tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/anti-apartheid-activism-38135/articlesAnti-apartheid activism – The Conversation2024-02-06T12:29:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2227652024-02-06T12:29:17Z2024-02-06T12:29:17ZZuleikha Mayat: South African author and activist who led a life of courage, compassion and integrity<p>Few Indian South African women have achieved wider public recognition than author, human rights and cultural activist <a href="https://salaamedia.com/2021/05/08/championpeople-meet-zuleikha-mayat-social-activist-and-renowned-author-of-indian-delights-cookbook/">Zuleikha Mayat</a>, who passed away on 2 February 2024. An honorary doctorate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal was just one of many awards bestowed on her during a life that spanned almost 98 years. </p>
<p>Mayat was a remarkable pioneer, evocative writer, public speaker, civic worker, human rights champion and philanthropist. She was a staunch supporter of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/whither-palestine-ronnie-kasrils-19-may-2015-london">Palestinian freedom</a> and an end to Israeli apartheid and genocide. </p>
<p>I am a scholar of social justice issues in South Africa and have known Mayat for 49 years, through my friendship with her children. I assisted her with her last book, and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/dr-zuleikha-mayat-appreciation-saleem-badat">recently penned an e-book about her incredible life</a>. </p>
<p>She embodied principled, faith-based, socially committed, inspired leadership based on special talents and indomitable resilience, and upheld the dignity of all with whom she associated. In <a href="https://alqalam.co.za/zuleikha-mayat-93-a-true-indian-delight/">an interview in 2019</a> she said that she hoped to be remembered as “someone who interacted with everyone, no matter who they were, without prejudice”.</p>
<h2>Early life</h2>
<p>She was born on 3 August 1926 in Potchefstroom in South Africa’s North West province, the third-generation child of Indian-South African shopkeepers of Gujarati origins. In a country marked by racial divides even before the advent of apartheid in 1948, she learnt from her grandfather – <a href="https://iucat.iu.edu/iub/893561">as she later wrote</a> – that intermingling across social divides and boundaries was important, as was “learning the languages and folkways” of other social groups.</p>
<p>Her father was generous to poor people and drummed into her, <a href="https://iucat.iu.edu/iub/893561">she later reflected</a>, that “others have a share in our incomes”. For her “the Bounty of God is not just for a select few but must be shared” so that all “can benefit”. </p>
<p>The young Mayat read voraciously but racialism stifled her formal education. After grade 6 at the Potchefstroom Indian Government School there was no secondary school for Indians. Segregation (<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/control-1910-1948">1910-1948</a>), the precursor to apartheid, which legally entrenched racial classification and enforced segregation in all walks of life, meant separate schools for different “races” and the schools for whites would not enrol her. </p>
<p>Patriarchy also played a role. She was one of seven siblings; boys, like her three brothers, continued secondary education in other towns or cities “<a href="https://iucat.iu.edu/iub/893561">but sending daughters away was almost unheard of</a>”. And, so, her ambition to become a doctor was thwarted. </p>
<p>At age 14, as described in her 1996 book <a href="https://iucat.iu.edu/iub/893561">A Treasure Trove of Memories</a>: A Reflection on the Experiences of the Peoples of Potchefstroom, she discovered that she “had a gift as a writer, an intellectual orientation, and a capacity for expressing strong views”. A correspondence course boosted the “English in which (she) would come to write” prolifically. Later, she achieved a certificate in journalism.</p>
<h2>A letter to the editor</h2>
<p>1944 was a turning point. An 18-year-old Mayat posted a letter signed “Miss Zuleikha Bismillah of Potchefstroom” to the newspaper <a href="https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/keywords/indian-views">Indian Views</a>, which was published in Gujarati and English. The editor was M.I. Meer, father of human rights activist and scholar <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/professor-fatima-meer">Fatima Meer</a>. He published the letter, in which <a href="https://iucat.iu.edu/iub/893561">she</a> “argued for higher levels of education for girls” in a “style that revealed not only a principled passion concerning this matter but also her sharp wit”.</p>
<p>In 1954, aged 28, she invited friends to her small apartment in the coastal South African city of Durban. After supper, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/gender-modernity-indian-delights-womens-cultural-group-durban-1954-2010-goolam-vahed-and">Women’s Cultural Group</a> was founded. It sought to mobilise women for social change.</p>
<p>Fatima and her husband <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ismail-chota-meer">Ismail Meer</a> roped Mayat and her husband Mohammed into their revolutionary activities. While hiding from the apartheid authorities, activist and future president Nelson Mandela slept at the Mayat home a few times.</p>
<p>In 1961, she edited the famous <a href="https://www.spiceemporium.co.za/product/indian-delights-orange/">Indian Delights</a>, a recipe book, which flew off the bookshelves “<a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/zuleikha-mayats-indian-delights-still-cooking-9845007">like hot samosas at a buffet</a>”. Several new editions have been published and it remains one of the best selling books in South Africa today.</p>
<p>Between 1956 and 1963 Mayat contributed a weekly column to Indian Views. Her column, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290929021_Fahmida%27s_worlds_Gender_home_and_the_Gujarati_Muslim_Diaspora_in_mid-20th_century_South_Africa">Fahmida’s World</a>, brought what academics Goolam Vahed and Thembisa Waetjen <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/gender-modernity-indian-delights">have described</a> as her “signature liveliness and humour, as well as a sharp moral eye, to bear on various topics”. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/gender-modernity-indian-delights">In her columns</a>, she criticised social hierarchies, “ethnic and class prejudices” and racist and inhuman conduct, and commented on “the ethical triumphs and breaches of daily life”. </p>
<p>Mayat was involved in numerous institutions and organisations. These included the McCord Zulu Hospital, Shifa hospital, Black Women’s Convention, South African Institute of Race Relations, the Natal Indian Blind Society, and schools, old age homes and mosques.</p>
<p>And, throughout her life, she wrote.</p>
<h2>A life of writing</h2>
<p>In 1966 she compiled Quranic Lights, a book of prayers. <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-08-09-textiles-carry-a-living-history-in-nanimas-chest/">Nanima’s Chest</a> appeared in 1981 to promote the appreciation of traditional Indian textiles and clothing.</p>
<p><a href="https://iucat.iu.edu/iub/893561">A Treasure Trove of Memories</a>: A Reflection on the Experiences of the Peoples of Potchefstroom (1996) recounts growing up and life in her home town. South African scholar Betty Govinden <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/Devarakshanam-Betty-Govinden/1751866409">called the book</a> “an important contribution to autobiographical fiction in this country”.</p>
<p>History: Muslims of Gujarat was published in 2008, the result of “inner urges” that compelled her to probe into her family’s distant past.</p>
<p>A year later came <a href="https://humanities.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/humanities_uct_ac_za/1009/files/Devarakshanam_Govinden.pdf">Dear Ahmedbhai, Dear Zuleikhabehn: The Letters of Zuleikha Mayat and Ahmed Kathrada 1979-1989</a>, based on 75 letters exchanged between herself and anti-apartheid giant <a href="https://theconversation.com/ahmed-kathrada-a-simple-life-full-of-love-after-26-years-of-incarceration-75361">Ahmed Kathrada</a> that covered culture, politics and religion.</p>
<p>Then in 2015 she published <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/post-south-africa/20150520/281526519639492">Journeys of Binte Batuti</a>, a travel memoir. And at age 95 Mayat published <a href="https://muslimviews.co.za/2021/07/30/a-new-book-by-the-evergreen-zuleikha-mayat/">The Odyssey of Crossing Oceans</a>, an enthralling and expansive narrative by a consummate storyteller, which embodied some of her philosophy of life. </p>
<h2>Justice and peace for all</h2>
<p>Post-1994, when democratic elections were held for the first time in South Africa, Mayat continued her fight for equity and social justice. She <a href="https://alqalam.co.za/zuleikha-mayat-sadly-india-has-departed-from-indian-nation-to-hindutva-nation/">spoke out</a> and marched against local and global injustices. </p>
<p>She was acutely aware that for many the world was an inhospitable place. She sought, <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/read-nelson-mandelas-inauguration-speech-president-sa">like Nelson Mandela</a>, “justice for all”, “peace for all” and “work, bread, water and salt for all” – for people to be “freed to fulfil themselves”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saleem Badat receives funding from the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences. </span></em></p>Mayat embodied principled, faith-based, socially committed, inspired leadership.Saleem Badat, Research Professor, UFS History Department, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1810812023-09-09T05:11:30Z2023-09-09T05:11:30ZMangosuthu Buthelezi was a man of immense political talent and contradictions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460365/original/file-20220428-12-znj7si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mangosuthu Buthelezi inspired very different assessments of his roles and legacies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/chief-mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi">Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi</a>, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-announces-passing-honourable-prince-mangosuthu-buthelezi%2C-traditional-prime-minister-zulu-nation-and-monarch">who has died</a>, was a history maker. He was born on 27 August 1928 into a tumultuous global century, and into the local conditions of racist rule.</p>
<p>A man of singular political talent, Buthelezi was among the country’s most influential black leaders for the majority of his long and remarkable life. Yet he occupied an anomalous position within the politics of the anti-apartheid struggle. He brokered Zulu ethnic nationalism, feeding a measure of credibility into apartheid ideals of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-separate-development-south-africa">“separate development”</a>. This, against growing calls for unity under a democratic, South Africanist banner. But he claimed his position to be a realistic strategy, as opposed to armed struggle.</p>
<p>He will be remembered as the founder and stalwart campaigner of the <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/">Inkatha</a> Zulu movement. He’ll also be remembered for the violent civil strife between his followers and the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03222.htm">United Democratic Front</a> and African National Congress (ANC). The violence <a href="https://www.fromthethornveld.co.za/violence-and-solace-the-natal-civil-war-in-late-apartheid-south-africa/">claimed nearly 20,000 lives</a> during the last decade of racist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a> rule.</p>
<p>Buthelezi’s mother was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/princess-magogo">Princess Magogo</a>, granddaughter of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-cetshwayo">King Cetshwayo</a> and sister of <a href="https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/282741">King Solomon</a>. She was an important person in her own right. His great-grandfather was said to be “prime minister of the Zulu nation during King Cetshwayo’s reign”. He took up this role himself <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Appetite-Power-Buthelezis-Inkatha-Africa/dp/0253308127">in relation to the monarchy of King Goodwill Zwelithini</a>. </p>
<p>A complex figure, Buthelezi (or Shenge, as he was known to many) enjoyed traditional titles of chief and prince. He was also rooted in Christian and modernist ideals.</p>
<p>Buthelezi lived his personal life as a dedicated Anglican, with a close connection to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/bishop-alphaeus-hamilton-zulu">Alpheus Zulu, Bishop of Zululand</a>. He enjoyed a long marriage to Irene, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-03-25-mangosuthu-buthelezis-wife-dies/">who died aged 89 in 2019</a>. He tragically endured the deaths of five children, two of them of AIDS, a fact he declared publicly. He was taking a brave stand against stigma at a time when most political elites fostered <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/spr09aids/">a climate of denial around the disease</a>.</p>
<h2>Political career</h2>
<p>His political career began early. He joined the ANC Youth League and was expelled for student political protest while studying at the University of Fort Hare <a href="https://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/people.php?kid=163-574-496">in 1950</a>. Set to become a lawyer, and due to do articles with South African Communist Party lawyer <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/rowley-israel-arenstein">Rowley Arenstein</a>, he changed route to take up politics full time. This was a crucial turning point, which he attributed to <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1960/lutuli/facts/">Chief Albert Luthuli</a>. Luthuli, a father figure whom Buthelezi claimed as a mentor, bridged Zulu traditions and modern liberal ones in his role as both a chief and as ANC president.</p>
<p>Yet South Africa was changing. When Buthelezi chose to engage with the politics of apartheid’s “homeland” policy from 1970, he initially did so with widespread support. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Homelands or “bantustans”</a> were the 10 impoverished rural areas reserved for black people, where, as ethnic entities, they exercised nominal self-rule separate from the developed rest of the country ruled exclusively and in the interests of all white people. </p>
<p>He was occupying a platform from which he also kept the internal flame of political opposition alive. He did this first linked to the name and direction of the banned ANC, which had reconstituted itself <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/722941?seq=1">in exile</a>. Buthelezi could legitimately claim to have blocked the National Party’s vision of ultimate complete ethnic “homeland” separatism, by <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/gerhard-mare-ethnic-continuities-and-a-state-of-excepti/lwln-6892-ga50">refusing “independence” for the KwaZulu territory</a>.</p>
<p>Had he not opposed the apartheid state’s plans for the then fledgling King Goodwill, modelled on <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/160146.pdf">the monarchy of Swaziland</a> (now Eswatini) – an executive monarch with total political and economic power – the region’s history would have unfolded very differently. In KwaZulu this would have meant a single person in control (the young Goodwill Zwelithini), beholden to the purse-string holders in Pretoria.</p>
<p>Because of Buthelezi’s stand on “independence”, and in the climate of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a>, he was <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2013-04-15-buthelezi-to-attend-thatchers-funeral/">considered</a> by many western leaders the most likely and desirable black leader to bring about a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NKXyt5M_XY">democratic, and capitalist, South Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Buthelezi consistently called for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi-a-reappraisal-of-his-fight-against-apartheid-144212">release of political prisoners</a>. He formed a political movement, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636898?seq=1">Inkatha, in 1975</a>, and ensured its growth and survival – and thus his own – within the KwaZulu base. In 1979, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238317279_Versions_of_resistance_history_in_South_Africa_The_ANC_strand_in_Inkatha_in_the_1970s_and_1980s">he fell out of grace with the ANC</a> in what he continued to consider both a misinterpretation of his objectives and a manipulative power play, leaving a sore point that endured.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A man wearing a headband made of leopard skin folds his hands on his stomach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460533/original/file-20220429-13-o6x2gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460533/original/file-20220429-13-o6x2gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460533/original/file-20220429-13-o6x2gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460533/original/file-20220429-13-o6x2gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=898&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460533/original/file-20220429-13-o6x2gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460533/original/file-20220429-13-o6x2gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460533/original/file-20220429-13-o6x2gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A younger Mangosuthu Buthelezi in March 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Buthelezi increasingly worked his own base, using media masterfully in a pre-internet world. He distributed every speech on a mailing list, nationally and internationally, drawing in supportive journalists and political analysts. In the 1980s, he drew finances for innovative and convincing research, inaugurating the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02533958108458305?journalCode=rsdy20">Buthelezi Commission Report</a>, which investigated the entwined economies of Natal and KwaZulu. This was followed by the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3330064?seq=1">KwaZulu-Natal Indaba of 1986</a>, where the potential of a post-apartheid federal system was explored. Coming just before the political manoeuvres in the late 1980s and the transition in the early 1990s, and from such a strong source, it would have confirmed to negotiators on all sides that ethnic “homelands” would continue to feature in a democratic South Africa. </p>
