Mamphela Ramphele and the Crossing of Boundaries – Part 2 (Final)

For the leaders of the Black Consciousness Movement, political liberation needed to be simultaneously accompanied by linguistic agency. To this effect, Mamphela Ramphele critically observes as follows: “Maturation brought about a growing sense of the need for self-definition. Common terms of the time such as ‘non-white’ and ‘non-European’ exemplified the extent to which both black and whites in South Africa had accepted European ‘whiteness’ as the golden standard against which all else was to be measured.

Steve [Biko] articulated his thoughts on this issue in the regular feature he contributed in the SASO [South African Students’ Organization] Newsletter with the title ‘I Write What I Like,’ under the pseudonym of Frank Talk, both defiant symbolic statements by the author. The term ‘black’ was adopted and defined as referring to ‘those who are politically, socially and economically discriminated against, and identified themselves as such.’

It was thus possible for one to remain ‘non-white’ by virtue of failure to identify with the struggle for liberation – a rather interesting twist of logic which shows the ridiculousness of race [sic] definitions and exposes their perilous political foundations. But the 1970s was the decade when blacks of necessity had to redefine race politics as a first step away from their entrapment and disempowerment by centuries of racism. The demands of philosophical precision were not allowed to interfere with this self-definition.”

But even with the strategic assertion of its wholesome Black-African identity, for its liberation struggle was not to be vitiated by white liberal involvement, the BCM leaders found it inevitable to make do with some modicum of white economic support, if its largely intellectual and cultural activities were to have the desired practical impact on the indigenous Black South African community.

Mamphela Ramphele vividly recalls the critical contribution of one such white South African: “One of the international visitors who became interested in our work was Angela Mai, a German citizen of South African origin, who had inherited some money from her relatives which was frozen in South Africa. Over the years she used it to support good causes. She was alerted to the work of BCP [Black Community Programs] by Dr. Beyers Naudé, the Director of the Christian Institute.

She became interested in supporting a proposal to set up a community health center in one of the villages near King [Williams’ Town], and greed to give the R 20,000 estimated as the cost of setting up the center.”

Perhaps in a bid to balancing her home-wrecking romance with the firebrand spearhead of the Black Consciousness Movement, the author details some of the illicit affairs a gallivanting Steve Biko found himself entangled in. Mamphela Ramphele, perhaps out of her deep affection for Biko, attempts to apologize for her man by linking the latter’s wanton peccadilloes with global political and civil and human rights legends like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Like many popular idealistic leaders in history, Steve did not escape the folly of admiring available women at every turn. After all, even pastors such as Martin Luther King and presidents such as J. F. Kennedy have fallen prey to the comfort of adoring women, as well as the exhilaration of unlimited access to their attentions.

It must be a welcome break from the tough political battles these leaders have [had] to contend with. There must also be some need to make good the self-sacrificial life which comes with political commitment, often early in one’s life, robbing one of the carefree pleasures of youth. Steve had affairs with women on the BCP staff, within the broader community of activists, and outside. Most of these were fleeting affairs with women who enjoyed the reflected glory of an important man.”

Reflected glory or unreflected glory, it is also eerily striking to observe the fact that the one thread that linked these political legends was the fact of their having been slain at the height of their glorious existence.

In spite of her much-touted greatness, both as an individual and a scholar, Dr. Ramphele also demonstrates herself to be one who is not above proprietary self-centeredness verging on downright arrogance and megalomania. On the making of the movie Cry Freedom, a movie that while centered around the life and times of the Black Consciousness leader, was actually about the larger anti-African apartheid narrative, this is what the author has to say: “The film Cry Freedom was in one respect an inaccurate portrayal of Steve’s political life, which Donald Woods had not understood in the relatively short time in which he had come to know Steve.

It also misrepresented his personal relationships. The peripheral role in which I was cast belied the centrality of my relationship, both personal and political, with Steve. What the film did was to perpetuate the lie of Steve as a Gandhi-type person respectably married to a dedicated wife who shared his life and his political commitment. When I tried to stop the filming of this movie in Zimbabwe, my attempts were sabotaged by the eagerness of a number of people in the liberation movement, including senior ANC leaders, who were only concerned about the anti-apartheid statement it was making. It all added to the pain of loss by inventing memories which were not in concert with the reality of his life.”

Still, Mamphela Ramphele is generous enough to recognize the yeomanly activism of South African parliamentarians like Ms. Helen Suzman, whom the author recalls had not only visited her as a banned person in rural South Africa, but had also staunchly fought in parliament to secure her release, among many other banned personalities. The author notes how a legal system that aimed to permanently retire her to the margins of society actually accentuated her fame: “There was an increasing flow of outsiders who came to visit me in Lenyeye [where Dr. Ramphele had established a community health center]: journalists, national and foreign politicians, diplomats, fellow activists and friends. It was fairly easy for them to find me. Many used to come without prior arrangements. In fact, sometimes prior arrangements by telephone simply alerted the sleepy security police.”

All is not dry and strictly political. Mamphela Ramphele also devotes a remarkable amount of to discuss conjugal chauvinism on the part of many Black South African men. For example, she details the practiced lassitude of her second husband, a failed pharmacologist turned drug dispenser – she respectfully calls him a pharmacist – who would rather lounge in an easy chair while Dr. Ramphele, dog-tired and just arrived from her medical practice, was busy preparing dinner in the kitchen, with their little son screaming for attention. The writer also recalls that during his leisure hours, her second husband preferred to spend time with his male friends in a shebeen, or a local drinking bar. This unsavory attitude would shortly lead to the breakdown of their marriage.

Dr. Ramphele also debunks the myth of human functional uniformity, particularly when it comes to the question of the battle for leadership: “Risk-taking is an important element and a necessary condition for people to break the cycle of powerlessness and submission. Making choices in our lives is one of the characteristics which make us human beings, and choice remains with us even as we face death at the hands of torturers – the choice to submit or die in dignity. I have had to learn that the courage to take risks is not given to all of us. This realization has enabled me to develop a better approach to the process of empowerment, and also encouraged me to have more compassion for those who are unable to become transformative agents.”

Finally, the author delivers a cutting blow to the ramshackle politics of Affirmative Action, particularly the way it has been crafted and implemented in the United States: “Affirmative Action as it has been pursued in the United States[,] and in many other parts of the world[,] assumes that ‘outsiders’ have to be brought into the mainstream to ensure their participation[,] without there being any fundamental questioning of that mainstream as a desirable social framework. When blacks or women fail, it simply proves to conservatives that ‘they do not have what it takes to make it.’

At the same time[,] failure raises uncomfortable feelings in liberals, who are troubled even to admit the reality of the failure, lest it play into racist hands. But they[,] too[,] have not questioned the assumption that one has to succeed according to the terms of white male institutional culture.”

Mamphela Ramphele’s Across Boundaries is intellectually stimulating in its throwing of critical insights into not only the criminally inhumane culture of apartheid, but equally inhumane and criminal political systems and practices everywhere. Published nearly two decades ago, Dr. Ramphele’s Across Boundaries lays down the blueprint for transgressing the various barriers – gender, racial, cultural and political – erected by the evil and powerful at the expense of the poor and the abjectly deprived. An interesting journey and a very rewarding present for those craving a constructive appreciation of the ugly scar that was the white-racist regime of apartheid.

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 9, 2015
E-mail: [email protected]