What widow is South Africa as we approach three decades of Freedom?
The question then that we need to ask of the life of Mama Nokukhanya as a comrade, partner, wife, mother and widow of Chief Albert Luthuli is what comrade, partner, wife and especially widow of all stalwarts have we turned South Africa into.
For this question I have to look at South Africa as a metaphorical widow who could have taken one of the three possible paths. One who laments and mourns the death of the husband and as a way of showing all this takes comfort in misery as a constant reminder of the towering husband figure.
And this includes greedy relatives taking everything from the wife including marital inheritance of the husband gone. The widow could accept the death of the husband and be glorious that now she has access to fame, riches and whatever is amoral that accompanies this new freedom brought about by the mortal hand of god. The widow could lament and mourn the husband by taking the baton and use lessons of the fulfilling life with the husband and expand the glory and benefit society.
The question is which widow is South Africa as we see her today? Certainly it is not Mama Nokukhanya Luthuli, it is not Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe, it is not Correta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King it is not Mama Machel, it is not Mama Albertina Sisulu, it is not Mama Winnie Mandela, it is not Mama Adelaide Tambo, it is not Mama Nomaka Epainette Mbeki, it is not Limpho Hani, it is not Ntsiki Mashalaba Biko.
Our widow South Africa is not only the widow who shows that only if the husband was around she would be different, but we have a widow that has had the indecency of desecrating the graves of her husband with mindless crass materialistic greed. A widow who sold family jewels for a pittance, one that spit on Solomon Mahlangu’s grave and turned the spirit of struggle into a mockery. This is the widow we have. This is the widow we have.
Even King Moshoeshoe, who suffered the biggest blow of having to confront those who ate his father came to terms with them and said he would not desecrate the graves of his father by killing them, instead he gave them hoes to plough and seed to plant and resolve the material conditions they were in.
As ourselves observed from the heavenly heights by all gone before us the stalwarts now who are ancestors look at widow South Africa and ask who is this strange widow we are unable to relate to.
Former president Thabo Mbeki at the 52nd Conference in Polokwane asked what kind of widow South Africa would be.
“Again, the 52nd national conference will have to ask itself a very direct question and answer this question honestly and frankly: does the ANC have the will and capacity to lead our country and people over the next five years in a manner that will enable the nation to celebrate our centenary in 2012 together, paying heartfelt tribute to our movement for what it has and would have done to sacrifice everything for our liberation; and, using that freedom to lead the national offensive to accelerate the advance towards the creation of a South Africa that truly belongs to all who live in it,” Mbeki said.
The evidence says we chose differently and ignored the ten commandments of Chief Albert Luthuli and successfully walked away from the teachings and counsel of her widow.
As the 55th Elective Conference of the ANC convenes in six days, let us remember the ten commandments of Chief Albert Luthuli, remember the work of her widow and focus on renewal anchored in those commandments, for the ANC of Chief Albert Luthuli lives in the aspirations of South Africans and Africa. To do otherwise is to place a death kiss on this once mighty movement.
Lest we forget and lose ourselves in an inferno of hopelessness let us remember counsel that Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat – “those whom God wishes to destroy he first drives mad”.
Our widow is a dishonest Comrade tsotsi. As the party of Chief Albert Luthuli meets at Nasrec in six days, as it ponders the S89 impeachment, but more importantly as it thinks about the next 110 years, it must answer the question of Modelling the path to a better life for all: A roadmap towards peace and stability for a new generation in South Africa. This is the burden on the shoulders of the delegates.
Long live the spirit of Chief Albert Luthuli.
Long live the spirit of Mama Nokukhanya Luthuli.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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