<p>Attempts to initiate national linkages such as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636898?seq=1">South African Black Alliance</a> failed to take off. Likewise efforts to present himself as a national politician, for example through annual mass meetings in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/soweto-johannesburg">Soweto</a>, the massive black urban settlement outside Johannesburg.</p>
<p>Buthelezi never managed to escape the political damage of “participation” and working “within the apartheid system”. His association with Zulu ethnic authority both served and undermined him. When the ambiguity of his affiliation to the ANC came to a head in 1979, he was increasingly dependent on the apartheid state. He became, inescapably, part of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582473.2021.1895878">civil war waged from 1985</a>, sharing the ANC as enemy with his apartheid state supporters. </p>
<p>For its part, the ANC could not accept another internal political position from internal structures not already committed to it. This especially once trade unions grew and civil unrest took on organisational forms under the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03222.htm">United Democratic Front</a>, which fully supported the exiled ANC movement.</p>
<p>During the complex negotiations for a democratic country – which he argued made him a bit player – Buthelezi withdrew from participation, against the background of the raging civil war. He returned after the KwaZulu government had passed legislation that ensured the clear continuation of ethnic rule in the region. It also guaranteed that all “homeland” land would continue directly under King Goodwill, as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2021.1909116">the Ingonyama Trust Land</a>. </p>
<p>Other promises were made to Buthelezi, the non-fulfilment of which rankled him thereafter. While a member of the <a href="https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/publications/reconciling-impossible-south-africa-government-national-unity-1994-1996?utm_source=December+2016+Sout+Africa+Unity+Govt&utm_campaign=December+2016&utm_medium=email">Government of National Unity</a> (1994-1996), he even served as <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/buthelezi-is-made-acting-president-in-peace-move-by-mandela-1.27841">acting president</a>. He continued to lead what was now the <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/">Inkatha Freedom Party</a> for most of his remaining years. </p>
<p>He was centrally involved in the disputatious unfolding of selecting a successor to King Goodwill after his death <a href="https://www.news24.com/witness/news/kzn/buthelezi-rubbishes-claims-that-king-misuzulu-kazwelithini-may-have-been-poisoned-20210927">in 2021</a>. The continuing complexities of Zulu ethnic politics, including the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeHD-ZuR7GU">installation of King Misuzulu kaZwelithini</a> in 2022, bedevilled Buthelezi’s political roles into his 90s.</p>
<h2>Talent and contradictions</h2>
<p>Buthelezi left traces of his life firmly in South Africa’s history over the past momentous 80 years or so. It is therefore not surprising that there will remain very different assessments of his roles and legacies. Some of the titles that were and can be attributed to him would include, at various moments: Zulu chief and prince, bantustan prime minister and ethnic prime minister to the Zulu king, and acting president of a democratic South Africa. </p>
<p>Others are warlord, stooge and collaborator, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Buthelezi-Biography-Ben-Temkin/dp/0714682314">internationally recognised statesman</a>, ANC stalwart, Zulu, Christian, family man. Just before his death <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-03-02-high-court-judgment-clears-prince-misuzulu-for-next-amazulu-crown/">king-maker could be added</a>.</p>
<p>A man of immense talent, and contradictions, Buthelezi anticipated in his politics the variegated allegiances of power and interest that would reveal themselves, with new bids for authority and wealth, into a new era.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerhard Maré does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If Mangosuthu Buthelezi had not opposed the apartheid state’s plans for an ‘independent’ Zulu kingdom, South Africa’s history would have unfolded very differently.Gerhard Maré, Emeritus Professor of Political Sociology, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1876542022-07-26T14:54:55Z2022-07-26T14:54:55ZEpitaph for a baobab: remembering South African poet and activist Don Mattera<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476010/original/file-20220726-12-1mwbpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Don Mattera in 2013. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lerato Maduna/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The towering South African poet, activist and humanitarian <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/donato-francisco-mattera-1935">Donato Francesco Mattera</a> <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/renowned-poet-don-mattera-has-passed-away/">passed away</a> on 18 July at the age of 86. What he represented to South Africa is far larger than his <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/remembering-don-mattera-through-his-books-awards-and-accolades/">contribution</a> to literature. </p>
<p>During the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FcUVBq2Mg4">online memorial service</a> for Mattera, filmmaker and lecturer Dr Teddy Mattera said of his father: “He illuminated my pathway as a creative person.” Tributes from journalists, historians, politicians, doctors and lawyers – people who don’t readily identify as creative – echoed his sentiments. Herein lies the enduring greatness of Don Mattera: what he did for people.</p>
<p>He was, in the traditional sense, an African poet, the centre of social life. Although Don was entertaining, he was far more than an entertainer; as a spokesman for the poor and marginalised his reach was wider than an activist’s. He was never a public representative yet he represented people. </p>
<p>He was an <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times-daily/opinion-and-analysis/2022-07-22-frank-meintjies-don-mattera-constantly-shuffled-the-deck-between-anger-and-compassion/">outsider</a> to the intellectual establishment, a passionate voice in the wilderness. </p>
<p>Often abrupt in his critique of elitism, and his lifelong profound identification with the poorest and most marginalised members of society, what he stands for challenges the academy’s conception of The Humanities. It urges them to do better to serve human beings. For South African universities to walk their decolonial talk, they will have to acknowledge the importance of a <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times-daily/opinion-and-analysis/2022-07-22-frank-meintjies-don-mattera-constantly-shuffled-the-deck-between-anger-and-compassion/">figure</a> like <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/voices/tribute-don-mattera-poet-extraordinaire-we-salute-you-20220718">Mattera</a> to the society well beyond making people write exams on his scansion and prosody. They will have to perforate brick and mortar of the university with clay and thatch, and abandon, or at least question, the brittle certainties that uphold the system as it is.</p>
<p>Like all great poets, Don embodied paradox, and was motivated by, and motivated, radical change. From the early days of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> right up until his death, he challenged authority, publicly witnessed systemic violence, he actively used his agency and voice to liberate himself and others. </p>
<p>His style was emotional and subjective, which may also have contributed to his <a href="https://bkomagazine.co.za/don-mattera-the-poets-poet-forgotten-by-the-canon/">exclusion</a> from the academy, where his work is not widely taught. He spoke up for and supported organisations defending prisoners, children, women, people with disabilities, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khoekhoe">KhoeKhoe</a> people. If the essence of excellent scholarship is rigorous research, innovation and relevance to society, Don’s only crime was passion.</p>
<h2>Memory is the Weapon</h2>
<p>Don’s autobiography <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Memory_is_the_Weapon.html?id=JrsIAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Memory is the Weapon</a> (1987) is a seminal reflection on apartheid’s earliest crimes, particularly for its detailed observation of ordinary life, its unflinching portrayal of violence and its much-needed humour and humanity. It is the “poet as historian” described by South African author <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/A-C-Jordan">AC Jordan</a>. </p>
<p>An instance of the vividness of his language and searing compassion, reflecting the conditions that sadly continue to dehumanise and impoverish people:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You would find a man or a woman lying drunk in the slime and grime and debris, breathing the foul air of a dispossessed and forsaken life – men and women robbed of those vital fibres that separate man from beast. </p>
</blockquote>
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<p>Poetry brought Don and I together. We agreed that poetry, with its ability to contain and express the harshness of pain, grief, rage and despair, had drawn us in and healed us: his from the harsh deprivations of early urban apartheid and mine from the duplicity of <a href="https://beyondthesinglestory.wordpress.com/2019/11/03/phillippa-yaa-de-villiers/">my childhood</a>. </p>
<h2>Poet of compassion</h2>
<p>“He led with his soul,” said Fasiha Hassan, scholar, activist and mentee of activist and political leader <a href="https://www.gov.za/JessieDuarte">Jessie Duarte</a> at an intimate Women of Waqf event at the Masjid-Ul-Islam in Fordsburg specifically designed for community healing following the deaths of Yasmin Jessie Duarte and Don Muhammad Omaruddin Mattera.</p>
<p>Spirituality and poetry are on the same frequency, and lent his words a presence and intimacy which inspired his readers to action – always positive, affirming and defending Black people, and importantly, inspiring people to raise each other. In this way we reach for and enact our highest human potential. He said to me, “When you get a chance to move up in the world, look around and see who you can take with you.” </p>
<p>We were in Kimberley at the Northern Cape Writers’ Festival of 2008, where he held court alongside poet <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tribute-to-keorapetse-kgositsile-south-africas-poet-laureate-89700">Keorapetse Kgositsile</a>, healer and author <a href="https://theconversation.com/obituary-south-africas-towering-healer-prophet-and-artist-credo-mutwa-134986">Credo Mutwa</a>, and writers <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/diana-ferrus">Diana Ferrus</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-from-the-story-of-pioneering-south-african-writer-sindiwe-magona-155670">Sindiwe Magona</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/james-matthews">James Matthews</a>. Unique in the way it presented traditional dance and storytellers from deep in the Kalahari desert, the festival programme taught me, among other things, that there are at least three more indigenous languages that are not recognised because they’re not written down, and Don could speak them. </p>
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<p>The Kimberley stage was broad enough to contain and cherish his unique genius, and gave him space to demonstrate his prolific response to the canon of indigenous oral poetry, and equally the lyrical in English. </p>
<p>Don’s relationship with mortality may have its roots in another formative experience, he confided in me when we were on tour in the UK. As a teenage gangster in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/sophiatown">Sophiatown</a> in the 1950s, before he got involved with politics, he killed a rival gangster in self-defence. Eternally wounded by the experience, Don became the poet of compassion, of anything life-affirming.</p>
<p>His spirituality was also political: his Pan Africanism was non-racial and welcoming. In 2009 we joined a delegation including Kgositsile and <a href="https://www.lebomashile.com">Lebo Mashile</a> to tour the UK. As we walked through the airport, waiters, servers, bartenders and cleaners flocked to greet the two gentlemen of letters, while white fellow travellers looked on bemusedly. I was reminded, after having experienced the same with James Matthews two years previously, that we are seen by those who are invisible. And poets are more than wordsmiths, they deliver heart and minds from emotional suffering and ignorance, and inspire agency. It is a calling, not a career.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tribute-to-keorapetse-kgositsile-south-africas-poet-laureate-89700">A tribute to Keorapetse Kgositsile, South Africa's poet laureate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Mattera and his works were banned for more than ten years during apartheid. After the banning order was lifted he self-published his poetry collections, and in 2008 Rose Francis, the founder of <a href="https://africanperspectives.co.za">African Perspectives Publishing</a>, <a href="https://www.african-writing.com/hol/donmattera2.htm">republished</a> Memory is the Weapon and Azanian Love Song. </p>
<p>If a poet’s value is based on their commercial currency, many of us would not be able to claim the title. Mattera’s values, strongly influenced by his Pan Africanism, Black Consciousness and Islam, see the well-being of the individual as indivisible from that of the collective, and the humanities would do well to follow that example.</p>
<h2>A baobab kneels</h2>
<p>The aesthetic concerns of oral poetry do not always successfully transfer to the page; sound demands a musicality that is sometimes at odds with the content of a poem. Don Mattera’s unforgettable voice straddled traditions and united divergent and often contradictory imperatives: he was an oral poet and a writer, an Italian and an African, a nationalist and a Pan-African. </p>
<p>To keep his vision alive we could start by conceiving of creativity as a human potential in everyone, and prescribe his works to students of medicine, law, social work and administration, and not just teaching and literature.</p>
<p>In his tribute at the memorial, Teddy said that his father was an oak who left many seeds, but I disagree. <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSwH0FPwo14MRS7u5SLN-vobkn3ctk8Mcxe0C69z_lx4iN0XKbtdGq7CHdl_-5oOE4C4LF_A0sBEJWD/pub">He is a baobab</a> who seeded a forest. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillippa Yaa de Villiers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A true African poet, Don Mattera was at the centre of public life, an advocate for change and an enemy of elitism.Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Poet and lecturer in Creative Writing, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1538032021-01-22T17:30:01Z2021-01-22T17:30:01ZSouth African minister’s COVID-19 death unites friends and rivals in tribute<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380165/original/file-20210122-21-i0shrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jackson Mthembu is the most prominent South African politician to succumb to COVID-19.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/minister-jackson-mthembu%3A-profile">Jackson Mphikwa Mthembu</a>, Minister in the Office of the President of South Africa, has been met with sorrow across the country. Tributes have come from across the political spectrum for the country’s first government minister to succumb to COVID-19. He was 62.</p>
<p>Mthembu’s integrity, dedication to his job and sense of humour explain the response to his death.</p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-passing-minister-jackson-mthembu">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Minister Mthembu was an exemplary leader, an activist and life-long champion of freedom and democracy. He was a much-loved and greatly respected colleague and comrade, whose passing leaves our nation at a loss. I extend my deepest sympathies to the Minister’s family, to his colleagues, comrades and many friends.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The leader of the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, John Steenhuisen, <a href="https://www.polity.org.za/article/the-da-mourns-the-passing-of-jackson-mthembu-2021-01-21">said</a> to Mthembu’s family, friends and the governing partty, the African National Congress:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have lost a generous man with a big heart and an even greater sense of humour.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Corne Mulder, leader of the right-wing <a href="https://www.vfplus.org.za/">Freedom Front Plus</a>, <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/jackson-mthembu-dies-of-covid-19-related-complications-20210121-2">said</a> “Jackson Mthembu was an excellent chief whip of Parliament. He stood strong on principle when Parliament came under attack during the Zuma years.”</p>
<p>He was referring to the <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/richard-calland-the-zuma-years/lwlk-1845-g5a0">tenure of former President Jacob Zuma</a>, from May 2009 to February 2018, characterised by populism and <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-democracy-or-a-kleptocracy-how-south-africa-stacks-up-111101">rampant corruption in government</a>. </p>
<p>Jessie Duarte, the deputy secretary-general of the African National Congress, enthused about how Mthembu had been a dedicated, committed activist with “an unbelievable work ethic” who was meticulous about his work and believed that the democratic project could work.</p>
<p>She <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2021-01-22-in-quotes-jessie-duarte-jackson-mthembu-leaves-behind-a-legacy-of-honesty/">said</a> Mthembu had a great sense of humour and an “amazing” ability to interact with people:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have lost a person who put the country first, at all times. For us who have lost a brother and a friend, this is a very great loss. He leaves a legacy of honesty and integrity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His death drives home the seriousness of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/news/2021-01-21-stern-warning-against-covid-greets-mthembus-death/">COVID-19 pandemic in the country</a>.</p>
