Although 'Odyssey of Liberation' is a memoir of a life well lived, it should serve as both a wake-up call and a call to action, writes Sipho Seepe.
Image: IOL
Professor Sipho Seepe
Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic, famously argued that “until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter". In his recently minted book, Odyssey of Liberation: A Memoir of a Rebel Advocate, Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane SC has done exactly that. To tell his own story. For too long we have allowed ‘outsiders’ to be authors and interpreters of our life histories.
Odyssey of Liberation is bound to ruffle some feathers, especially for those who have claimed preserved right to set the terms of social and political discourse. With Odyssey of Liberation, Sikhakhane publicly declares to have left the plantation. Being a persona non-grata of the white establishment comes with a price. Sikhakhane is unfazed. After all, his life’s journey “has been fraught with life and limb risks, including attempts at tarnishing my professional standing. Sadly, this has continued under our much-vaunted democratic dispensation where state institutions are being used to harass and intimidate some of us who dare subject the current neoliberal dispensation to critical scrutiny.”
Sikhakhane’s Odyssey of Liberation will rank as one of the most consequential books of our time. It will find companionship with books such as Rolihlahla Mandela's The Struggle is My Life and Steve Bantu Biko's, I Write What I Like, W.E.B du Bois' The Soul of Black Folks, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, Chinweizu’s Decolonising the African Mind, to name just a few. Arguably, Sikhakhane is a modern-day reincarnation of their spirits.
A book of this nature, which touches on every aspect of South Africa’s existential reality, would require more than one review. For convenience, the book is divided into four sections: The Early Years, Defining Moments, Trials and Tribulations, and Political Perspectives. This is deliberate. The profundity of each section stands out. To collapse all in a single review would do grave injustice to the weighty subjects. Each subject/issue is pregnant with lessons of life and profound reflections.
Odyssey of Liberation is a Magnus opus – one of the best-written works in post-1994 South Africa - about 'being black in the world'. In it, Sikhakhane narrates a story that is all too familiar to every black person who grew up under the most degrading conditions of poverty. In doing so, Sikhakhane contemporizes the great works of Mtutuzeli Matshoba, author of Call Me Not a Man. For his part, Matshoba wrote. “For what is suffered by another man in view of my eyes is suffered also by me. The grief he knows is a grief that I know. Out of the same bitter cup do we drink. To the same chain gang do we belong”.
This reality is not lost to Sikhakhane. Odyssey of Liberation is dedicated to “every African child and adult-born, into the margins of the human condition, and whose lives are a perpetual struggle and who are often dehumanised as if they are not worthy of inhabiting the earth”.
Courtesy of his father’s teaching and exposure to hardship, Sikhakhane imbibed political consciousness and revolutionary spirit early in his life. “From an early age, I was told about our heritage, our dispossession, and how we find ourselves confined to unproductive land, while white farmers just over the hill from our rural village owned large tracts of productive land to which our parents provided cheap labour. My father told me of many battles in faraway places where African people resisted dispossession. He regaled us with stories of Bhambatha kaMancinza, Shaka kaSenzangakhona, Maqona, and other great kings that fought colonial invasion.”
These early lessons shaped Sikhakhane's political worldview and life of struggle. Like Biko, Sobukwe, Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Griffith, and Victoria Mxenge, to mention just a few heroes and heroines, Sikhakhane’s life of struggle gives concrete expression to the motto invoked by members of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania: “serve, suffer, and sacrifice.”
Odyssey of Liberation is a story of triumph against adversity. Far from instilling a sense of hopelessness, Sikhakhane defied the odds against him. He writes: “The harsh and dehumanising conditions of abject poverty, hopelessness, and squalor can serve as pathways to human tenacity and the character development….my rural upbringing encouraged me to ask questions, to seek answers, to be tenacious and seek fundamental change everywhere injustices occurred.”
It is this never-say-die spirit that has helped him hold his own against his current detractors.
Odyssey of Liberation is also about what it means to be a black professional in a country where being black is almost a crime. For Sikhakhane, the lot of African professionals has not changed much. African professionals find themselves under a hostile and constant gaze of whiteness and white supremacy. Sikhakhane does not mince words.
