OLIVER TAMBO SPEAKS
Oliver Tambo
New York: George Braziller, 1988
284 pp., $19.95
A collection of the speeches of Oliver Tambo, leader of South Africa's outlawed African National Congress (ANC), has been compiled by his wife, Adelaide. It is a tribute to "those compatriots who paid the supreme price in the liberation struggle, to those in prison, to those in exile, and those who are carrying on the struggle inside South Africa."
In the foreword, Nelson Mandela, the jailed black South African leader, writes:
I am a member of the African National Congress. I have always been a member of the ANC and I will remain a member of the ANC until the day I die. Oliver Tambo is much more than a brother to me. He is my greatest friend, and comrade for nearly fifty years. If there is any one amongst you who cherishes my freedom, Oliver Tambo cherishes it more, and I know that he would give his life to see me free. There is no difference between his views and mine.
Those interested in the future of South Africa need to understand the views of Oliver Tambo--hence the value of Oliver Tambo Speaks. Nevertheless, it is not easy, especially for those with a limited knowledge of South Africa, to understand this volume. The speeches collected here were written in exile. Most of them comment on actions taken by the South African government in the 1950s and 1960s with which readers may be unfamiliar. They tend to be repetitive, which robs the book of natural flow. Most importantly, Tambo's claims to the contrary, the volume does not contain his views on the type of political or economic system he would institute in post-apartheid South Africa were he given the chance. His discussion of the Freedom Charter itself is not systematic. What the book does offer is invaluable glimpses of Oliver Tambo's psychological and ideological makeup.
The first years of the ANC
Born in 1917, Tambo went to college at Fort Hare, where he met Nelson Mandela. Both were active in student politics and "formed a close relationship that was to lead to a legal partnership in Johannesburg in 1952." At college they, together with Walter Sisulu, founded the African National Congress Youth League. All three men went on to hold leading posts in the African National Congress (ANC).
The ANC itself had been formed in 1912. Oliver Tambo writes:
African chiefs, intellectuals, clergymen, workers, peasants from every tribe in South Africa met in Bloemfontein and formed the African National Congress. The organization turned out to be more than a negative reaction to the formation of a union of white foreigners and conquerors. It become the symbol of African unity and gave our people a sense of nationhood that has survived the most determined application of the policy of divide-and rule over a period of fifty years.
The aims of the ANC were stated in rather general
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