<h2>The early days</h2>
<p>Mthembu’s life mirrored the daily toils black South Africans had to endure under colonialism and apartheid. His life was also synonymous with the struggle for freedom by the young activists who picked up the baton from leaders like <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/sobukwes-pan-africanist-dream-an-elusive-idea-that-refuses-to-die-52601">Robert Sobukwe</a>, among others, who were either jailed or banned or, like <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko">Steve Biko</a>, paid the ultimate price at the hands of the apartheid regime.</p>
<p>Mthembu was born in the eastern Transvaal, today’s Mpumalanga province, in the east of the country. He was raised by his grandmother and uncles. From the age of seven, he had to help his grandmother working in the family’s maize fields. He was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jackson-mthembu">kicked out of school</a> several times because his family could not afford school fees, uniforms or school books.</p>
<p>He was a student leader during <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">the 1976 school revolt</a>, sparked by the imposition of the Afrikaans language as a medium of instruction. The revolt spread throughout the country. The harsh response of the apartheid regime, shooting and killing unarmed children, led to revulsion around the world, further isolating the apartheid government. </p>
<p>He was expelled from <a href="https://www.dpme.gov.za/about/Pages/Minister.aspx">Fort Hare University in 1980</a> owing to his political activities. In 1980 he got a job at Highveld Steel and Vanadium, and became one of the first Africans to be promoted to production foreman. Between 1984 and 1986 he became a senior steward of the Metal and Allied Workers’ Union, which is today called the <a href="https://www.numsa.org.za/">National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa</a>.</p>
<p>During the 1980s struggle years it became almost a norm that unionists also became community leaders. In 1980 Mthembu became chair of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jackson-mthembu">Witbank Education Crisis Committee</a>. He also served on the eMalahleni Civic Association; the local branch of the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/cis/omalley/OMalleyWeb/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03208.htm">National Education Crisis Committee</a>, which campaigned for a “people’s education”; and the <a href="http://www.disa.ukzn.ac.za/keywords/detainees-parents-support-committee-dpsc">Detainees’ Parents Support Committee</a>.</p>
<h2>Defiance amid persecution</h2>
<p>The Special Branch (the apartheid political police) repeatedly detained him for months of solitary confinement during the <a href="https://www.saha.org.za/ecc25/ecc_under_a_state_of_emergency.htm">1980s states of emergency</a>, tortured him in police stations, and petrol-bombed his home. Mthembu was prosecuted for sabotage, treason and terrorism with 30 other activists in the <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/presidency/jackson-mthembu-mr">Bethal terrorism trial of 1986-1988</a>. He was acquitted.</p>
<p>After this acquittal, the apartheid security police continued with their harassment and intimidation. This led him to move away from Witbank, to the east of Johannesburg, and find refuge in Soweto and Alexandra in the Gauteng province as an “internal exile”, <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/statement-president-cyril-ramaphosa-passing-minister-jackson-mthembu">seriously disrupting his family life</a>.</p>
<p>He was elected deputy regional secretary for the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging-complex">Pretoria-Witwatersrand- Vereeniging</a> region (today’s Gauteng) of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">United Democratic Front</a>, the above-ground home for supporters of the then-banned African National Congress during the 1980s.</p>
<p>Mthembu worked with the South African Council of Churches, and in 1988 led a convoy of 300 minibuses as the SWAPO Support Group to help them during Namibia’s first democratic elections. <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-west-africa-peoples-organisation-swapo">SWAPO (South West African People’s Organisation)</a> went on to win the elections, and has governed Namibia since independence from South Africa <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibias-democracy-enters-new-era-as-ruling-swapo-continues-to-lose-its-lustre-151238">in 1990</a>. </p>
<h2>Life of public service</h2>
<p>Mthembu’s career was as one of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2006-08-28-his-legacy-should-not-be-forgotten/">“inziles”, as opposed to the exile generation</a> and the generation jailed on Robben Island. This has a two-fold significance. First, generational. The Robben Island generation, such as Mandela, and the exile generation, such as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a>, are now almost all retired. Zuma straddles both the Robben Island and exile experiences. Second, the “inziles” of the United Democratic Front had a less authoritarian and more participatory political culture than the islanders and the exiles, and this characterises their subsequent career.</p>
<p>In 1994 Jackson Mthembu was elected to Parliament and participated in the drafting of the South African constitution. Between 1997 and 1999 he was a member of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature, and served as Member of the Executive Committee for Transport. </p>
<p>He was elected to the national executive committee in 2007, and worked at the ANC head office, Luthuli House in Johannesburg, where he and then secretary-general Gwede Mantashe defended Zuma over the scandal involving the use of public money for expensive renovations to his private home at <a href="https://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/2718/00b91b2841d64510b9c99ef9b9faa597.pdf">Nkandla</a>. In 2014 he became an MP in the National Assembly, chairing the portfolio committee on environment, becoming ANC Chief Whip in 2016. </p>
<p>As the tide within the ANC was beginning to turn against Zuma,
he worked with the <a href="https://www.da.org.za/">Democratic Alliance</a> to <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/mthembu-slams-anc-mps-accusations-that-he-colluded-with-da-in-state-capture-motion-20171128">schedule a parliamentary debate</a> on <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">“state capture”</a> – large-scale corruption – during Zuma’s presidency. </p>
<p>Mthembu took part in the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-08-26-how-ramaphosas-campaign-spent-r400-million-and-why-it-matters/">CR17 campaign</a> to get Cyril Ramaphosa elected as the successor to Jacob Zuma as president of the ANC. In 2019 Ramaphosa appointed him Minister in the Presidency.</p>
<p>Mthembu, sometimes affectionately referred to by his clan name, Mvelase, is survived by his wife Thembi Mthembu and five children. His first wife, Pinkie, and one of his daughters predeceased him. His death was greeted with ringing tributes across the floor in parliament.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the ANC, but writes this in his professional capacity as a political scientist and historian.</span></em></p>Jackson Mthembu’s death drives home the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1415552020-07-07T10:45:22Z2020-07-07T10:45:22ZBlack Lives Matter: four lessons in white allyship from the South African anti-apartheid movement<p>As Black Lives Matter protests, triggered by the killing of George Floyd, spread across the world in response to systemic racism and police brutality, questions are being asked about how white people can lend their support. Our <a href="https://www.dundee.ac.uk/people/matt-graham">previous</a> and <a href="https://www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/leonie-fleischmann">ongoing research</a> into the South African anti-apartheid movement provides four key lessons we can draw on today in the fight against racism. </p>
<h2>1. Use privilege to support the oppressed</h2>
<p>The first lesson is that privilege, conferred to some by the system, can be used to support the oppressed. </p>
<p>The African National Congress (ANC) launched its <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defiance-campaign-1952">Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign</a> in 1952. Although the campaign did not succeed in overturning repressive legislation, it boosted the membership of the ANC, cemented the leadership of people such as Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, and created close cooperation between different racial groups against apartheid. </p>
<p>Black activists called on white activists for support, ranging from using their telephones, hosting meetings, to providing financial resources. In 1961, activist Harold Wolpe, using a front company, <a href="https://www.biznews.com/ceo-sleepout/2018/06/21/nic-wolpe-1963-liliesleaf-farm-raid">helped</a> the South African Communist Party buy Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Activist Arthur Goldreich <a href="http://www.liliesleaf.co.za/">then moved with his family</a> to Liliesleaf, which became the secret headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s armed-wing, where the banned leadership would secretly meet. Disguised in a white suburb, there was initially little suspicion that the farm was used for anti-apartheid activities.</p>
<p>A further tangible act of opposition to the regime was the refusal to serve in the armed forces. By the 1980s, more than 23,000 young men had <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03200.htm">refused to be conscripted</a> into the South African Defence Force, which was increasingly deployed to suppress uprisings in <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/inventories/inv_pdfo/AK2145/AK2145-B2-1-4-001-jpeg.pdf">townships</a>. As a constructive alternative to military service, the <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/inventories/inv_pdfo/AG1977/AG1977-A7-2-20-001-jpeg.pdf">End Conscription Campaign</a> proposed a range of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/construction-not-conscription">community development programmes</a>, such as painting a hospital ward or clearing a plot of land, in support of and in consultation with township civic groups.</p>
<p>In drawing on their privilege to support the struggle, white anti-apartheid activists were frequently ostracised by other white people. Bram Fischer is a prime example. Born into a prominent Afrikaner family, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mandelas-lawyer-bram-fischer-a-man-who-paid-the-ultimate-price-116436">Fischer rejected Afrikaner nationalism</a>. He later defended Mandela at the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/nelson-mandelas-speech-i-am-prepared-to-die-at-the-rivonia-trial">Rivonia Trial</a> in 1963, where Mandela was convicted to life imprisonment, narrowly avoiding a death sentence. Fischer was later sentenced to life imprisonment for his anti-apartheid activities. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mandelas-lawyer-bram-fischer-a-man-who-paid-the-ultimate-price-116436">Mandela's lawyer Bram Fischer: a man who paid the ultimate price</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. Educate others</h2>
<p>The second lesson is that those with privilege have a responsibility to educate others who hold that same privilege.</p>
<p>While white allies did offer <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/94/376/442/21501?redirectedFrom=PDF">benefits to the movement</a>, some black activists felt white activists were shirking the more difficult task of confronting racial attitudes in their own neighbourhoods. They preferred the excitement of travelling to the townships, where they <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/nonracialism/the_shape_of_things_to_come.htm">were welcomed with</a> “big cheers from the people”. </p>
<p>Steve Biko, founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, rejected this perception that white people were allies. In 1971, <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/confronting-apartheid/chapter-3/steve-biko-calls-black-consciousness">he argued that</a> it was “impossible” for white liberals to totally identify with oppressed black people “in a system that forces one group to enjoy privilege and to live on the sweat of another”. Instead, he said: “The liberal must fight on his own and for himself.”</p>
<p>In the 1980s, white activists, most notably through the <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/collections/johannesburg_democratic_action_committee_jodac_collection.htm">Johannesburg Democratic Action Committee</a>, an affiliate of the non-racial <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">United Democratic Front</a>, did pay greater attention to the white population. They made <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/94/376/442/21501?redirectedFrom=PDF">important gains</a> in educating and mobilising white people against apartheid through the <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/image/udf-public-meeting">Call to Whites Campaign</a>, which helped to weaken the power of the regime. They were also able to continue to mobilise when their black counterpart organisations were restricted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345095/original/file-20200701-159811-cw6aph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C17%2C1407%2C870&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345095/original/file-20200701-159811-cw6aph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345095/original/file-20200701-159811-cw6aph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345095/original/file-20200701-159811-cw6aph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345095/original/file-20200701-159811-cw6aph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345095/original/file-20200701-159811-cw6aph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345095/original/file-20200701-159811-cw6aph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-apartheid artwork at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nagarjun/8666937531/in/photolist-ecSjzr-VKJZYx-2ijRe1R-2j9zUv2-4JSUAq-75zm5A-CvLT98-29uT4Pa-T7a6Fq-2ityE5D-2iswqw2-fHPXvR-dFtUFS-4z7oUs-75g5iX-fPCZEx-5yeAY3-2isz2jh-22dvod5-pXScJW-GN9Rrx-YYJPrf-6FK1Uz-cnaqRJ-KPtJqf-7HtxpB-YVV78a-rt11bP-e18Ep9-JgvRJ4-gTBMUz-23LLL1e-yQc7fh-2iswp9n-Qpqpho-QBzrQd-i7GneA-i7CRQk-5ALewh-ySw3v-rGaifQ-nxvtgY-nzyyWA-dVE8X9-4DYnqA-ni4wdN-KxF45U-28YhzBA-XYYDrZ-98Csj7/">Kandukuru Nagarjun/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Put your bodies on the line</h2>
<p>The third lesson is that two people, in the same space, taking the same actions will not be treated the same. And that those with privilege can put their bodies on the line for the sake of others. </p>
<p>Throughout the anti-apartheid struggle a number of white activists including Denis Goldberg, Jeremy Cronin, and Raymond Suttner were imprisoned for a range of activities in the struggle against injustice. Out of the 156 people charged at the <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/?inventory/U/collections&c=AD1812/R/">Treason Trials</a> which began in 1956, 23 were white, including prominent activists Joe Slovo, Ruth First, and Helen Joseph. Ironically, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=O2Jxes0JT0MC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=Inter-racial+trust+and+co-operation+is+a+difficult+plant+to+cultivate+in+the+poisoned+soil+outside.+It+is+somewhat+easier+in+here+where+...+the+leader&source=bl&ots=MNXZFFu1-y&sig=ACfU3U37O9WDPtRe09ved4qTsweDF8C1UA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjVt93zpprqAhUSVRUIHU97AEsQ6AEwAXoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=Inter-racial%20trust%20and%20co-operation%20is%20a%20difficult%20plant%20to%20cultivate%20in%20the%20poisoned%20soil%20outside.%20It%20is%20somewhat%20easier%20in%20here%20where%20...%20the%20leader&f=false">according to Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein</a>, one of the accused, the trial strengthened the personal and political relationships across racial divides – the opposite purpose of apartheid legislation. </p>
<p>As one of us, Leonie Fleischmann, argued in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2019.27">research on Israel and Palestine</a>, the physical presence of members of the ruling population at protests has clear advantages. Lethal weapons are less likely to be used when Jewish-Israelis are present at Palestinian protests and they are unlikely to be treated badly if detained. Parallels can be found in South Africa, where conditions for white prisoners were markedly better than those for their black counterparts. </p>
<p>Helen Joseph <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/side-side-autobiography-helen-joseph">described her arrest</a> in 1956 alongside her black partner in the Federation of South African Women, Lillian Ngoyi. Joseph describes how she had a bed, sheets and blankets, whereas Ngoyi slept on a mat on the floor. Joseph had a sanitary bucket with a lid, whereas Ngoyi had an open bucket covered with a cloth. As Ngoyi <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/chapter-x-trial-detention">exclaimed to Joseph</a> as they were carted off: “You are better off with your pink skin”. Apartheid remained even in prison.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340950/original/file-20200610-34688-mbxdcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340950/original/file-20200610-34688-mbxdcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340950/original/file-20200610-34688-mbxdcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340950/original/file-20200610-34688-mbxdcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340950/original/file-20200610-34688-mbxdcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340950/original/file-20200610-34688-mbxdcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340950/original/file-20200610-34688-mbxdcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Federation of South African Women in 1955.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hindu_women_in_Sarees_part_of_South_African_federation_protesting_against_Apartheid_in_1955.jpg">Nagarjun Kandukuru via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Don’t expect to lead</h2>
