J.J. Hadebe replies to Thabo Mbeki’s plea

This Day in History, African National Congress (ANC) executive member in charge of youth affairs, J.J. Hadebe replied to Thabo Mbeki’s request to complete his Masters Degree. Mbeki, who would become South Africa’s second President after Nelson Mandela, wrote a letter to the ANC in 1964, asking the organization if he could rather further his graduate studies. His plea was in response to a call made by the ANC, that the timing was right for him to join uMkhonto weSizwe (MK). In his reply, Hadebe wrote; “We (ANC) are agreeable that you should stay on for another year to pursue your studies leading to a Masters degree.”  In his book Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, Mark Gevisser quotes Philip Ingram as saying that Mbeki was very unhappy with the suggestion that the time had come for him to take up his weapon and join the army. In 1965 Mbeki returned to Sussex University to further his studies. He played an imperative role during the tense negotiations that took place in the early 1990s and subsequently paved the road to the first South African democratic elections in 1994.