militant non-cooperation, working with Mandela to destroy the Native Representation council. His advocacy of African nationalism as a means of gaining disciplined mass support, and ultimately political power, again brought him into conflict with the ANC old guard. In February of 1947 he told the ANC national executive that the leadership lacked courage.

He died suddenly, in 1947, at the age of 33. Driven to extremes in his pursuit of education, professional achievement, and the struggle for the acceptance of his ideas, he had neglected his health. The causes of his death were never clearly determined, but may have been related to an intestinal malfunction from which he had suffered earlier. Following his death, the C.Y.L., by the mid-1950s, came increasingly under Marxist influence, with Lembede’s ideas holding sway only among the small Africanist faction, which emerged in 1958-59 as the Pan African Conference.

Lembede occupied a pivotal position in the development of African nationalist thought in South Africa. Although taken singularly, much of this ideology lacked originality, having been advocated by West African scholars earlier, within the South African context it had and still has great significance, and, more importantly, popular appeal.

PHYLLIS BOANES