Robert Sobukwe

Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (5 December 1924 – 27 February 1978) was a South African political dissident, who founded the Pan Africanist Congress in opposition to South Africa under apartheid. In 2004 Sobukwe was voted 42nd in the SABC3's Great South Africans.

Early years

Sobukwe was born in Graaff-Reinet in the Cape Province on the 5 December 1924. He came from a poor household and was educated locally. He attended a Methodist college at Healdtown and later Fort Hare University where he joined the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in 1948.

Mainstream politics

In 1952 Sobukwe achieved notoriety backing the Defiance Campaign. He identified with the Africanists within the African National Congress and in 1957 left the ANC to become Editor of The Africanist newspaper in Johannesburg.

He was a strong believer in an Africanist future for South Africa and rejected any model suggesting working with anyone other than Africans, defining African as anyone who lives in and pays his allegiance to Africa and who is prepared to subject himself to African majority rule. He later left the ANC to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), and was elected its first President in 1959.

South Africa

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost sovereign state in Africa. It is bounded on the south by 2,798 kilometers of coastline of southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, on the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and on the east by Mozambique and Swaziland, and surrounding the kingdom of Lesotho. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area, and with close to 53 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere.

South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, which is among the highest number of any country in the world. Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most white and coloured South Africans; English reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life, though it is fourth-ranked as a spoken first language.

Robert

The name Robert is a Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic *χrōþi- "fame" and *berχta- "bright". Compare Old Dutch Robrecht and Old High German Hrodebert (a compound of hruod "fame, glory" and berht "bright"). It is also in use as a surname.

After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form Robert, where an Old English cognate form (Hrēodbēorht, Hrodberht, Hrēodbēorð, Hrœdbœrð, Hrœdberð) had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto.

Similar to the name, Richard, "Robert" is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be used as a French, Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian name as well.

Variations

Trivia

Robert, and also the name Joseph, were in the top 10 most given boys' names in the US for 47 years, from 1925 to 1972.

In Italy during the Second World War, the form of the name, Roberto, briefly acquired a new meaning derived from, and referring to the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis.

Robben Island

Robben Island (Afrikaans: Robbeneiland) is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island." Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a few metres above sea level, as a result of an ancient erosion event. Nobel Laureate and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 18 of the 27 years he served behind bars before the fall of apartheid. To date, three of the former inmates of Robben Island have gone on to become President of South Africa: Nelson Mandela, Kgalema Motlanthe, and current President Jacob Zuma.

Robben Island is both a South African National Heritage Site as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

History

Since the end of the 17th century, Robben Island has been used for the isolation of mainly political prisoners. The Dutch settlers were the first to use Robben Island as a prison. Its first prisoner was probably Autshumato in the mid-17th century. Among its early permanent inhabitants were political leaders from various Dutch colonies, including Indonesia, and the leader of the mutiny on the slave ship Meermin.