<p>The fourth lesson is that members of oppressed groups <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/nonracialism/authors_reflections_september_2015.htm">must be the ones to lead the struggle</a> and decide the role of allies. </p>
<p>The involvement of white activists in the anti-apartheid struggle was not universally welcomed. The Congress Alliance, a multi-racial coalition of anti-apartheid organisations was established in the 1950s. Yet, to mobilise the black population, the ANC initially felt it necessary for these <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/94/376/442/21501?redirectedFrom=PDF">congresses to remain separate</a>. </p>
<p>At joint meetings of the Congress Alliance, the white Congress of Democrats was <a href="https://theasiadialogue.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/asjul59.7.pdf">criticised for dominating</a>. And in 1959, the Pan-Africanist Congress split from the ANC because it feared the struggle would be dominated by white communists. <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/37493/1/__libfile_repository_Content_Hook%2C%20D_Retrieving%20Biko%20a%20black%20consciousness%20critique%20of%20whiteness_Retrieving%20Biko%20A%20Black%20Consciousness%20critique%20of%20whiteness%28LSE%20RO%29.pdf">Others argued</a> that there was no place for white people in their struggle.</p>
<p>Still, the adoption of the <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/inventories/inv_pdfo/AD1137/AD1137-Ea6-1-001-jpeg.pdf">Freedom Charter</a> in 1955 at the Congress of the People, a large multi-racial gathering of the Congress Alliance, had showed that most anti-apartheid activists recognised that “black and white” should “strive together” until “the democratic changes … have been won.” Alongside this message of non-racialism and joint struggle, it was made abundantly clear that freedom for the African people was at the heart of the movement. </p>
<p>As A B Ngcobo, a member of the ANC Youth League <a href="http://www.saha.org.za/nonracialism/dynamic_irresistible_force.htm">asserted</a> in 1987: “The Africans, that is their struggle in the first place, and they’ve got to lead that struggle.” </p>
<p>Those who do not experience oppression are not best placed to make decisions on how to overcome it. </p>
<p>As the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa shows, mobilising white privilege can be a useful tool for advancing the struggle against racism. Yet, the fight must be led by those who are oppressed by it. White allies must show up, listen and put their bodies on the line.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: This article originally stated that Arthur Goldreich and Harold Wolpe bought Liliesleaf Farm themselves, but it has since been clarified.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leonie Fleischmann has previously received funding from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Graham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s history shows that mobilising white privilege can be a useful tool for advancing the struggle against racism.Leonie Fleischmann, Lecturer in International Politics, City, University of LondonMatthew Graham, Senior Lecturer in History, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1394752020-06-01T05:48:14Z2020-06-01T05:48:14ZEscape from Pretoria review: a film of anti-apartheid nostalgia for apartheid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338755/original/file-20200601-83305-wv7aiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C1440%2C959&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Arclight Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Escape from Pretoria, directed by Francis Annan</em></p>
<p>There is something undeniably appealing about prison escape films. Who doesn’t want to watch a bunch of underdogs band together and escape the clutches of their gaolers? </p>
<p>We empathise with central characters whose imprisonment is usually unjust, if not illegal. We cringe, watching them tortured by cruel and psychopathic guards. We feel uplifted as we see – even in this context of absolute abasement – the fabled “human spirit” (whatever this thing is) able to soar above the misery of the situation and, through cunning and ingenuity, set the body free. </p>
<p>They are perfect examples, in other words, of the kind of cinematic escapist fodder that thankfully numbs our brains and bodies to the brutalities of reality. </p>
<p>Escape from Pretoria does its best to exploit both our disposition towards underdogs, and our historical knowledge of the barbarity of apartheid in South Africa. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VfjoofUEcy0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Based on Tim Jenkin’s 2003 memoir <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1173896.Inside_Out">Inside Out: Escape from Pretoria Central Prison</a>, this is the first major feature film from UK-based director Francis Annan. Like <a href="http://sensesofcinema.com/2016/festival-reports/sydney-film-festival-2016/">so many</a> low- to medium-budget films in the 21st century, it is a transnational production, with the investment (and therefore risk) spread between Australia and the UK. Indeed, it was shot <a href="https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/arts/cinema/2020/05/20/daniel-radcliffe-escape-from-pretoria-release/">on location</a> in Adelaide and surrounding suburbs, and looks like it. </p>
<h2>A film about mechanics</h2>
<p>Formally, the film is uninspired. There is nothing notable about its technical construction. This seems to be a perennial problem with so-called “true story” films, which often depend on the interest generated by this label at the expense of dramaturgy and aesthetic quality. </p>
<p>(This, of course, is not always the case – the true story heist film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6212478/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">American Animals</a> was one of the most formally engaging films of 2018.) </p>
<p>What is interesting about Escape from Pretoria is the absolutely minor tenor of its narrative. It eschews melodrama and sentimentality, focusing on the mechanics of escape itself. The film goes into great detail in its examination of the design and manufacturing of the tools and technologies Jenkin and his crew use to get free, including nine different wooden keys, and their testing under tense conditions.</p>
<p>In this sense, the film is procedural rather than character driven. This suits the curious nature of the event on which it is based, and there is something refreshing about the narrative’s minimalist approach. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338752/original/file-20200601-83264-1dbcwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C1500%2C835&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338752/original/file-20200601-83264-1dbcwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338752/original/file-20200601-83264-1dbcwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338752/original/file-20200601-83264-1dbcwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338752/original/file-20200601-83264-1dbcwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338752/original/file-20200601-83264-1dbcwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338752/original/file-20200601-83264-1dbcwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is something refreshing about the narrative’s minimalism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Arclight Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It doesn’t labour excessively to depict guards as disgusting demons, or prisoners as paragons of virtue. It doesn’t, in the style of American countercultural prison films like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061512/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Cool Hand Luke</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071771/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3">The Longest Yard</a>, fetishise the eccentricities and idiosyncratic personas of different inmates. </p>
<p>Ex wizard Daniel Radcliffe gives an earnest if forgettable performance as Jenkin, managing to pull off a pretty convincing accent and sweating and frowning in the right places. His fellow escapees are solid, especially Australian Mark Leonard Winter as Leonard Fontaine. Nathan Page, as the particularly unpleasant guard Mongo, endows the role with a quality of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem">Eichmann-esque</a> understatement that stops it from descending into super-villain caricature. </p>
<h2>Disappointment at history</h2>
<p>Yet, like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/09/nashen-moodley-post-apartheid-films-still-grapple-with-unfulfilled-promise">so much</a> post-apartheid media about apartheid-era South Africa, the film exists as a kind of channel for profound disappointment regarding the African National Congress’s post-apartheid rule. </p>
<p>This is realised in the film’s background echoes of faint nostalgia and in the painfully banal platitudes that end the film, posturing about freedom and democracy, the ANC and Nelson Mandela.</p>
<p>This kind of nostalgia is becoming increasingly difficult to stomach in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-tragedy-must-be-understood-against-the-backdrop-of-structural-violence-in-south-africa-43868">post-Marikana massacre</a> context, in which the ANC were implicated in the lethal repression of protests about mine workers’ rights.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marikana-tragedy-must-be-understood-against-the-backdrop-of-structural-violence-in-south-africa-43868">Marikana tragedy must be understood against the backdrop of structural violence in South Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>It seems that, in an age of increasing inequality in South Africa, the cultural spirit needs to return to the apartheid era to generate some semblance of hope about the future. In the era the film attempts to document, the name “ANC” was still synonymous with dreams of equality and a prosperous future for many South Africans. </p>
<p>In a current day South Africa of growing inequality – captured in films set in the present (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4515662/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Necktie Youth</a>) and future (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">District 9</a>) – it is an easy strategy to return to the apartheid era to leverage the emotional investment of the viewer.</p>
<p>In any case, Escape from Pretoria offered an engaging diversion from news about coronavirus and police brutality. It’s the kind of minor, visually uninteresting film one senses would feel like a flop if projected onto a cinema-sized screen. It is better suited to the small screens with which we’re all currently forced to make do.</p>
<p><em>Escape from Pretoria is now available in Australia through video on demand services.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Daniel Radcliffe stars in the unispired Escape from Pretoria, which is more procedural than character-driven.Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1345932020-04-06T14:18:37Z2020-04-06T14:18:37ZBook review: lessons from a township that resisted apartheid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323612/original/file-20200327-146678-103wrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Oukasie residents protest over poor service delivery in 2010.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jaco Marais/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Can people on the wrong end of power change the world by working together? Or are the moments when the powerless take control of their own lives doomed to be snuffed out?</p>
<p>The question is raised by Kally Forrest’s <a href="https://jacana.co.za/our-books/bonds-of-justice-the-struggle-for-oukasie-hidden-voices-series/">book</a> Bonds of Justice: The Struggle for Oukasie. It is another in the <a href="https://jacana.co.za/our-books/?filter=Hidden%20Voices%20Series">Hidden Voices</a> series which aims to recover and preserve writings on society which would otherwise fall through publishers’ nets. The book is short and highly readable, and so is accessible to a non-academic audience. It has been some years in the making – it uses information gathered in 2011 and 2012. But the story it tells raises topical issues.</p>
<p>Forrest details the fight, in the last years of apartheid, of the people of Oukasie, a township near Brits in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/north-west">North West</a> Province, against an attempt to force them to move to Lethlabile, 25 km from Brits, primarily because their presence offended white residents. While it was common under apartheid for black people to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/18/world/south-africa-orders-the-removal-of-10000-blacks-to-new-site.html">removed</a> to areas where they would be out of sight to whites, it was uncommon for those who faced this threat to resist it successfully. Oukasie did manage to defeat the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive-files/ChOct89.1024.8196.000.028.Oct1989.5.pdf">attempted removal</a>. </p>
<p>It organised to do this despite a sustained campaign by the apartheid authorities. This included the murder of anti-removal leaders and members of their family, but its chief strategy was to divide residents. So, resistance could only succeed if the resisters were <a href="https://learnandteachmagazine.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/oukasie-yes-letlhabile-no/">organised and united</a>. While thousands were induced to move, enough stayed to force the authorities to abandon the removal and agree that Oukasie be developed.</p>
<p>Unusual circumstances made Oukasie an ideal site for strong grassroots organisation in which people remain united because they share in decisions.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323285/original/file-20200326-133040-hlg1a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323285/original/file-20200326-133040-hlg1a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323285/original/file-20200326-133040-hlg1a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323285/original/file-20200326-133040-hlg1a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323285/original/file-20200326-133040-hlg1a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323285/original/file-20200326-133040-hlg1a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323285/original/file-20200326-133040-hlg1a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hidden Voices/Fanele</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The resistance</h2>
<p>Brits was the site of strong worker organisation, largely the work of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Catholic-Action">Young Christian Workers</a> (YCW), founded by Roman Catholic priests as a vehicle for European workers to change exploitative conditions through organised efforts. YCW, which in Brits was open to non-Christians, stressed democratic grassroots organisation based on careful strategy summed up in its motto – “See, judge, act” – which encouraged members to reflect on what they saw before deciding what to do about it.</p>
<p>Young Christian Workers was political, since it challenged the effect of economic power on its members. But it was wary of the political movements which, it believed, wanted workers to act in ways which advanced the movements’ interests but not their own. It was able to maintain this stance because, in contrast to much of the rest of the country, the political organisations were not active in Oukasie.</p>
<p>Its attitude was identical to that of a section of the trade union movement which happened to be strongly represented in Brits. Its vehicle was the union which became the <a href="https://www.numsa.org.za/history/">National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa)</a>. Young Christian Workers’s members gravitated to it and it developed a strong presence in Oukasie. The resistance to removal relied on the same stress on grassroots participation and careful strategy which Young Christian Workers and Numsa adopted in the workplace.</p>
<p>The Oukasie resistance became, therefore, a test for an approach which relied on the efforts of grassroots people rather than high profile political leaders to change the world.</p>
<p>In one sense, this route to change worked. Oukasie was reprieved, and this was followed by a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-08-31-wr-29871-story.html">period of development</a>. The Brits transitional local government which was elected in the mid-1990s was led by Levy Mamobolo, a unionist and anti-removal leader who, until his untimely death, led the area effectively and honestly. The first few years seemed to show that democratic local organisation could also produce political leadership which serves the people rather than itself.</p>
<p>But, as Forrest shows, the Oukasie story does <a href="https://ewn.co.za/Topic/Mothotlung-service-delivery-protests">not end happily</a>. Leaders committed to public service were forced out of the local government; public services declined and corruption increased.</p>
<p>Forrest therefore frames her book not as a story of the triumph of a particular way of fighting for change but as evidence of what is possible if people organise themselves in the way Oukasie did. The author of an important <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/metal-that-will-not-bend/">book</a> on Numsa, she is an advocate of the approach followed by Young Christian Workers, Numsa and the Oukasie resisters. She contrasts this with the selfish elitism which gained control of Brits. </p>
<p>But she leaves unanswered the key question: is the grassroots organisation which saved Oukasie a realistic route to change, or is it doomed to give way to the top-down leadership to which Brits <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-05-03-mayor-suspended-in-difficult-but-necessary-decision-by-anc/">succumbed</a>?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323609/original/file-20200327-146699-pc8td4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323609/original/file-20200327-146699-pc8td4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323609/original/file-20200327-146699-pc8td4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323609/original/file-20200327-146699-pc8td4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323609/original/file-20200327-146699-pc8td4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323609/original/file-20200327-146699-pc8td4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323609/original/file-20200327-146699-pc8td4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2010 Oukasie rose again, in furious protests over poor service delivery. More than 100 were arrested.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What does the ultimate defeat mean?</h2>
