In late 1989 I joined a group of students on a trip from Cape Town to what was then the Transkei homeland, now part of the Eastern Cape. We travelled all night, arriving at our destination on the morning of October 1, bleary-eyed but excited. We sang, we met old friends, we talked, and we toyi-toyied. We were there to bury “Comrade” King Sabata Jonguhlanga Dalindyebo, deposed Paramount Chief of the AbaThembu. It was his second burial.
Dalindyebo was a hero. From the 1950s until he died in 1986, he stood up against the apartheid state. He spoke clearly, and implacably, against the Bantustan system and against racism. He spoke often about a future non-racial SA. For that, he drew the ire of the apartheid puppet Kaiser Matanzima, the leader of the Transkei.
He incensed Matanzima when he branded the homeland leader and his brother “spies and good boys for the South African government” and said by accepting “independence” they were “settling for a fowl-run”.
We were in the Transkei in 1989 because when Dalindyebo died in 1986, the apartheid government had prevented the country from mourning and burying him properly. The New York Times reported that “despite a court ban and the wishes of his family, Chief Sabata’s most bitter enemy, Chief Kaiser D Matanzima, Transkei's first President, smuggled the King’s body from a funeral home in the early morning hours and under heavy military and police guard brought it here to be buried in the “Great Place,” the burial ground of kings.”
At the funeral, the king’s family was prevented from standing near his grave. Only 350 people were allowed to attend, most of them police and soldiers armed with Uzi machine guns.
“It really seems even in his death the late king was a detainee,” Winnie Mandela, who tried to force the government to allow the funeral to be conducted with dignity, said. “The king was virtually turned into a prisoner in his coffin.”
So, in late 1989, three years after the scandalous sham funeral, we went to bury “the people’s king” as he should have been sent off in the first place. There were tens of thousands of people on the day, knowing that a moral and ethical man had fought the good fight.
I have been thinking about Sabata Dalindyebo since images were shared on social media showing his son, Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, drunk, and dancing away at his 60th birthday party with Eastern Cape and other ANC leaders on Friday. Dalindyebo and his ANC comrades clapped, sang, ate cake, and downed champagne. Dalindyebo told the assembled crowd that he would never abandon the ANC and spoke about the party’s close relationship with his forebears.
This is the same Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo who, in 2021, accepted a R1.8m car from the EFF and said he supports the party. He has been seen on the runaround with Julius Malema and appeared at his side in court in the Eastern Cape. In 2013 the same Dalindyebo had joined the DA, much to the party’s jubilation.
These three parties have all totally ignored the fact that in 2009 the high court sentenced Dalindyebo to 15 years in jail on seven counts of kidnapping, three each of assault and arson and one of defeating the ends of justice, and culpable homicide. He appealed against the convictions and the sentence at the Supreme Court of Appeal, which reduced his sentence to 12 years. This is the same man who, in 2020, was arrested after allegedly going on the rampage with an axe in the Thembu royal palace. In the fight the king’s son escaped through a window, but his wife was injured and taken to hospital.
What do all these political parties see in this man? Where is the moral clarity that should make them stop pandering to this useless, violent, convicted criminal?
The ANC leadership in the Eastern Cape should be ashamed of itself, knowing as it does just how anti-poor, sexist, violent, and dictatorial this man is. Yet, I can’t really blame these minor ANC leaders for their lack of moral courage. After all, Baleka Mbete, their former party chair, the woman they put in power as deputy president of SA back in 2008, was in court last week “supporting” her friend Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula who is up on corruption charges. Just as Mbete supported Tony Yengeni when he was convicted of fraud back in 2006.
Our politicians, and the ANC in particular, have lost their moral and ethical compasses. They are here to grab power by any means necessary (including rubbing shoulders with violent convicts such as Dalindyebo and corruption accused such as Mapisa-Nqakula) so that they can continue to loot.
Sabata Dalindyebo must be rolling in that second grave of his. What did we fight for again?
What did we fight for again?
