by Mputhumi Ntabeni

G21 Africa Correspondent

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QUEENSTOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - "Now"s the time to make real the promises of democracy..." - Martin Luther King Jnr

The comfort of death is that it offers the survivors a chance to evaluate not only the deceased life but their own lives also. If to live is to find oneself forced to interpret life, to die is to cauterise oneself from that life and others. This leaves others with a wound that demands evaluation. It shakes their own value of selves to the core. With that it"s appropriate to evaluate our lives through that of Walter Sisulu who died on the 5 May 2003.

There are men in whom the concatenation of subliminary events coincides with the testing of the steadfastness of their beliefs. Man whose beliefs are also their incorrigible way of life who can stand any form of test against their principles. It feels justified when they"re called the founders or protectors of national liberty in their countries. They remain triumphant even after they"re silenced by their enemies. Such men, for a black American are of the calibre of Dr Martin Luther King. For us in South Africa the late Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, and very vital Nelson Mandela fill the role.

Mandela and Sisulu spent 26 years in the prison of Robben Island after they were sentenced to life imprisonment by the apartheid regime at the famous Rivonia trial. It was then fitting that Nelson Mandela should lead the eulogies for the late Walter Sisulu, his friend and comrade in arms.

Fortune and literature usually play a greater part in publishing a man"s fame while his manner plays a little or no significant role. In our era of political passion and deliberate commercial forms of expression, idol worshipers, with their lack of authentic discrimination, damage people"s well-earned achievements by crowning them with an aura of myth. Organized lazy cavaliers of impromptu speculation specialise in dragging people"s good names into the mud by using a maze of journalistic hypotheses disguised as critical discussion. They fabricate brawls of arrant rubbish for their own pre-eminence. Mere jealousy that refuses to allot to any man virtues which they can"t recognize in themselves is usually their motivating factor. We"re all familiar with that sort of triumphant misery and careless ironic prattling, especially in British print media, provided under a halo of moral indignation or liberal principle. The most disgusting thing is that they do this in the name of serving public good while only jealousy and self-aggrandisement is at issue. Mandela didn"t escape this crass sarcasm, as evident in the US after he criticized the Bush II administration for war-mongering.

The strength of Xhamela (Walter Sisulu) lies in never needing any theory on how to see and convey the reality of the world. He knew it by belonging, not by surveying it from outside. He never saw the need to insincerely wrap himself in artistic styles, doctrines of avant-gardism and political theories, with its characteristic bigotry of pure reason in the West, just to fill in for the lack of genuine convictions. Freedom for him was always an aspect of vitality, of being fully committed to actual existence. Hence Mandela can say:

Rivalry between organisations was to be expected in prison. Many among us prisoners were perceived to be leaders of one or other organisation. But all prisoners saw Xhamela as the leader of all of us, irrespective of the organisation one belonged to - a leader of the entire people.

A sense of freedom was inevitably part of Xhamela"s character. It started manifesting itself when, without any strict necessity, he left an obscure village in Transkei for a big city like Johannesburg, armed only with a standard four education. This honest irresponsibility is Byronic in character, and can lead to intellectual pride or madness. But to the generous spirit of Xhamela it led to bustling optimism, even when he found himself deep under the tyranny of an apartheid regime. It inspired in him a need for a national diagnosis. His vehicle was historical readings from which he discovered his political views. With that was born a trembling hope with terrific clarity for South African politics.

Even this, in Xhamela, did not mean an assertion of a limiting and defensive ethnic awareness. Mandela again testifies:

Xhamela firmly held to the view that the ANC should be a uniting force of the African people. Only this would shape the platform for the ANC to claim the leadership and unite all the oppressed against the system of white minority rule. Today the ANC and through it the African people are able and required to set the tone and national agenda for our country. The real challenge is to formulate and present this in a way that unites all South Africans - black and white - to share and work together in the common objective of eradicating poverty and creating a prosperous, non-racist and non-sexist South Africa. Walter"s vision of an ANC that unites and constantly expands its support across South African society remains as valid today as is was at that time.

We might be tempted to say the conditions they lived under produced the men they were but we"ll have to answer why others who lived in their conditions were absent in the dock of Rivonia trial. Political freedom was a driving force for the likes of Mandela, but in Xhamela we see something else. Sincerity was more important to him than political freedom. His political awakenings strike us as having curious purity. It happened almost incidentally from his love of history, history that had not yet become completely political. There"s an appearance of unwilled spontaneous originality about it. He stumbled into his fate by discovering injustices in the peculiarities of his everyday life not by being recruited or something. It came to him in an instinct of felt experience. Thus he could say to the court judge at the trial he was convicted on in 1952:

As an African and national secretary of the Congress [African National Congress] I cannot stand aside on an issue which is the matter of life and death to my people. My duty is perfectly clear - it is to take the lead and to share with the humblest of my countrymen the crushing burden imposed on us because of our colour of our skins.