<p>Given the importance of this question, it is a pity that Forrest does not analyse the defeat of grassroots democracy in Oukasie. We are left wondering how and why control passed from the “good guys” to the “bad guys”.</p>
<p>One reason may well have been that the governing African National Congress’s (ANC’s) politics turned out to be more powerful than those who supported the Oukasie resistance hoped. Forrest records that key figures in the resistance to removal joined the ANC and served in its committees once it was unbanned. This suggests that Oukasie’s ability to maintain an independent path was purely a result of happenstance (the lack of a political presence in the area).</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, the book makes an important contribution. Forrest’s sympathy for the Oukasie campaign does not prevent her from highlighting weaknesses. She acknowledges that the campaign failed to prevent thousands leaving Oukasie, and she documents the defeat of the politics she champions as Oukasie moved from resistance to local governance. This makes the book a highly credible account of the events it describes.</p>
<p>The book should, therefore, be read by anyone concerned with democracy’s future in South Africa, but in other contexts too. It should also trigger a debate on whether the political approach it describes is feasible.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://jacana.co.za/our-books/bonds-of-justice-the-struggle-for-oukasie-hidden-voices-series/">Bonds of Justice</a>: The Struggle for Oukasie is <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/search?cat=b&terms=Bonds+of+Justice%3A+The+Struggle+for+Oukasie">available</a> <a href="https://www.exclusivebooks.co.za/search?expedite=&keyword=Bonds%20of%20Justice:%20The%20Struggle%20for%20Oukasie">online</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A readable and important new book on the struggle for justice in South Africa’s Oukasie township does not go far enough to question the feasibility of grassroots resistance.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1200072019-07-08T15:09:05Z2019-07-08T15:09:05ZMarxist scholar Harold Wolpe’s ideas still speak to South Africa’s problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283097/original/file-20190708-51305-h0uscs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harold Wolpe showed how poor rural areas subsidised low wages of migrant workers' wages.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the apartheid period in South Africa – <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-end-of-apartheid-101602">1948 to 1994</a> – a lively intellectual culture of opposition emerged on some of the country’s university campuses and within the broader anti-apartheid movement. Given the exigencies of the time, it operated underground some of the time. </p>
<p>A key analyst and thinker within this movement was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/harold-wolpe">Harold Wolpe</a>, the doyen of South African Marxism. Wolpe became active in anti-aparthied activities as a student at Wits University in the forties where he studied law and sociology. He went into exile in 1964 after escaping from prison while awaiting trial for treason with Nelson Mandela and others in the famous <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">Rivonia trial</a>. In exile he developed a formidable reputation as a Marxist theorist of social change. He critically aligned his intellectual work with the democratic movement, with all the possibilities, challenges and tensions such a relationship entailed, according to Robert van Niekerk, a professor in public governance at Wits University. In 1991 Wolpe returned to South Africa to set up the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Western Cape. </p>
<p>Reflecting on the recent launch of a <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/latestnews/raceclassandthepost-apartheiddemocraticstate.html">collection of essays</a>, “Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State”, on the late Wolpe’s scholarly contribution, I was struck by the continued relevance of his work. </p>
<p>The theme that runs through the collection is a recognition of the changes that have taken place in post- apartheid South Africa, but also the striking continuities with the past.</p>
<p>As the country confronts arguably the deepest economic and social challenges since the creation of the post-apartheid democratic state, South Africans will find it very rewarding to revisit the rich debates on the left in this volume.</p>
<h2>What’s changed, and what hasn’t</h2>
<p>In the opening chapter I revisit, with my colleague <a href="https://asawu.org.za/vice-president-ben-scully/">Ben Scully</a>, Wolpe’s widely cited <a href="http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Wolpe%20Economy%20&%20Society%201972.pdf">1972 article</a> on cheap labour. In this article, he argued that the wages of urban migrants were subsidised by the non-wage activities of the household in the rural areas, the so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homelands or bantustans</a>.</p>
<p>These were the ten mainly rural areas under the previous apartheid system where black South Africans were required to live, along ethnic group lines. They were characterised by extreme underdevelopment and poverty. This forced the men and later women to seek work in the city in areas demarcated “white” or to work on the mines or for white farmers.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harold Wolpe in 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rand Daily Mail/tiso black star</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wolpe argued that the subsidisation of migrant workers by rural areas allowed employers to pay wages below the cost of reproduction. The rural areas performed a social security function by providing welfare for the very old, the sick, and the young.</p>
<p>Migrant labour persists today. But – in some respects – the function of migrant workers has changed. This we tracked through surveys in rural villages.</p>
<p>Interviewing older migrants, they spoke of the low pay and the the danger of work under apartheid but they said they had “work for their whole lives’. Today the career trajectory of a young person is quite different when they migrate to the city. Employment has become more precarious and casual and the rural migrant soon finds herself going back and fourth from urban to rural area as the rural home is a place of secure housing. </p>
<p>While migrant labour persists, it no longer provides a subsidy to capital as rural-urban ties are no longer essential for the reproduction of cheap labour. Instead it provides support for those at the bottom of the wage labour market. But the character of the non-wage activities has changed. The unpaid household labour, especially of rural women, remains essential. But the system of monthly social grant income – to the old, young and the disabled – has emerged as the new non-wage income source, often at the expense of agricultural production. </p>
<p>So Wolpe’s work continues to be relevant in the present as it reminds us of the importance of the interface between the capitalist sector and non-wage activities in the rural areas. </p>
<p>Another theme of Wolpe’s that still resonates today is the state of higher education.</p>
<p>A central preoccupation of Wolpe in his later years was the state of higher education. In a well argued chapter, <a href="https://mellon.org/about/staff/saleem-badat/">Saleem Badat</a> characterises Wolpe’s approach as one in which the tension between equity and development needs to be addressed simultaneously. </p>
<p>But Badat adds, Wolpe felt that there was little appreciation in the democratic movement, that opposed apartheid, of the difficult social and political dilemmas, choices and trade-offs that would be entailed in such an approach. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The student protests of 2015-16 made it clear, be observes, that the HWUs (Historically White Universities) have, largely, lacked the willingness or courage, or failed to forge creative strategies and policies, or both, to transform institutional culture, which is a critical equity as well as development issue (page 276).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Shunned</h2>
<p>In the concluding chapter <a href="http://www.wits.ac.za/news/sources/wsg-news/2018/meet-wsgs-chair-in-public-governance-professor-robert-van-niekerk.html">Robbie van Niekerk</a>, one of the editors of the volume, speaks of how Wolpe in his later years</p>
<blockquote>
<p>was shunned from any leading policy-making position and was increasingly isolated politically and personally by the liberation movement to which he had dedicated his life (362). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For the more orthodox, Wolpe’s questioning of the strategies of the national liberation movement was an indulgence and inappropriate.</p>
<p>A gap has emerged in South Africa’s political discourse as the democratic movement – those who fought against apartheid – has moved from state socialism to neoliberalism.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://sobeds.ukzn.ac.za/staff-profile/emeritus-professors/vishnu-padayachee/">Vishnu Padayachee</a>, author of one of the chapters in the book, pointed out in a panel discussion at the book launch that in the late 1980s Wolpe was rudely dismissive of what he called "Keynesian compromises” as a developmental model. This was because they took the eye off what he saw as the prize of a truly socialist society.</p>
<p>Padayachee surmised: given the deepening levels of inequality and economic stagnation would Wolpe not have supported a more activist macroeconomic policy, and a central role for the state in industrialisation and development, as an economic policy tool today?</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/latestnews/raceclassandthepost-apartheiddemocraticstate.html">“Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State”</a>, is published by <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/">University of KwaZulu-Natal Press</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies is funded by the Ford Foundation. </span></em></p>During the apartheid period in South Africa – 1948 to 1994 – a lively intellectual culture of opposition emerged on some of the country’s university campuses and within the broader anti-apartheid movement…Edward Webster, Distinguished Reserach Professor, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/966702018-05-29T13:01:45Z2018-05-29T13:01:45ZHow Huddleston and Powell squared off about racism in a televised debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220734/original/file-20180529-80637-ssj91c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-apartheid cleric Trevor Huddleston, centre, with South African liberation struggle icons Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela in 1991.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>British Conservative MP Enoch Powell’s 20 April 1968 <a href="http://www.publicbooks.org/rivers-of-blood-50/">“Rivers of Blood”</a> speech has been making headlines as the UK marks the 50th anniversary of its delivery.</p>
<p>Powell claimed that immigration was responsible for a demographic and social revolution that threatened British society. His toxic rhetoric and the responses to it, shaped policy and legislation.</p>
<p>Only fragments of Powell’s speech were captured on film, and the address in its entirety was preserved as a text. This April, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/bbc-rivers-of-blood-in-full-enoch-powell-speech-ian-mcdiarmid-radio-50-years-a8301476.html">Radio 4</a> asked actor Ian McDiarmid, who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41174659">played Powell on stage</a>, to read out the notorious 3183 word speech. Uproar ensued. </p>
<p>Critics argued that the broadcast contributed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/12/bbc-rivers-blood-broadcast-enoch-powell-racist-speech-far-right-nationalism">normalising racism</a>. <a href="https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/lifestyle/entertainment/lord-adonis-asks-ofcom-to-cancel-bbcs-enoch-powell-rivers-of-blood-broadcast-4/">Others</a> thought it should not be aired. The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43745447">BBC</a> defended its decision to proceed with the broadcast. It explained that the speech was interspersed with historical context. It claimed that the discussion emphasised the harmful impact of Powell’s words on his contemporaries. </p>
<p>I came across an astonishing piece of television during my research on the anti-apartheid activist and Bishop of Stepney Trevor Huddleston, and the impact of his experience in apartheid South Africa on race relations in Britain. The programme, called <a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b69f8dafe">The Great Debate: My Christian Duty</a>, aired on October 12, 1969 on ITV. </p>
<p>It was the result of a lengthy and public confrontation between Powell and <a href="http://www.trevorhuddleston.org/page23.html">Huddleston</a>. </p>
<p>Huddleston protested the “rivers of blood” address and the two commented on each other’s positions throughout the year. When Huddleston called Powell’s rhetoric “evil”, the latter wrote to Huddleston to defend his position. In their correspondence, they agreed to present their arguments to the public. </p>
<p>The location for their public meeting turned out to be a television studio with a live audience. This may sound like a curious choice of venue. In fact, Powell turned to the media habitually to promote his agenda, as did Huddleston. </p>
<p>During the 40 minutes of the debate, both men used the emerging genre of the televised political debate to rally support for their views. The terms of the debate were set by Powell and the links he created between immigration, race and British decline. Huddleston could not sever these imagined ties. He did, however, invoke the evils of apartheid as a warning post to his fellow countrymen. He used his experience in Johannesburg to reflect on the dangers of racial discrimination.</p>
<h2>Faith in humanity</h2>
<p>Huddleston cultivated his public image as a moral authority in South Africa from the mid-1940s. Between 1943 and 1955, he worked as a priest in Sophiatown, a black suburb of Johannesburg. In those years, until his forced recall back to England in 1955, Huddleston was a prominent participant in the struggles against apartheid. By then, his biographer concluded </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[<a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-312-22709-8">Huddleston’s face was</a>] the most photographed of any Christian except the Pope.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His bestselling memoir of the period, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/naught-your-comfort-trevor-huddleston">published in 1956</a>, made him a household name in Britain too. Huddleston reminded viewers of Britain’s material and moral debt to its former empire in Africa and Asia. He argued that the British, through colonial expansion, had “quite deliberately” moved into other people’s countries. They have</p>
<blockquote>
<p>created and sustained regimes of power over African and Asian people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This, and Britain’s long reliance on the slave trade, and later, on the inscription of labour from the Commonwealth to fight its wars and build its towns, created a commitment to these populations.</p>
<p>Huddleston’s aim, however, went beyond a history lesson. He harnessed the medium of television to issue a call for solidarity to fight the crisis ensuing from Powell’s address. He drew on his experience of collaborating with activists across the colour line in South Africa to signal a path for a dispersed group of anti-racist protesters.</p>
<p>He was successful in this, as the hundreds of letters from viewers that he received in response to the debate testify. His performance energised anti-racist and anti-apartheid activists, lay and clerical Christians, as well as individuals affected by so-called Powellism. Huddleston offered Britons his faith in humanity as flexible, tolerant and inclusive, and his arguments were rooted in the language of reconciliation. Accordingly, in his vision, immigration was a source of opportunity, and an indication that Britain was embracing its role as a positive engine of change. </p>
<h2>Tackling toxic rhetoric</h2>
<p>Today, as in 1969, Huddleston’s alternative vision to Powell’s remains relevant. The animated public reaction to Huddleston’s television performance, which included bags of hate mail in addition to support, demonstrates the price and profit of standing up to toxic rhetoric. </p>
<p>When we assess the legacy of Powell’s speech, it is important to consider the diverse experience that fuelled the opposition to it. Huddleston’s vision for Britain, shaped by his tenure in South Africa, and the solidarity and political activity it spurred, should also be remembered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tal Zalmanovich receives funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement no. 615564.</span></em></p>Bishop Huddleston’s criticism of Enoch Powell’s incendiary “Rivers of blood” speech was both a history lesson and a call to action against racism.Tal Zalmanovich, Postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the ERC funded project APARTHEID-STOPS that studies the transnational circulation of anti-apartheid expressive culture., Hebrew University of JerusalemLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/925132018-02-27T18:45:38Z2018-02-27T18:45:38ZWhy is the NRA boycott working so quickly?<p>The boycott of the National Rifle Association <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/politics/wayne-lapierre-cpac-speech-nra/index.html">following its response</a> to the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/parkland-school-shooting-gun-control_us_5a9482a6e4b02cb368c4c52b">school shooting</a> in Parkland, Florida, came fast and furious.</p>
<p>Car rental companies, airlines, trucking businesses, tech firms, insurers and a bank that issued an NRA-branded credit card <a href="https://hellogiggles.com/news/nra-boycott-list-of-companies/">all severed their relationships</a> with the gun advocacy group within days of the shooting that left 17 dead. </p>
