Dear Mr. Sobukwe is an exhibition that gives one a glimpse into the mind and thinking of Sobukwe while in prison on Robben island

By Edward Tsumele, Editor, CITYLIFE/ARTs

When I attended the multi-media installation Dear Mr Sobukwe at the Market Theatre last week on Thursday,  and saw the amount of correspondence in the form of what we call in literature epistolary letters, which basically are letters between two fiends tht then incarcerated  Robert Sobukwe and his friend Benjamin Pogrund  a South African-born Israeli author,  I was reminded of one student’s plight during our post grad studies at Wits donkey years ago.  The student for his research project wanted to look at the life and times of Sobukwe.

However he was advised Professor Anton Harber that it was going to be hard for him simply because there was little information written about this man of immense intellect and superior political insight.  I am not sure whether he abandoned the whole idea completely or he pursued it, but I remember the pain on his face when the fact of the general lack of information written about Sobukwe hit home.

I wished that this student had done the research now when there is substantial information about Sobukwe in the form of books that historian Dr.

Ali Hlongwane spoke about at the opening of Dear Mr. Sobukwe.  But most importantly the more than a dozen letters that are part of this exhibition in the old Market Theatre Gallery. These letters are more than a correspondence between two friends, one black jailed on Robben Island for his political activities fighting for freedom for his people,  and the other, a white liberal free outside.

And as it happens with epistolary letters, the two are writing to each other as friends, but there is more in these letters that speak about the general issues that seized the country at the time. Epistolary letters are not just two friends writing to each other for the fun it, they are also a mirror of the political environment of the time. In other words, by reading these letters one gets to know what was happening politically around the country at the time.

The letters are an important historical archive that are useful particularly to researchers of history and politics of the time, particularly the fight for freedom to dislodge the apartheid system that defined the governance of the time.

This multi-media installation that also includes photographs of Sobukwe is up in the context of a play currently on at the Market Theatre titled Lala Ngenxeba/Of Love and Revolution, which also opened on the same day. The play was written by Monageng Vice Mostabi and is directed by Palesa Mazamisa. The exhibition is co-curated by PHD Cultural anthropology student at Wits, Sankara Rodwell and Sinenhlanhla Zwane. This is an exhibition that one must make an effort to view before it closes.

Those who attended the exhibition and hear speakers Hlongwane and theatre producer Daves Guzha were clearly impressed by this exhibition.  Essentially Dear Mr. Sobukwe is an exhibition that gives one a glimpse into the mind and thinking of Sobukwe while in prison on Robben island You might as well want to go and view this exhibition before it comes down.