Over millennia, human beings have observed other animal species that congregate around the waste food disembowelled from the intestines of their species. They will stop and cry in sounds that express deep pain. They know that the existence of such contents mean that their species is no more. We are gathered here as part of that animal kingdom to pay our last respects. Re tlile ho lla mosoang.

But as we do so, we remind ourselves of the great deeds of this giant, when he acted these out wisely and deliberately in favour of humanity.

Professor Muxe Nkondo, who recently passed away, leaves us with a wealth of philosophy, politics, culture, history, science and archaeology, to mention but a few of his interdisciplinary pursuits. But above all – because he was a fighter of note – he has handed over to us superior armour that hitherto was unmatchable in the terrain of struggle.

In this array of armour, I have arrogated to myself a tribute that anchors itself on culture. In particular, I have chosen idioms that are a sum total, albeit not exhaustive, of experiences in time and space.

In his latest and possibly last gift to us and to generations to come, are three volumes. These come under the title The South African Handbook of Agency, Freedom, and Justice: Citizens in Conversations.

My exploration of the volumes confirms the Bapedi idiom of Khaka kholo Se na Mabala, ha e fofa e nts’o, Mabala ana le likhakana. But it also affirms the Basotho idiom that says, ngoana Khoale se na o ipolela, motho o motle a boleloa ke batho.

The book, published in March, reveals the Nkondo I know. An unapologetic fighter who fought from the beginning to the end. Being deliberate was Nkondo’s hallmark in life.

In his introduction to these volumes, he took a deliberative framework that opened with truth to power – and in this regard power, which all of us possess by the way.

Nkondo, the scholar, wrote: “Many South Africans suffer from varieties of ‘un-freedoms’, injustice and demolished agency... Diminished agency, unfreedom and injustice have other dimensions, including food and health insecurity, subjecting South Africans to physical and social pain.”

These are the words of Khaka kholo se na mabala, the Nkondo I know, as he unleashes the likhakana into colourful action.

In three volumes – the first with 28 chapters, the second 26 chapters and the third 15 chapters – the Khaka kholo has deliberately set the colourful likhakana to speak truth to power and to themselves.

The 120 authors are the best brains that could ever be imagined, a South Africa dream team. I cannot mention each dream team member by name. Suffice to mention only one, whose circumstance makes him stand out, not only domestically, but on the global stage.

His prominence presented itself under trying and existential circumstances. He spoke truth to power. He spoke truth to Israel on the nfreedoms” impugned against Palestine. The Palestinian question pains us. However, in the three volumes, the chapter by Tembeka Ngcukaitobi talks not to Israel on the case of Palestine on unfreedoms, but about our own unfreedoms that include land, food and health insecurity, subjecting us to physical and social pain. The three volumes should surely be the rock-bed of the dialogue we so desperately need to confront and answer our unfreedoms that have wrought unto us darkness, poverty and ill health.

Nkondo was a visionary. Three months after my appointment as the Statistician-General, in November 2000, I invited fellow African heads of statistics, in March 2001, to deliberate on the role of evidence and statistics.

Having heard Nkondo deliver a message a month before at some conference that fortune placed me in, I understood that I did not need fortune, but I had to be deliberate and ensure that others draw from the wisdom. So, I invited Nkondo. He socialised, humanised and introduced statistical politics to this audience of number crunchers. Statistical politics opened up to us the study of evolution of statistics and engendered our understanding of political statistics. Seven years later, we started an internship programme at StatsSA.

The students from Venda became the most prominent shoots. Professor Mbulaheni Nthangeni, our head of capacity building at StatsSA, was Venda, and I had a special suspicion that the skewed choice that preferred the Venda is a consequence of preference to kin. But substantive evidence pointed otherwise. Nkondo had laid a solid foundation and Venda University was delivering.

In a tribute to Nkondo, Professor Lucky Mathebula writes: “The question of who frames the discourse and its conclusions is at the heart of any process of building an intellectual legacy for society. To know that you might be witnessing the passing on of a generation that has abrogated to itself the sacred responsibility of thinking about the reality of human dignity and social justice for all is to realise our democratic order's greatest pains of all.

Ngoana Khoale se na o ipolela motho o motle a boleloa ke batho, which means self-praise is no recommendation.

The BPI, represented here by its executive director Nkosana Thobela, Professor Lucky Mathebula, Veronica Motloutsi and Kholi Makhobiso, saw in Nkondo a giant of modest character who achieved and inspired others.

For those reasons, the BPI Foundation and its patrons bestowed on Nkondo the inaugural BPI Iconic Leadership Excellence Award in the Lifetime Achievement category. This award recognises individuals over the age of 70 who have throughout their lives dedicated themselves, their knowledge, skills, time, talents and efforts to a cause that advanced the betterment of their professions and humanity.

He was to the BPI a human of African origin who personified an organic body of knowledge our country could not have been without.

Sinjhiva Tshika Misava hi malwanda

Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.

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