<p>Predictably, companies that cut ties – such as Atlanta-based Delta – faced their <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/25/nra-hits-back-cowardice-companies-cutting-ties-gun-lobby-backlash/">own backlash</a> from NRA loyalists. In particular, the lieutenant governor of Georgia (and candidate for governor) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaseyCagle/status/968199605803454465">threatened</a> to “kill any tax legislation that benefits @Delta unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with @NRA.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"968199605803454465"}"></div></p>
<p>Once again, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-corporate-ceos-found-their-political-voice-83127">companies are finding themselves</a> caught in the middle of <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-did-che-guevara-become-ceo-the-roots-of-the-new-corporate-activism-64203">political conflicts</a> that they might have preferred to avoid.</p>
<p>There is nothing new about consumer boycotts – <a href="https://www.masshist.org/revolution/non_importation.php">Americans boycotted British goods</a> in response to the Stamp Act in the years before the Revolution. But as I’ve learned in <a href="https://hbr.org/product/changing-your-company-from-the-inside-out-a-guide-for-social-intrapreneurs/11057-HBK-ENG">my research on corporate activism</a>, two things are different now. First, businesses are being targeted not just for their own actions but for the company they keep – in this case, relationships with the wrong kinds of customers. Second, the speed of the response is unprecedented. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208146/original/file-20180227-36671-lh6q2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208146/original/file-20180227-36671-lh6q2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208146/original/file-20180227-36671-lh6q2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208146/original/file-20180227-36671-lh6q2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208146/original/file-20180227-36671-lh6q2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208146/original/file-20180227-36671-lh6q2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208146/original/file-20180227-36671-lh6q2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Delta found itself in a tricky situation after it said it would stop giving discounts to NRA members.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Markus Mainka/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Trouble in the supply chain</h2>
<p>Activists have targeted corporations for generations based on their business practices. </p>
<p>One of the most famous corporate boycotts <a href="https://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/our-company/answers/nestle-boycott">was launched against Nestle</a> in 1977 because of the Swiss food giant’s marketing of infant formula in low-income countries – a practice which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/27/formula-milk-companies-target-poor-mothers-breastfeeding">arguably continues today</a>. The legendary boycott lasted seven years, until Nestle agreed to abide by global best practices. You can even read about it on the company’s own website. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, activists started to target companies not just for what went on within their own corporate boundaries but further back in the supply chain. When the labor practices of Nike’s contract suppliers <a href="http://archive.li/LbQ9Q">brought activist scrutiny</a>, according to a company official, the “initial attitude was, ‘Hey, we don’t own the factories. We don’t control what goes on there.’” </p>
<p>But the first of many boycotts against Nike was followed by <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/morning_call/2013/05/timeline-of-how-nikes-labor-practice.html">corporate efforts at reform</a>, and the company now has a history of holding suppliers to account and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-nikes-struggle-to-balance-cost-and-worker-safety-in-bangladesh-1398133855">cutting off those that don’t measure up</a>.</p>
<p>Today corporations like Nike take for granted that they will be held accountable for the actions of their suppliers and even for the <a href="https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_responsibility_paradox">policies of governments of countries where they do business</a>. As <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sulr/vol39/iss2/13/">corporations increasingly rely on contractors</a> for core parts of their business, they are held responsible by ethically minded consumers for actions further back in the supply chain – even the <a href="http://amj.aom.org/content/59/6/1896.abstract">provenance of the mineral tantalum</a> in their electronic devices like smartphones.</p>
<p>And today, 40 years after its first major boycott, Nestle knows better than to disclaim responsibility <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/01/nestle-slavery-thailand-fighting-child-labour-lawsuit-ivory-coast">when activists uncovered slave labor</a> in their cat food supply chain. </p>
<h2>Know thy customers</h2>
<p>With the threatened anti-NRA boycott, corporate responsibility is extending in the other direction, to customers. Businesses can be held accountable not just for how their products are created but the character of the people or groups who use them. </p>
<p>Corporations <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/26/business/business-travel-the-big-get-the-best-of-the-corporate-discounts-at-hotels.html">routinely negotiate discounts</a> for groups such as AAA, AARP, alumni clubs and others. Now these routine business decisions will be subject to an additional level of scrutiny: What does who we serve say about us? </p>
<p>Still, the speed and comprehensiveness of the anti-NRA actions were startling.</p>
<p>Within two days of a <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/corporations-nra-f0d8074f2ca7/">target list</a> being posted on ThinkProgess, a number of major national corporations <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/car-rental-hotels-ditch-nra-following-boycott-818226">had dropped</a> the NRA as a “partner.” And the site keeps a running tally of companies cutting ties with the NRA. </p>
<p>Compared with the seven-year time scale of the Nestle boycott, or the <a href="http://reward0301.superfast-server47.loan/?utm_medium=NQ3aDvyuBCtafRQJPeFC66tm%2bMNW8T%2baflxP0d0AJGo%3d&t=main4">multiyear boycotts</a> of corporations operating in South Africa during the 1980s, this was something new. Social media previously enabled the <a href="https://medium.com/powering-progressive-movements/anpartner-case-study-womens-march-mobilizes-millions-worldwide-1077b5b2b9ed">rapid mobilization</a> of street protests, including the Arab Spring and the Women’s March on Washington. Now even the threat of mobilization on social media can lead companies to change quickly.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208157/original/file-20180227-36700-uncwiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208157/original/file-20180227-36700-uncwiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208157/original/file-20180227-36700-uncwiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208157/original/file-20180227-36700-uncwiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208157/original/file-20180227-36700-uncwiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208157/original/file-20180227-36700-uncwiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208157/original/file-20180227-36700-uncwiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First National Bank in Omaha, Nebraska, said it will not renew its contract to issue the group’s NRA Visa card.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>With us or against us</h2>
<p>Corporate action is increasingly transparent: Whether a company cuts or maintains ties with the NRA, the world will know it via social media. To <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qdvm6h8WKg">paraphrase George W. Bush</a>, either you’re with us or against us, and it takes only moments to find out which.</p>
<p>The NRA boycott demonstrates that in an age saturated in social media and political polarization, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/business/nra-boycott.html">politics will be inescapable for the corporate sector</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, what counts as “political” is encompassing an ever greater group of activities, ranging from which websites a company’s ads pop up on to who its customers are. </p>
<p>In this new era, companies will be forced to choose their friends wisely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jerry Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The lightning-quick corporate response to demands for a boycott against the NRA shows that companies can’t escape politics in an age saturated with social media.Jerry Davis, Professor of Management and Sociology, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/857612017-10-17T14:51:17Z2017-10-17T14:51:17ZAhmed Timol inquest: why uncovering apartheid crimes remains so important<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190437/original/file-20171016-31016-1mn7957.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former policeman Joao Rodrigues giving evidence at the Timol Inquest.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anthony Schultz/Mail & Guardian</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent, reopened inquest into the death of teacher and anti-apartheid activist, <a href="http://www.ahmedtimol.co.za/">Ahmed Timol</a>, was different in many ways from a traditional court case. Instead of the standard adversarial criminal trial, which is associated with an acrimonious standoff between opposing parties, the state and the representative of the Timol family, <a href="https://www.ictj.org/about/howard-varney">Advocate Howard Varney</a>, seemed to agree on the importance of arriving at the truth about Timol’s death.</p>
<p>Timol was 29 when he was arrested on 22 October 1971. After being interrogated and tortured by the feared security branch of the police, he died on 27 October 1971. Magistrate JL de Villiers, who presided over the inquest that followed his death, <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/closure-for-timol-family-after-judge-rules-that-he-was-murdered-20171012">found</a> that Timol had committed suicide.</p>
<p>The reopened inquest in the North Gauteng High Court nearly 50 years later was intensely symbolic. The atmosphere in the court was heavy with history. At times the testimony of witnesses reminded one of funeral-like memorialisation. It was clear that the case was not only about Timol’s death but about the dozens of victims who died at John Vorster Square, the notorious Johannesburg security branch headquarters, and more broadly, the countless victims of apartheid crimes. </p>
<p>Throughout the hearings Judge Billy Mothle heard compelling testimony from witnesses such as Timol’s friend and fellow detainee Salim Essop. Essop testified of brutal torture including electric shock treatments and attempts to suffocate detainees.</p>
<p>In concluding his deliberations after hearing the evidence, Judge Billy Mothle <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1686731/judge-finds-ahmed-timol-was-pushed-to-death-did-not-commit-suicide/">found</a> that Timol was either pushed from the 10th floor of John Vorster Square or from the rooftop of the building.</p>
<p>The ruling has been seen as a vindication of the tireless efforts on the part of Timol’s family and friends to have the apartheid security force’s lies and misrepresentation of the young activist’s final days overturned.</p>
<h2>Truth and reconciliation</h2>
<p>The Timol case resurrects many of the questions South Africa raised during the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-trc">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> (TRC), and in its direct aftermath. In many ways, the Timol case can be understood as a continuation of the work of the commission: the reopening of an inquest can be a way of establishing the truth of apartheid era atrocities. </p>
<p>In some ways, court proceedings are more efficient and powerful than hearings of the TRC kind. Courts have the power to subpoena witnesses and to declare lying witnesses in contempt of court. In addition, their judgments form formal precedent for future decisions. Court cases are also infused with a certain weight and formal authority. </p>
<p>One of the most serious criticisms of the design of the TRC was that it had the power to grant amnesty under certain conditions. While the conditional amnesty model was lauded as innovative and reconciliation-building, over two decades later it’s clear that there were crucial gaps in the amnesty scheme.</p>
<p>Firstly, the truth uncovered by the amnesty hearings was a selective truth in the sense that many apartheid victims didn’t have the means to travel to the sites of the hearing to testify. Secondly, many former perpetrators didn’t apply for amnesty. Many must have made a calculated guess that they were unlikely to be prosecuted if they did not apply for amnesty. </p>
<p>And there have been less than a handful of prosecutions post TRC. This arguably makes a mockery of the amnesty scheme. Also, the National Prosecuting Authority’s Priority Crimes Litigation Unit has been exceedingly passive. It’s this unit that failed to follow up on important cases such as the <a href="https://mg.co.za/tag/wouter-basson-hpcsa-hearing">Wouter Basson</a> case. Dubbed <a href="http://bhekisisa.org/article/2014-06-19-how-long-do-we-have-to-wait-for-dr-death-to-be-punished">“Dr Death”</a> in the media, Basson was the head of the apartheid government’s chemical and biological warfare programme. When the Constitutional Court gave the prosecuting authority the go ahead to prosecute, it failed to follow up.</p>
<p>In light of the poor, lacklustre track record of the state over the past 20 years, there’s <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-10-13-00-timol-ruling-just-the-beginning">little reason</a> for optimism that all apartheid era inquests will be reopened. There can be no doubt that reopening inquests is an important way of discovering the truth about the past and setting the historical record straight. </p>
<p>Many cases will be obstructed by the fact that witnesses and accused would have died in the decades since the killings. </p>
<p>Even if witnesses are alive their memories often fail them as might have been the case with <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2017-07-31-daughter-gave-up-final-timol-cop/">Joao “Jan” Rodrigues</a> in the Timol inquest. </p>
<h2>Banality of evil</h2>
<p>Rodrigues was one of the policemen present at the time of Timol’s killing and is accused of helping to hide the evidence of his killing.</p>
<p>When testifying at the Timol hearings, Rodrigues (78) was completely uncooperative and continuously claimed that he could not remember the events of October 1971. Watching from the public gallery, I found Rodrigues the most interesting of the witnesses. He was interesting precisely because he was ordinary and reminded me of philosopher Hannah Arendt’s concept of the <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/02/07/hannah-arendt-the-banality-of-evil/">“banality of evil”</a> in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0143039881/braipick-20">“Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”</a> – her account of Nazi officer, Adolf Eichmann, who Arendt <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/hannah-arendt-adolf-eichmann-banality-of-evil">thought</a> willingly did his part to organise the Holocaust but in a non-ideological <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/hannah_arendts_original_articles_on_the_banality_of_evil_in_the_inew_yorkeri_archive.html">combination</a> of careerism and obedience.</p>
<p>Rodrigues’s <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/08/01/former-cop-accused-of-tailoring-evidence-in-timol-inquest">testimony</a> is representative of the denial of a whole generation of white South Africans. He did not show a slither of remorse. His body language conveyed a certain irritation and annoyance at the fact that he was hauled from the daze of retirement into the spotlight of a prominent and inconvenient court appearance. He conveyed that he was somehow being victimised by a process he found strange and unnecessary.</p>
<h2>Appropriate relief</h2>
<p>Judge Mothle stated that the perpetrators are dead. This raises the question of appropriate relief – a question which is still unclear. But punishment of perpetrators is not the primary relief sought by victims of state sponsored atrocities.</p>
<p>It is good and right that the Timol case gives hope to the families of murdered apartheid activists and that victims will be encouraged to come forward to reopen inquests. But it’s important that families should be warned of the significant resource obstacles the state faces and the selective nature of prosecutions. There is only one thing worse than living in hope: hope that is continuously frustrated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mia Swart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Will the Timol case create the necessary political will to open dozens more inquests into apartheid deaths? Maybe, but government machinery has proven to be rusty and extremely slow.Mia Swart, Professor of International Law, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/855412017-10-12T14:34:33Z2017-10-12T14:34:33ZLife stories of significant South African women told through the prism of love<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189999/original/file-20171012-31395-1r2lcwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nelson Mandela and his comrade, anti-apartheid activist, Fatima Meer.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.indianspice.co.za/">Indian Spice</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> social engineering, the post-1994 victory over racialised inequality and the subsequent recognition that the victory may have been Pyrrhic have elicited a vast literary response, including a fascinating body of personal responses in the form of memoirs, biographies and autobiographies.</p>
<p>These narratives have sought to memorialise significant lives that drove the anti-apartheid struggle, and often focused on documenting the times that created the people. </p>
<p>An emerging trend is one that foregrounds the family in the lives of activists, rather than the established paradigm of the autonomous national auto/biographical hero. Examples that signal this shift are Gillian Slovo’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/slovo-secret.html">“Every Secret Thing” </a>(1997) and Elinor Sisulu’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3559461">“Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In Our Lifetime”</a> (2002). </p>