“We have been brainwashed to think we are inferior…. This mindset permeates every sphere of society, every profession, every workplace, and every household. It permeates every endeavour, and every discourse, and contaminates our very thoughts and thought processes. We are the first to defend ideologies and systems that are not only anti-black and anti-African but geared towards reproducing settler colonial systems and structures of knowledge. We unwittingly perpetuate colonial structures and social dynamics that in turn serve to prolong, if not deepen, our dehumanisation.”
Like Steve Biko, Sikhakhane is concerned about the role played by the so-called white liberals in African affairs. These, according to Biko are a “bunch of do-gooders that goes under all sorts of names—liberals, leftists, etc. These are the people who argue that they are not responsible for white racism and the country's 'inhumanity to the black man'… True to their image, the white liberals always knew what was good for the blacks and told them so. The wonder is that the black people have believed in them for so long.”
The formation of the Pan African Bar Association of South Africa (PABASA), of which Sikhakhane became its founding chair was formed precisely to counter the white arrogance Biko spoke about. As fate would have it, it was left to Sikhakhane to read the announcement of PABASA.
Reading the statement, Sikhakhane averred. “Today marks our historic, bold, and decisive declaration that we will take charge of our destiny and the future of our profession as advocates. This day marks our break with the past, our break with the shameful legacy of exclusion, the legacy of subjugation of black professionals, the legacy of inequality and injustice.”
Reflecting on the role played by black people against their own, Sikhakhane did not mince his words. “White capital continues to underwrite black political factions, exacerbating their fragmentation. Driven by internalized feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, they yearn for validation from the white establishment. They confirm; they cower, they harbour self-loathing, they emulate, they plead, and they denigrate anything that reflects their likeness.”
These are the types of individuals who are an embodiment of, to borrow from Biko, a black person who “in the privacy of his toilet his face twists in silent condemnation of white society but brightens up in sheepish obedience as he comes out hurrying in response to his master's impatient call”. These are sell-outs (turncoats) whose only claim to fame is to do the bidding of their masters. For selling their own, they are rewarded with shares in white-owned companies.
Sikhakhane holds no brief for the legal fraternity and the South African judiciary. He writes: “Some of the cases I worked on have revealed the dark side of the judicial fraternity, its double standards, biases, and subservience to ruling classes. Many of the controversial cases made me realise that the legal profession and the judiciary are probably amongst the most pretentious spheres of society.” Amen to that.
A crusader for justice, Sikhakhane is clear-headed in his understanding of what justice should entail. He writes: “Justice can only find true expression if it defends, protects, and upholds the rights of those that society seeks to dehumanise, vilify, and even destroy. I have long held that the true measure of justice lies in how fairly we treat those we may not personally favour. It is a stark reality that those we despise often endure egregious injustices while we turn a blind eye or look the other way.”
Sadly, this understanding is lost to some in the judiciary and so-called civil society groupings. It is certainly not lost to those who bore centuries of knees pressed on their necks. These individuals, the wretched of the earth, know injustice from afar. They have experienced it. They do not need any Constitutional Court to tell them what injustice entails.
Sikhakhane echoes their experience and attitude when he concludes: “My faith in justice, the legal profession, and the judiciary diminished to the lowest of levels... There are judgments [that] appeared to have been inspired by an antipathy towards litigants and certain advocates…. White counsels representing some of the most vicious racists, some of whom have been accused of feeding black people to the pigs, were never subjected to any attack.”
Sikhakhane invites us all: “Through this memoir, I aim to offer insights and lessons to young lawyers who may face intimidation when representing clients despised by powerful classes. I also hope to shed light on the hypocrisy surrounding concepts like the rule of law and constitutionalism in post-apartheid South Africa. Here, I attempt to unveil some outright lies and some helpful on the state capture saga and Commission”.
The final word should perhaps go to Advocate Vuyani Ngalwana SC’s take on the book. He writes: “This book forces you to pick a side. If still apathetic after reading it, you need urgent help…. Every judge. Every advocate. Every attorney. Every lecturer. Every law professor. Every law student. Every aspiring lawyer. Every potential litigation client. All these people should read this book.” I couldn’t agree more!
Although Odyssey of Liberation is a memoir of a life well lived, it should serve as both a wake-up call and a call to action. In the words of Bob Marley: "None but ourselves can free our minds."
* Professor Sipho P. Seepe is a Higher Education and Strategy Consultant.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.