This, like Dr King"s, is the fight for freedom that comes from the recognition of necessity. That"s why his wish to get things sorted out didn"t involve intolerance and hatred for his oppressors. "Only the strong man," as Dr King said, "would stand amid violence being inflicted on him and not retaliate with violence."

In all his speeches, which are moving in their mildness but never mild in their convictions, Sisulu demonstrated no illustrative intentions, no love of cant and self-display. You only get the sense of immediacy coupled with an economy of understanding that does not neglect generosity. Even F.W. De Klerk, the former South African president (usually wrapped up in the nonsense of careless prejudice in the name of Afrikaner values), admitted he was surprised at how meek this supposed ruthless communist was when he met him for the first time. The emotional atavism of his family life is admitted by all who knew him, including Mandela:

Living one's beliefs, combined with a generosity of spirit, are qualities that both Walter and Albertina shared. It made them a very special couple who moved together in thought and action at all times. Because they as a couple were totally giving of themselves, they were at all times secure in their relationship. Above all, he would claim the gift, the privilege, of having lived to see freedom reign in South Africa.

It could be that Xhamela was overjoyed indeed to see the freedom he embodied in his own life reign in South Africa, for - make no mistake - Xhamela comes out as freest among his colleagues, because, perhaps, he never held any political office in the post apartheid South Africa. This exonerates him from personal blame in the failure of the ANC government to deliver and volte-face attitude towards its pre-election economic policies.

In Xhamela"s terms, freedom indeed seem to have been the recognition of one's personal necessity. Before a crisis, indeed a national crisis, he chose the best response, being more of himself like Dr King. He chose service as the vehicle of liberation and salvation. In all this Mandela, with all his consular qualities and integrity, admits learning the virtue of service from Xhamela.

Yet a silence engulfs me, an emptiness creeps in my being. He would not want it that way. He would want me to exorcise this emptiness by looking back on our lives so that we may look ahead with greater resolve and optimism.

Mandela"s seeming loss of his own significance might satisfy an ideal of grieving loss for a beloved friend but it also betrays a weakness. No one should be prepared "to die for an ideal" before he's prepared to live even for nothing. Otherwise the person disappears under his social role. We must all accept the different allotment of fates with equanimity. Perhaps it is for men of action, like Mandela, to evade the lonely patience of old people and await their time in a restless expectancy of controlled exasperation. Yet Xhamela has chosen the better part, composure and imperturbable self-possession. Xhamela's willed simplicity and intuitive sympathy, together with his quiet single-mindedness were indications of an integrated life. And only an integrated life would agree with Dr Martin Luther King that only a free man is not afraid of death. In this you can almost hear St Paul whispering in the background, "Death where"s thy sting?"

When I recall that not so long ago our people were taken for less than human beings, that if not for these wonderful men I might not be writing to you today I'm speechless.

The fact that this change came in my life too is a marvel in my eyes. It is a marvel how the rapid progress of human dignity in the world has gained such strides in such short a time. The tree of our freedom was fertilised from abroad also. Perhaps it should have not taken us such a long time to compel the apartheid regime release these freedom fighters. Still, better late than never. On their behalf I thank you all for the contribution you made in making this country, and the world, a better place for our children to inherit. We have yet another fight at our hands, to eradicate this unnecessary scourge of poverty in the world. The earth is sufficient for all our needs, not our collective greed

Now's the time, to paraphrase Dr King's words, to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustices to the solid rock of brotherhood. We're not about to turn around. We're on the move now, and no wave of resurgent racism and neo-fascism can stop us. Thank God almighty we're free at last!

As for the Sisulu's of this world, I'm certain it won't be the mobilising against the unjust system that'll be their lasting legacy, but, as in the King's case, the softening of manners they helped bring about in the world. In that Xhamela is unsurpassed in our country.

"Phumla ngoxolo Xhamela, phumla Nokwindla, umzamo omhle owuzamile. Ndiga ndigema nawe ngomhla wokuvuka." A good life is its own efficacy. You've left us with these tedious convulsions, to savour its gaities and drain its lees, and, per chance, call that the days of our lives. By your death you've also given us a flaming desire for the next world. May your toils of liberating us from all racial, social, cultural, and traditional prejudice qualify you for the spiritual life of God. Thank you for allowing us to speak over your grave. Now you know the power you have over us.