By obakeng maje

On December 7 2012 the Sol Plaatje Educational Trust and the North West Department of Sport, Arts and Culture will be hosting the Sol Plaatje Commemorative Lecture at the Mmabatho Convention Centre.

This year marks the 80th year since Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje died. He took his last breath on June 19, 1932 in Johannesburg.

He was buried three days later in Kimberley. 

“Plaatje was the founding secretary-general of the ANC (then called the South African Native National Congress), the Editor of Koranta ea Becoana, Tsala ea Becoana and Tsala ea Batho newspapers. He also wrote Native Life in South Africa, Mhudi and the Mafikeng Diary of Sol Plaatje. He also translated William Shakespeare’s works into Setswana” Vusi Kama said.

“He compiled and translated into English almost a thousand Setswana proverbs and idioms” He asserted.

Mahikeng has been chosen as the venue for the commemorative lecture based on the fact that Plaatje spent ten years of his life here.

He first arrived in Mahikeng in 1898 to work as an interpreter at the magistrate’s court. In 1902 he assumed editorship of Koranta ea Becoana, the only Setswana/English newspaper in the area. 

“The city of Mahikeng can be said to have launched Plaatje” Kama said.

“His first newspaper articles were published in the Mafikeng Mail in 1900. His first book, The Mafikeng Diary of Sol Plaatje, was written while he was here between 1899 and 1900, though it was only published three decades after his death. As the Editor of Koranta ea Becoana, Plaatje established himself as the spokesperson for his people” He continues.

Through his editorials he addressed matters that included racial equality and the sticky land question. 

It is therefore a fitting tribute that a lecture that marks eighty years since he died be held in Mahikeng. 

There are also two schools in Mahikeng, a primary school and a high school, that are named after him. The house in which he lived in Mahikeng, the Maratiwa House, is a heritage site. The plot on which he lived in Seweding village is also a heritage. His cattle kraal, borehole and the row of trees that he planted, are all still there at the plot in Seweding village. 

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