<p>These auto/biographies take the social microcosm of the family, both nuclear and extended, as the most important matrix out of which lives committed to social justice emerge. They are then placed within the broader context of the nation. </p>
<h2>Eros at the heart</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Time-Treason-Ayesha-Dawood/dp/0795702752">“Love in the Time of Treason: The Life Story of Ayesha Dawood”</a> (2008) by Zubeida Jaffer and the autobiography, <a href="http://bookslive.co.za/blog/2017/03/06/memories-of-love-and-struggle-read-an-excerpt-from-fatima-meers-memoir/">“Fatima Meer: Memories of Love and Struggle”</a> (2017), acknowledge and recollect the households that created – and are created by – political activists – households which occupy a shifting space between private and public spheres. What sets these two life narratives in relief is the way in which they position eros at the heart of the narrative.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189990/original/file-20171012-31414-ulz8iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189990/original/file-20171012-31414-ulz8iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189990/original/file-20171012-31414-ulz8iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189990/original/file-20171012-31414-ulz8iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189990/original/file-20171012-31414-ulz8iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189990/original/file-20171012-31414-ulz8iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189990/original/file-20171012-31414-ulz8iy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of ‘The Life Story of Ayesha Dawood’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Veteran journalist, Zubeida Jaffer, presents a portrait of an extraordinary person in decidedly ordinary, yet moving terms. Ayesha Dawood was a young woman in the little country town of Worcester near Cape Town in the 1950s when the first effects of apartheid were being felt. Despite a conservative, sheltered upbringing as the daughter of an Indian shopkeeper, Ayesha is drawn into various social protests and the trade union movement through her innate sense of justice. </p>
<p>Ayesha’s political involvement leads to her being arrested and tried at the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/treason-trial-1956-1961">Treason Trial of 1956</a> along with <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/nelson-rolihlahla-mandela">Nelson Mandela</a>, and various other more high profile figures. She also subsequently is jailed and kept in solitary confinement for an extended period in a women’s prison in the nearby town of Paarl. </p>
<p>But contrary to expectation, the biography is not constructed around her activist experience. In fact, the biography does not even open with a focus on Ayesha. Instead, the story of her South African struggle experience begins with her future husband in India. </p>
<p>The narrative is constructed as a love story. It’s a love obstructed by numerous separations. Yusuf Mukadam falls in love with Ayesha at first sight in the village in India where she visits her grandmother. After her departure, despite no real contact with or commitment from her, Yusuf later joins the merchant navy as a cook. His sole purpose: to meet Ayesha again in Cape Town as part of a two-year voyage. </p>
<p>Yusuf sends a letter to inform her of his arrival. But the letter is never opened since Ayesha is in police custody at the time. Yusuf arrives in Cape Town and thinks he has been spurned when he is not met as arranged. </p>
<p>Some years later, back in India, he discovers why he didn’t get a response from the woman to whom he feels incontrovertibly and inexplicably bound. He then signs up for another voyage. This time he jumps ship in Durban and travels to Cape Town to meet and marry Ayesha, almost a decade after their first meeting. </p>
<p>Years into their marriage, after the birth of two children, Yusuf is arrested as an illegal immigrant. But the arrest is a pretext to blackmail Ayesha into acting as a police informant. Since she does not cooperate, her husband is deported to India, an exile which she shares with her life partner. </p>
<p>The poverty of the Indian village means that Yusuf must become a migrant worker in Kuwait in order to support Ayesha and the children. The family finally returns to South Africa, many years later, after the release of Mandela.</p>
<p>Throughout the biography, Jaffer foregrounds romantic attachments. The narrative is prologued by the occasion when Ayesha sees Mandela again on his visit to Worcester on the Blue Train in 1997. The bonds of intimacy between Mandela and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/machel-g">Graça Machel</a> at the train station, and Ayesha and Yusuf, are paralleled. </p>
<p>The biography is structured around and locates its narrative momentum in this enduring, ethically cognisant love – or as Jaffer has Ayesha succinctly utter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yusuf is my taqdeer (destiny).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Complex relationship</h2>
<p>The love relationship is similarly foregrounded in internationally recognised academic-activist Fatima Meer’s autobiography, posthumously published by her daughter. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189991/original/file-20171012-31431-j4nx9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189991/original/file-20171012-31431-j4nx9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189991/original/file-20171012-31431-j4nx9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189991/original/file-20171012-31431-j4nx9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189991/original/file-20171012-31431-j4nx9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189991/original/file-20171012-31431-j4nx9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189991/original/file-20171012-31431-j4nx9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of ‘Fatima Meer: Memories of Love and Struggle’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is surprising about Meer’s autobiography is the way in which the complex relationship with her husband, prominent struggle lawyer Ismail Meer, is used as the organising principle around which her life story is told.</p>
<p>If Yusuf was Ayesha’s destiny, Ismail seems to shape the destiny of Fatima. The Meer relationship is a curious one where a member of the extended family whom she had regarded as an uncle later comes to be her husband when they proverbially fall head-over-heels in love. As trusted “uncle”, Ismail plays a role in determining that Fatima, constrained by a conservative community, should get to study away from home at the University of the Witwatersrand, and influences what she should study.</p>
<p>In a somewhat less tranquil relationship than that of Ayesha and Yusuf, Fatima presents her husband, despite his fierce temper and tendency to domineer, as the central pole and pulse of her life. Fatima’s is a life that is internationally known for never being cowed, a life remembered for its outspoken, principled defiance and critique, even of comrades. </p>
<p>It’s not clear whether these two South African “romance” struggle auto/biographies are a harbinger of a trend, or whether they are anomalies that won’t be repeated. What they certainly do, is to focalise the anti-apartheid struggle through the lives of heroic women whose public and private lives were intimately bound and who were bound by love.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>F. Fiona Moolla receives funding from the National Research Foundation for her project, "Romantic Love in African Cultural Forms".</span></em></p>Two South African “romance” struggle auto/biographies have focalised the anti-apartheid struggle through the lives of heroic women who were bound by love.F. Fiona Moolla, Senior Lecturer in English, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851932017-10-05T14:51:41Z2017-10-05T14:51:41ZTutu’s activism for justice shows how theology can be made real<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188779/original/file-20171004-32388-1icaddd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"> Archbishop Desmond Tutu 's deep spirituality drove him to fight for freedom and justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/archbishop-emeritus-mpilo-desmond-tutu">Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu</a> is internationally acclaimed for his life and work. </p>
<p>He has become best known for his work as General Secretary of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/statement-by-the-general-secretary-of-south-african-council-of-churches%2C-desmond-tutu">South African Council of Churches</a>, a base from which he led the churches in the struggle against apartheid for which he was awarded the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1984/tutu-facts.html">Nobel Peace Prize</a> in 1984, and his role as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/archbishop-tutu-retires-0">Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town</a> in which he continued that public role as a leading symbol of black liberation and the bane of white South Africa. </p>
<p>He is also known for his role as the chairperson of the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/tutu-and-his-role-truth-reconciliation-commission">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> in which he endeavoured to help heal the nation as its father confessor; and lastly in a regularly deferred retirement, as a respected <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/TenWays/story?id=3389067">global elder</a> in seeking to resolve both local and international conflicts.</p>
<p>Where does one even begin to start writing in appreciation of such a person and such a life? Fortunately, my task has been defined for me. I have been asked to write about his theology, an unusual request, but important nonetheless, given the fact that everything Tutu has said and done has been shaped, not by political insight and ambition, or by ecclesiastical interests, but by his faith in God, that is, by his theology.</p>
<h2>Spiritual leader</h2>
<p>Tutu is first and foremost, a spiritual leader, a man of deep prayer. But his deep spirituality is not and has never been the piety of a religious ghetto; exactly the opposite. </p>
<p>It was this that motivated his participation in seeking justice for the downtrodden and supporting the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/1960-1994-armed-struggle-and-popular-resistance">liberation struggle</a>. It was this that gave him the courage to confront political bullies, stand up to abuse even from within his own church, and lead protest marches in the face of overwhelming displays of state power.</p>
<p>Functionaries of the apartheid state as well as those of our current government who abuse their power, look decidedly tawdry alongside the Arch. They are no match for his moral authority, his spiritual depth, or his theological wisdom. Nor can they compete with his humility, humour or humanity.</p>
<p>Unless we begin at this point in acknowledging Tutu’s spirituality we will completely misunderstand who he is and the contribution he makes to the life of the world. Critics who label him a political priest, totally misunderstand him. Tutu is politically astute, but he has had no personal political ambitions, nor was or is he a member of any political party.</p>
<h2>Reconciliatory ministry</h2>
<p>His social engagement began as he daily celebrated the <a href="https://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/eucha1a.htm">Eucharist</a>, listening in the silence to discern what needed to be said and done in the public arena. He had learnt this from his earliest teachers, the <a href="https://books.google.com.ng/books?id=S6UYpCoGUkgC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Fathers+of+the+Community+of+the+Resurrection+in+Rosettenville&source=bl&ots=YrN70Xk0-4&sig=AtpDlGmPQfTRNDeyckq5YdTZoek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiE2Mqe79bWAhUJsY8KHY7MCLIQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=Fathers%20of%20the%20Community%20of%20the%20Resurrection%20in%20Rosettenville&f=false">Fathers of the Community of the Resurrection</a> in Rosettenville and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/place/sophiatown">Sophiatown</a>, among them <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/father-trevor-huddleston">Trevor Huddleston</a>, whose scathing critique of apartheid, <a href="https://archive.org/details/naughtforyourcom001856mbp"><em>Naught for your Comfort</em>,</a> remains a classic.</p>
<p>It goes without saying that Tutu was well versed in the theological doctrines of Christian faith. In particular he had a profound understanding of the incarnational character of Christianity, the faith conviction that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>God was in Christ reconciling the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Therefore, he stressed the incarnational and reconciling ministry of the church in the life of the world. He discerned the image of God imprinted on the face of all human beings, and believed that despite their sins, none was beyond redemption. Thus forgiveness and the inclusive embrace of the other are fundamental to human and social well-being.</p>
<p>His favourite theological theme was the <a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/transfiguration/">Transfiguration</a>, a symbol of hope and encouragement in times of darkest despair when the cross looms large and suffering becomes inevitable though potentially redemptive. Tutu drank deeply from the wells of the Hebrew prophets whose words inspired his own as he challenged evil, spoke truth to power and words of hope to the powerless. All the while, he was being drawn deeper into the mystery of God as he journeyed into the suffering of people and trying to find meaning in the darkest of times. On one occasion, in speaking about the untimely death of a young Christian leader, he cried out</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://kairossouthernafrica.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/2012-steve-de-gruchy-memorial-lecture-archbishop-emeritus-desmond-tutu/">God is God’s worst enemy!</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>That is when theology becomes real – when the very word God becomes difficult to utter, when God is apparently absent. It is at the cross that faith is born. That is the faith of Desmond Tutu; the faith that enabled him to fight injustice and provide leadership in the struggle against oppression. That is Tutu’s theology, profoundly simple, yet simply profound.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John de Gruchy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Archbishop Desmond Tutu is first and foremost, a spiritual leader, a man of deep prayer. This motivated his participation in supporting South Africa’s liberation struggle.John de Gruchy, Emeritus Professor of Christian Studies, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/774892017-06-05T16:38:07Z2017-06-05T16:38:07ZHow divestment campaigns can change the rules in a profit-driven world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168961/original/file-20170511-32607-1cgksvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spanish activists protest against retailers using factories in a building in Bangladesh which collapsed, killing more than 600 people.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Albert Gea</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We live in a globally integrated economy where national governments are often unwilling or unable to control corporations. How then can governments, trade unions or environmental groups protect people and environments from exploitation or abuse? What mechanisms might prevent the proverbial <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/race-bottom.asp">“race to the bottom”</a>? </p>
<p>Strong institutional mechanisms for restricting corporate power rarely cross national borders. So activists working on global issues have increasingly turned to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122414540653">“shaming movements”</a> – broad public campaigns that seek to punish unethical corporations by urging people to reject tainted products or profits. </p>
<p>Shaming campaigns generally take the form of consumer boycotts. Individual consumers are asked to avoid specific products or brands. Divestment campaigns, which call on individuals and institutions to sell or dump their shares in a particular company or industry, are another method. </p>
<p>Shaming movements have a long history. In the late 18th century, British abolitionists refused to drink tea sweetened with <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Bury_the_Chains.html?id=YYsGlsSGRy8C&redir_esc=y">sugar</a> grown on slave plantations. During India’s independence struggle in the 1930s, Mohandas Gandhi urged his countrymen to boycott <a href="http://www.history.com/news/gandhis-salt-march-85-years-ago">commercially-produced salt</a> rather than pay British taxes. </p>
<p>Half a decade later activists boycotted <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/121/4/1196/2581604/Milking-the-Third-World-Humanitarianism-Capitalism">Nestle chocolate</a>. They were protesting the company’s reckless promotion of infant formula to the world’s poorest women. And the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s showed that divestment campaigns could focus global attention on international issues, pushing powerful companies and even governments to change their behaviour. </p>
<p>The rise of globalisation, coupled with increased corporate power, has seen ever more calls for consumer boycotts and divestment campaigns. But do they work? The answer is neither a simple yes nor an outright no. </p>
<p>Consumer boycotts and divestment campaigns have certainly been successful in attracting attention to global issues. In some cases they have forced profit-seeking companies to adopt new norms. But the challenge for activists today is what to do once the shaming has succeeded. Will companies actually adhere to these new norms, or will they simply return to business as usual?</p>
<h2>Fickle consumers and voluntary agreements</h2>