Columnist
Image: FACEBOOK
In late 1989 I joined a group of students on a trip from Cape Town to what was then the Transkei homeland, now part of the Eastern Cape. We travelled all night, arriving at our destination on the morning of October 1, bleary-eyed but excited. We sang, we met old friends, we talked, and we toyi-toyied. We were there to bury “Comrade” King Sabata Jonguhlanga Dalindyebo, deposed Paramount Chief of the AbaThembu. It was his second burial.
Dalindyebo was a hero. From the 1950s until he died in 1986, he stood up against the apartheid state. He spoke clearly, and implacably, against the Bantustan system and against racism. He spoke often about a future non-racial SA. For that, he drew the ire of the apartheid puppet Kaiser Matanzima, the leader of the Transkei.
He incensed Matanzima when he branded the homeland leader and his brother “spies and good boys for the South African government” and said by accepting “independence” they were “settling for a fowl-run”.
We were in the Transkei in 1989 because when Dalindyebo died in 1986, the apartheid government had prevented the country from mourning and burying him properly. The New York Times reported that “despite a court ban and the wishes of his family, Chief Sabata’s most bitter enemy, Chief Kaiser D Matanzima, Transkei's first President, smuggled the King’s body from a funeral home in the early morning hours and under heavy military and police guard brought it here to be buried in the “Great Place,” the burial ground of kings.”
At the funeral, the king’s family was prevented from standing near his grave. Only 350 people were allowed to attend, most of them police and soldiers armed with Uzi machine guns.
“It really seems even in his death the late king was a detainee,” Winnie Mandela, who tried to force the government to allow the funeral to be conducted with dignity, said. “The king was virtually turned into a prisoner in his coffin.”
So, in late 1989, three years after the scandalous sham funeral, we went to bury “the people’s king” as he should have been sent off in the first place. There were tens of thousands of people on the day, knowing that a moral and ethical man had fought the good fight.
I have been thinking about Sabata Dalindyebo since images were shared on social media showing his son, Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, drunk, and dancing away at his 60th birthday party with Eastern Cape and other ANC leaders on Friday. Dalindyebo and his ANC comrades clapped, sang, ate cake, and downed champagne. Dalindyebo told the assembled crowd that he would never abandon the ANC and spoke about the party’s close relationship with his forebears.
This is the same Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo who, in 2021, accepted a R1.8m car from the EFF and said he supports the party. He has been seen on the runaround with Julius Malema and appeared at his side in court in the Eastern Cape. In 2013 the same Dalindyebo had joined the DA, much to the party’s jubilation.
These three parties have all totally ignored the fact that in 2009 the high court sentenced Dalindyebo to 15 years in jail on seven counts of kidnapping, three each of assault and arson and one of defeating the ends of justice, and culpable homicide. He appealed against the convictions and the sentence at the Supreme Court of Appeal, which reduced his sentence to 12 years. This is the same man who, in 2020, was arrested after allegedly going on the rampage with an axe in the Thembu royal palace. In the fight the king’s son escaped through a window, but his wife was injured and taken to hospital.
What do all these political parties see in this man? Where is the moral clarity that should make them stop pandering to this useless, violent, convicted criminal?
The ANC leadership in the Eastern Cape should be ashamed of itself, knowing as it does just how anti-poor, sexist, violent, and dictatorial this man is. Yet, I can’t really blame these minor ANC leaders for their lack of moral courage. After all, Baleka Mbete, their former party chair, the woman they put in power as deputy president of SA back in 2008, was in court last week “supporting” her friend Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula who is up on corruption charges. Just as Mbete supported Tony Yengeni when he was convicted of fraud back in 2006.
Our politicians, and the ANC in particular, have lost their moral and ethical compasses. They are here to grab power by any means necessary (including rubbing shoulders with violent convicts such as Dalindyebo and corruption accused such as Mapisa-Nqakula) so that they can continue to loot.
Sabata Dalindyebo must be rolling in that second grave of his. What did we fight for again?
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