“Remember me”: Thami Mnyele and the question of sacrifice

Abstract

This essay looks at the short life of one artist, Thami Mnyele, assassinated in 1985. Mnyele sacrificed his life for a vague vision of equality and sincere love for ordinary people. The essay notes his growing commitment to serving the “common good,” both in his art and in his decision to become a MK soldier. Enduring times of extreme violence and distrust in the 1980s, he could not know that he was living on the cusp of radical change, when the strategies of power brokers on both sides were shifting away from the armed struggle. The essay argues that historians have a professional duty to depict honestly the growth of a commitment to self-sacrifice, and to ask uncomfortable questions, such as: did idealizing the masses and the ANC blind people to the dangers of populist rhetoric and the hijacking of a movement for personal gain?