Leaving a legacy for us to live by

When Mazisi Kunene, Unesco-declared poet laureate of Africa, met Phillip Tobias, who went in search of this great man of letters, it was a meeting of two giants, one in literature and one in science.

His wife, Mathabo, recalled: “The two greeted each other as strangers would and soon settled in Mazisi’s study, decorated with all the African artefacts that defined Mazisi Kunene’s whole being.

“After offering them some refreshments I left the room as the camera began rolling.

“I popped in occasionally to offer more beverages and a light lunch, but realised that the two were deeply engaged in conversation.”

The visit lasted the better part of that Saturday afternoon. At the end, the two embraced as old friends would part after a reunion of sorts; or was it a coming together of minds long separated?

Kunene’s only comment was: “What a genius. I now know that I am not crazy, though many accuse me of being too African. I must complete five more epics: Emperor Shaka The Great and The Anthem of Decades are just the beginning.”

When great human beings die they leave an abundant legacy as a gift to their fellow men. The recent death of Tobias, one of the world’s leading experts on human evolution, has left us bereaved, but not bereft – for he endowed us an amazing wealth of material possessions and non-material attributes.

He was one of our most treasured citizens and the hundreds of students who were privileged enough to have studied under this man would have learnt a great deal from this outstanding son of Africa.

Described as a true renaissance man, Tobias was a multifaceted expert who wore many hats as an archaeologist, anatomist, anthropologist, geneticist, fossil hunter and medical doctor.

But most of all he was a wonderful human being with a modest demeanour and a lovely personality that radiated warmth and conviviality. His eyes gleamed with excitement at the wondrous nature of life. Genius mixed with ubuntu makes for rare bedfellows.

Yet right on our doorstep this divine production of man and love coexist in fine balance in the character and personification of both Kunene and Tobias.

Tobias loved the written word and shuddered at the misuse of the English language. Kunene was an epic storyteller, so they had much in common.

Tobias, however, was essentially a scientist who believed that science could overcome ideology, although he made space for religion in his quest for truth. He cited chapter 37 in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, who is let down in the midst of a valley full of bones and told that these bones live.

“Long before I knew of my future as a professor of anatomy, I was fascinated by this passage and returned to it again and again,” Tobias said.

As a young child he faced the hardships of poverty and a broken home. He had bouts of depression and night terrors.

He did not have a stable family life and was essentially a lonely child who had to face the death from diabetes of his only sibling at the age of 12.

Yet he never gave up as he forged his way through medical school. Perhaps on account of his lack of privilege, he grew to value the quest for knowledge and found joy in its offerings. He recalls clinging to a verse that a friend wrote in his autograph book: “Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life… look for the virtues behind them.”

On account of this he idealised “the concept of a happily married home and the contented life of a joyous and blessed family”.

I listened to an interview that he gave to SAfm and there were three areas of his life that he found intrinsic to his life experiences.

First, he said that it was his love of language that excited him.

Second, it was his faith in humanity that propelled him beyond race or any other superficial factions that divide people.

What I understood from the reading of his works and his life was that he felt that the eternal beauty of truth must surely transcend all forms of ethnocentric claims of ownership or alienation.

I am thinking here of African or Asian scholarship or Western knowledge perpetuated as impenetrable enclaves of learning and knowledge. When all knowledge, whatever its source, converges it results in a confluence of many perspectives leading to one truth. It is this truth that Tobias stood for.

Third, he said it was his sense of wonderment at life itself. He couldn’t understand people who said they were bored stiff or that they were not stimulated by their work or life. For him gladness could be felt through the reading of it as with poetry.

“I even developed a little private philosophy that happiness for me at least never occurs in the present tense, except in fleeting moments. It is to be plucked, like choice grapes or litchis, from an old orchard of memory. That was my theory of happiness in retrospect, in the past tense, and an especially delicious and rich flavour of happiness it was, too.”

There is much to learn from this great personality who manoeuvred through life fighting its vicissitudes to emerge victorious throughout the journey.