<p>Over the past 30 years most global brands have shifted to <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2013.873369">global supply chains</a>. This involves outsourcing production to different suppliers around the world. There have been repeated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/oct/28/ethicalbusiness.india">scandals</a> about working conditions and environmental degradation among those suppliers – scandals often highlighted by transnational “shaming campaigns”.</p>
<p>The threat of “shaming” has prompted many brands to voluntarily adopt corporate codes of conduct, promising to respect national labour laws and basic safety codes. Global brands began to hire <a href="http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-myth-of-the-ethical-shopper/">factory monitors</a> to assess working conditions at supplier factories and certify that goods are ethically produced.</p>
<p>But do these voluntary corporate monitoring schemes really change the treatment of workers or the environment? Increasingly, the answer appears to be “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Promise-Limits-Private-Power-Comparative/dp/1107670888">no</a>”. Even corporations which boast about a strong commitment to social responsibility can easily <a href="http://casi.sas.upenn.edu/iit/seidman">overlook</a> suppliers’ violations. This sometimes happens with the complicity of factory monitors. </p>
<p>When a scandal occurs, the threat of a consumer boycott may prompt global brands to act. But once the world’s eyes turn away, the commitment to ethical production tends to fade. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168958/original/file-20170511-32588-v22umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168958/original/file-20170511-32588-v22umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168958/original/file-20170511-32588-v22umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168958/original/file-20170511-32588-v22umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168958/original/file-20170511-32588-v22umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168958/original/file-20170511-32588-v22umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168958/original/file-20170511-32588-v22umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Now that the world’s attention has turned away, many brands have failed to fulfill post-disaster pledges to help the families of Rana Plaza’s dead and injured workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Andrew Biraj</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bangladesh’s 2013 <a href="http://www.globallabourrights.org/campaigns/factory-collapse-in-bangladesh">Rana Plaza collapse</a>, which killed over 1000 workers, is a tragic reminder. Despite clear evidence that “codes of conduct” and even national building codes were being violated, brands continued to rely on suppliers who regularly endangered their workers. The disaster and accompanying scandal prompted <a href="https://business-humanrights.org/en/the-accord-on-fire-and-building-safety-in-bangladesh">loud promises</a> from companies around the world. Consumers were assured that Bangladeshi factory conditions would be transformed. </p>
<p>But many of those post-disaster pledges remain <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/30/525858799/4-years-after-rana-plaza-tragedy-whats-changed-for-bangladeshi-garment-workers">unfulfilled</a>. Workers in Bangladesh’s garment industry remain vulnerable and unprotected. </p>
<p>This raises real questions about voluntary monitoring schemes, prompting many activists to explore <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100250150&fa=author&person_ID=5324">new mechanisms</a> that might subject multinational brands to legal controls or regulatory mechanisms. </p>
<h2>Divestment: challenging global rules</h2>
<p>Successful divestment campaigns have a different dynamic from consumer boycotts. Instead of urging individual consumers not to buy particular brands or products, these campaigns mobilise local communities to put pressure on institutional investors. </p>
<p>Universities, municipalities or pension funds are urged to reject profits from specific locations linked to amoral activities, or from controversial industries such as tobacco, fossil fuels or private prison companies. </p>
<p>Divestment campaigns make collective, institutional demands. In doing so, they prompt community discussions about whether specific business practices – and profiting from them – can be ever be considered acceptable. They mobilise global support for new norms, reshaping collective understandings. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Loosing-Bonds-Robert-Kinloch-Massie/dp/0385261675">anti-apartheid divestment campaign</a> offered a remarkably successful example. Students, church groups and trade unions called on local institutions to sell any shares tied to apartheid-linked companies. </p>
<p>Communities around the world were forced to debate the morality of profiting from investments that involved businesses operating under apartheid, accepting the system’s legalised racism. </p>
<p>Corporate boards spent hours debating the moral and financial value of their South African ties. Corporate directors faced questions about apartheid from their children over the dinner table. As public pressure mounted, banks and multinational companies cut once-profitable ties, and pushed national governments to impose mild sanctions on South Africa. And in South Africa itself, business leaders who feared international isolation began to support a transition to democracy. </p>
<p>The power of divestment campaigns is that they stigmatise both immoral behaviours and those who would profit from them. It’s a strategy that often infuriates business leaders, as it can push policymakers to rewrite the rules of ordinary capitalism.</p>
<p>The anti-apartheid campaign, as well as the pro-Palestinian <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/">Boycott Divestment and Sanctions</a> (BDS) movement and today’s surprisingly effective <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13549839.2015.1009825?needAccess=true">fossil fuel divestment movement</a> show the power of this approach. </p>
<h2>Shaming is only the first step</h2>
<p>To be truly successful, “shaming movements” must move beyond mobilising public opinion to reach a point where national governments or international agencies are forced to adopt and enforce new norms, both within national boundaries and beyond. </p>
<p>This means that transnational activists must ensure that new mechanisms are designed to protect communities and environments. </p>
<p>Shaming may be a first step in challenging global corporate practices, but it is only a <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1eEADQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA351&dq=Naming,+Shaming,+Changing+the+World+Gay+Seidman&ots=RIxWbeJiEp&sig=mHo1tsdbu2pSFX9-_fPwAPljkHQ#v=onepage&q=Naming%2C%20Shaming%2C%20Changing%20the%20World%20Gay%20Seidman&f=false">first step</a>. </p>
<p>Increasingly, we need to think harder about what comes next. How do we create global institutions to protect all of us from what the great political economist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/nov/09/economics-creditcrunch">Karl Polanyi</a> might have called the ravages of “savage capitalism”? How do we prevent the drive for private profit from destroying the communities and the environment on which we all rely?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77489/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gay Seidman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>“Shaming campaigns” have been successful in attracting attention to transnational issues like inhumane working conditions and environmental degradation. But shaming guilty corporations is only the first step.Gay Seidman, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/718382017-04-27T16:09:39Z2017-04-27T16:09:39ZMore than an oppressor’s language: reclaiming the hidden history of Afrikaans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166816/original/file-20170426-2841-jw0hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Award-winning Hemelbesem is a black Afrikaans hip-hop artist.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The language of Afrikaans remains a contested issue in South Africa. The controversy over the <a href="http://www.sun.ac.za/english/Lists/news/DispForm.aspx?ID=4027">medium of instruction</a> at traditionally Afrikaans universities such as Stellenbosch has brought this to the fore again. Should it be in Afrikaans, English, a combination, or a hybrid which will include other South African languages?</p>
<p>The institution has to find ways to continue to advance Afrikaans without the perceptions and experiences of racist behaviour associated with early and ruling Afrikaner nationalist practices. It’s essential to consider the current status of Afrikaans, as well as its history.</p>
<p>Many South Africans of every hue have contributed to the language’s formation and development. Afrikaans also has a “black history” rather than just the known hegemonic apartheid history inculcated by white Afrikaner Christian national education, propaganda and the media.</p>
<p>Afrikaans is a <a href="https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/cll.44/main">creole language</a> that evolved during the 19th century under colonialism in southern Africa. This simplified, creolised language had its roots mainly in Dutch, mixed with seafarer variants of Malay, Portuguese, Indonesian and the indigenous Khoekhoe and San languages. It was spoken by peasants, the urban proletariat whatever their ethnic background and even the middle class of civil servants, traders and teachers.</p>
<h2>Afrikaans more black than white</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">Afrikaans</a> is a southern African language. Today <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Minority-of-Afrikaans-speakers-white-20130422">six in 10</a> of the almost seven million Afrikaans speakers in South Africa are estimated to be black. It’s a figure that will by all indications increase significantly in the next decade.</p>
<p>Like several other South African languages, Afrikaans is a cross-border language spanning sizeable communities of speakers in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. In South Africa and Namibia it’s spoken across all social indices, by the poor and the rich, by rural and urban people, by the under-educated and the educated.</p>
<p>Yet, when the white Afrikaner nationalists <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">came to power</a> in South Africa in 1948 they brought a set of ideas about society, social organisation, the economy, culture and language. Under apartheid, language was deployed as a tool of tribalism, in the service of this divide-and-rule policy.</p>
<p>One of the undoubted successes of Afrikaner nationalist hegemony was the creation of the myth that they, and only they, spoke for those identified as “Afrikaners”. Also, that their worldview was the only significant expression of being Afrikaans speaking. These nationalist culture brokers suppressed oppositional and alternative thought within the Afrikaner community. They also minimised the role and place of black Afrikaans speakers in the broader speech community.</p>
<p>It’s therefore not surprising that socio-political history often casts Afrikaans as the language of racists, oppressors and unreconstructed nationalists. But it also bears the <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">imprint</a> of a fierce tradition of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, of an all-embracing humanism and anti-apartheid activism. </p>
<h2>Arabic script</h2>
<p>In 1860 one of the students in a Cape Town madrasah (an Islamic school), a descendant of slaves, copied a prayer in his exercise book. Today the surviving fragments of that book reveals a history that somehow remains hidden to the vast majority of South Africans. The exercises in that book, also called a “koplesboek” (head lesson book), are written in “Cape Malay dialect”, the colloquial language of the time.</p>
<p>Apart from the phonetic spelling, any contemporary Afrikaans speaker would recognise it as near-modern Afrikaans. In this case, written in Arabic script. This is but one example of a well-known tradition of <a href="http://alma.matrix.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AjamiIntroductionFallou.pdf">a'jami scripts</a> produced in the Cape Muslim community in the latter half of the 19th century and well into the 1950s.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166817/original/file-20170426-2855-3b71xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A South African Muslim man in Cape Town, South Africa. The Cape Malay community’s earliest members were slaves brought to South Africa by the Dutch. They are the group that first introduced Islam to South Africa, and were the first to use written Afrikaans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Bothma/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Achmat Davids in his path-breaking <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Afrikaans-Cape-Muslims-Talatala/dp/1869192362">The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims</a> (2011) found a similar “koplesboek” dating back to 1806. To give some historical perspective: this was as early as the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/britain-takes-control-cape">second British occupation</a> of the Cape Colony. It was when <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-shaka-zulu">Shaka</a> was only a young man of 19 on the verge of his evolution to a notable military leader, great Zulu king and conqueror. </p>
<p>Arabic-Afrikaans was also used in daily communication, the making of shopping lists and political pamphlets. For the Cape Muslims, a literate community, this language was the bearer of their most intimate thoughts and their religion.</p>
<p>Offshoots of this language community self-identified as “Oorlams”. They disseminated what was called Cape Dutch during the late 1780s and early 1800s to the northwestern Cape Colony, today’s west coast of the Northern Cape and southern <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272915807_Is_there_a_Namibian_Afrikaans_Recent_trends_in_grammatical_variation_in_Afrikaans_varieties_within_and_across_Namibia's_borders">Namibia</a>. They played a major role in its <a href="https://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uiu/Record/uiu_4468573">establishment</a> as the language of trade, culture and education.</p>
<p>However, not everyone thought that Cape Dutch could express learning, writing or upper middle class culture. It was derided by the upper classes of the Cape Colony, be they Dutch or English-speaking. </p>
<p>The opinion of Chief Justice Lord JH de Villiers quoted in Herman Giliomee’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Afrikaners-Biography-Reconsiderations-Southern-African/dp/0813930553">The Afrikaners: Biography of a People</a>, was that this language was,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>poor in the number of its words, weak in its inflections, wanting in accuracy of meaning. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Simplicity, brevity and vigour</h2>
<p>Around 1870 the first steps towards the battle between various views on the nature of Cape Dutch, or what would become known as Afrikaans, were taken. Some of the leading figures of what would become known as the “first language movement” (1874–1890) strenuously denied the creole nature of the language. For them Afrikaans was “a pure Germanic language” of “purity, simplicity, brevity and vigour” (quoted in Giliomee). </p>
<p>The Genootskap van Regte Afrikaanders (GRA, the Society of True Afrikaners), established in 1875, actively sought to foster a nationalism among white Cape Dutch speakers. “Afrikaans” became their linguistic vehicle and “Afrikaners” their label. They sought to write a nationalist history of oppressors and victims (also Giliomee).</p>
<p>The GRA sought to actively demarcate “their language” to the point of diminishing and stigmatising other speakers’ claim to it. They declared their own version of Cape Dutch as prestige “Burger Afrikaans”, the distinct “white man’s language”.</p>
<p>Doggedly, these early Afrikaner language nationalists and their successors modified, standardised and modernised a spoken language. The racial prejudice and middle class bias underlying many of their choices had far-reaching implications. In denying the commonality of their fellow Afrikaans speakers who were descendants of slaves, indigenous people or simply poor, they were elevating the language to a narrow ethnic nationalist cause. Afrikaans was constructed as a “white language”, with a “white history” and “white faces”.</p>
<h2>Nationalism severely diminished</h2>
<p>In a disastrous policy decision, Afrikaans was <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">imposed</a> as a language of instruction on black, non-Afrikaans speakers in 1974. The impact was the point of ignition for the Soweto uprising in 1976 and along with it, suspicion of its speakers.</p>
<p>Afrikaans was labelled “the language of the oppressor”. The slogan was rightly an emotive, visceral response to Afrikaner ethnic, nationalist hegemony and its concomitant coercive state power. However, it also <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">obscured</a> the experiences, lives and histories of black and non-nationalist Afrikaans speakers. </p>
<p>Today, more than two decades into a democratic South Africa, Afrikaner nationalism has been severely diminished and along with it the standing of Afrikaans in the public sector. Nonetheless, in the private spheres of culture, private education, the media and subscription television Afrikaans has seen an exponential growth.</p>
<p>Yet Afrikaans has a <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">multifaceted nature</a>, numerically dominated by its black speakers. Rather than viewing Afrikaans through a single lens it is today acknowledged as an amalgam consisting of a variety of expressions, speakers and histories. It’s in this spirit that the debate on the medium of instruction at universities such as Stellenbosch has to be conducted.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited, updated version of an <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf">article</a> Prof Willemse wrote for Mistra in 2015.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hein Willemse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Afrikaans is very much a black language. The apartheid government’s ploy to construct it as a “white language”, with a “white history”, denied the commonality of the language across race and class.Hein Willemse, Professor of Afrikaans, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.