Remembering ZK

Jeff Ramsay | Tuesday November 2, 2021 06:00

In addition to being our country’s star diplomat at independence Z.K. was one of 20th century Africa’s intellectual giants. The long-term Vice-Chancellor of Fort Hare College, he acted as the mentor to the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) in the 1940s; while also serving as a father figure to founders of nationalist movements in Botswana, Lesotho, Kenya, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In the struggle against Apartheid, he helped bridge the post-World War gap between the impatient ANCYL and the movement’s old guard. As the President of the ANC’s Cape Province branch, he led in the drafting of the 1949 Programme of Action that resulted in the Defiance Campaign. Often referred to as “the Father of the Freedom Charter,” having first proposed the convening of the 1955 Congress of the People, he is also remembered as the first black Southern African to address the United Nations on the crimes of Apartheid.

In addition to his influence on local peers such as Tshekedi Khama, Bathoen II, Peter Sebina, and the Molema brothers, Z.K.’s Botswana legacy is further reflected in the lives of Fort Hare graduates, including Seretse Khama, Gaositwe Chiepe, Moleleki Mokama, and Leonard Ngcongco, as well as prominent couples such as Lekalakes, Ntetas, and Setidishos. But who was this mild-mannered Motswana Professor who earned the distinction of being charged in 1956 as the South African Treason Trialist number 1? As befits a great intellect, his worldview defies easy typecasting.

It would not be wrong to describe him as a cosmopolitan liberal who valued his indigenous roots; he thus called his home away from his Gammangwato homeland “Phuting”. He was a genuine non-racialist, pioneer Pan-Africanist, and staunch Christian who was open to the beliefs of others. Although he was often down to earth in his analysis, his outlook was never simple as he wrestled with conflicting ideas of how to realise “Freedom for my People”, the title of his posthumous memoir.

Monica Wilson, an academic colleague of Z.K.’s who was later asked by his widow, Frieda Matthews, to edit the memoir, observed that:

“Z.K. Mathews was a man with a shadow (nesithunzi in Xhosa), that is a man of dignity and authority, the sort of authority that derives from an integrated personality. The man who loses his identity cast no shadow; he has no force. Z.K.’s authority was recognised by black and white alike, in South Africa and abroad. His concern to further African education, his determination that black South Africans be recognised as full citizens in their own country on an equal footing with whites, and his deep religious conviction were all of a piece: there were no contradictions.”

We also have Nelson Mandela’s scattered insights, including a passage he penned in 1970 during his incarceration on Robben Island. As a “Class D” prisoner Mandela’s correspondence was at the time limited to writing just one letter every six months, which had to be addressed to a relative. One such occasional recipient was his “beloved aunt” in Gaborone, Frieda Matthews. From a heavily censored letter to Frieda, dated 1 October 1970, contains the following:

“I have reason to believe that the debt we owe Z.K. has been the subject for oration and prose of the highest order. Many people knew him as a prominent educationalist and Vice-Principal of Fort Hare. To others he was a moderate politician who was associated with the Native Representative Council, Institute of Race Relations and the Church... [lines removed] Each particular group may be justified in choosing its own premise for evaluating his achievements and there may be evidence to support such a view... “As a lecturer at Fort Hare, he played an important role in producing a generation of trained thinkers in Eastern and Southern Africa who were to serve as pioneers in many fields of endeavour and who today form the nucleus of the statesmen, diplomats, civil servants and technicians who are displaying tremendous initiative in the task of national development and reconstruction in the new African states. Many of us associate him with crucial turns on questions of principle and tactics in the course of political evolution...

“Z. K’s influence is clearly seen. He was one of the principal architects of the ‘African Claims’ in 1944, which embodied the views of the people of South Africa on the Atlantic Charter. He led the resolution Committee which drafted the 1949 Programme of Action – our blueprint on questions of strategy and tactics... Unlike many highly qualified intellectuals Z.K. had no anti-left prejudices and worked in harmony with lovers of freedom from all schools of thought.

“There are some people inside and outside the movement who were critical of his cautious attitude. But I am not sure whether they were not wild... [lines removed] I believe there is something of rustless steel in a man who, in spite of being a holder of a lucrative and secure post...The question of whether Z.K. was a liberal, conservative, or agitator becomes a purely terminological one, which we must leave to academicians. Ragadi, we remember him with much affection.”