Interviews with Mamphela Ramphele

I was fortunate when I got to medical school to meet a friend, Vuyelwa Mashalaba,who introduced me to a circle of her friends, which included Steve Biko, Charles Sibisi and many others who became the founders of the Black Consciousness Movement.

At that time they were in the student representative council of the university and we were in a section of the University of Natal called “non-European section.” The residents were sharing a fence with an oil refinery so you can imagine the pollution, the soot, the ill health that we were subjected to. We´re aware that this is not an ideal place but we didn´t connect it to the fact that if we had been white students, we wouldn´t be put there. It´s only when we started becoming conscious, at least me who came from a non-political background, you start putting things together.

And the first challenge for us was how can we accept being identified as a negative by our oppressor? If you want to free yourself you´ve got to free your mind first. If your mind is imprisoned you´re imprisoned.

And that was the kind of discussion that led us to establish the Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko as the main leader and the main thinker and the person who articulated our aspirations, our philosophy best.

[South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement was a philosophy inspired by anti-colonial writers that “blacks” (referring to Africans, Indians or multiracial people in South Africa) could only liberate themselves by redefining their values, self-image, and outlook. Vuyelwa Mashalaba and Charles Sbisi were anti-apartheid student activists who served in the leadership of the South African Students’ Organization, a national Black students’ group opposed to the apartheid government. Stephen Bantu Biko (1946 – 1977) was an anti-apartheid activist and the leader of South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement. He died in 1977, from injuries sustained while in police custody.]

Steve Biko was an extraordinary young man who when I met him he was repeating his first year of medical studies because he became very active as soon as he got to the university, having been exposed to politics through the detention of him and his brother from Lovedale College. And so he had a head start in terms of awareness of politics and he had natural leadership qualities. He was tall, handsome, articulate and was very well read.

And so having been active in the student movement and the National Union of South African Students, NUSAS, he got disillusioned by the talk about multiracialism and yet the very same students when there was a challenge of not agreeing to being separated between black and white easily were separated. And he came back from a NUSAS conference in Grahamstown where black students were consigned to living in the township in a church in the middle of winter and white students were in the residences of Rose University. That did it for him. That for white students in his view there was politics and there was real life. And he said, as a black student, politics is life because that´s what shapes whether you are hungry or not hungry.

What shapes what work your mother or parents are doing and that shapes who you are and what place you occupy in society. And so he had a mind that could integrate a lot of information. He was also a very social person, gregarious, always surrounded by people. And he was fun to be with.

[The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was a student organization founded in 1924. At its formation, NUSAS was exclusively white, but in the 1960s, it became sympathetic to the black students’ cause and allowed multiracial membership. However, many black members became dissatisfied with NUSAS’s inability to tackle the racist policies of both the government and universities; as a result, the South African Students’ Organization, a national Black students’ group opposed to the apartheid government, was formed in 1968.]

But the most important contribution he made to this country is to challenge the notion of black inferiority and white superiority. And unfortunately, the life span of the Black Consciousness Movement was too short.

Mamphela Ramphele was born in South Africa’s Limpopo province. She has been an anti-apartheid activist, a medical doctor, a community development activist, a researcher, a university executive, and a global public servant.

As a medical student, Ramphele became one of the founders of the Black Consciousness Movement with activist Steve Biko. They began the movement as a way to empower black South Africans and protest against the apartheid regime.

Following the 1976 Soweto uprising, a series of protests begun by South African high school students, Ramphele was detained without trial. She was released after five months and soon afterwards was legally banned, an apartheid-era mandate where individuals were prohibited from communicating with more than one person at a time and from traveling domestically or internationally without permission.

After the fall of apartheid, Ramphele was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town becoming the first black woman to hold such a position at a South African university.

From 2000 – 2004, Ramphele served as a Managing Director of the World Bank. She was the first South African to hold the position. Ramphele is a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and has served as the director of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa.

Ramphele is the author of several books and publications on socio-economic issues in South Africa. She has received numerous national and international awards acknowledging her scholarship and leading role in spearheading projects for disadvantaged people in South Africa.

South Africa is a nation of almost 53 million on the southern tip of Africa. The nation has a unique multicultural character and is approximately 80 percent African and 10 percent European, with the remaining 10 percent being of mixed race or Asian heritage. These broad racial categories include a multitude of ethnic and linguistic groups.

Although it has the largest economy on the continent, much of the nation remains in poverty and there is great economic disparity. Historically, the mining industry has played a key role in South Africa’s economy and it continues to remain an important industry today, alongside manufacturing, tourism, and financial services.

South Africa was first settled by non-natives in 1652, when the Dutch established an outpost in what would later become Cape Town. Soon after, British, French, and German settlers came to the area. The descendants of the original Dutch settlers became known as Afrikaners. Conflicts over land and power arose between the settling groups as well as between the settlers and the native people of the region. In 1910, Britain formally created the Union of South Africa as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire.

Throughout South Africa’s history, non-whites were subjected to widespread discrimination. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the government passed a series of laws institutionalizing discrimination and segregation. In the 1948 elections, the National Party, which served as a platform for Afrikaner nationalism, gained power. The National Party program was centered on the system of racial segregation known as apartheid. Supporters of apartheid argued that South Africa was made up of four distinct racial groups: white, black, “Coloured” or mixed-race, and Indian.

The white minority oppressed the African majority and other non-white groups. Black Africans were particularly disadvantaged in terms of education, housing, income, and health. Blacks were denied citizenship and not permitted to use the services and facilities accessible by the white minority. Many blacks were forced to relocate when their neighborhoods were declared “white.” A series of laws enacted in the 1950s further codified and expanded racial segregation. In part, the National Party justified its policies by branding its opponents as communists.

The African National Congress (ANC) was founded in 1912 to advocate for the rights of black South Africans. As apartheid expanded, the ANC and other groups used both nonviolent and violent actions to combat the government. The ANC and other groups were oppressed by the government, and many of their senior leaders were banned or imprisoned. Nelson Mandela, a prominent ANC leader, was imprisoned from 1962 to 1990.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the anti-apartheid movement gained strength. Foreign governments and the international community isolated South Africa. International sanctions damaged the economy and helped erode domestic support for apartheid. Meanwhile, the end of the Cold War weakened the government’s claim that yielding power would lead to a communist takeover.

In 1990, the government of South Africa took its first steps toward ending apartheid when it ended a ban on certain political organizations including the ANC. Nelson Mandela and other opposition leaders were released from prison and apartheid legislation was repealed. F.W. de Klerk, President from 1989-1994, helped to broker this transition of South Africa from the apartheid-era to a multi-racial democracy. In 1993, de Klerk and Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work.

In 1994, South Africa held its first election that allowed all adults to vote, regardless of race. The ANC gained power and Nelson Mandela was elected president. South Africa enacted a liberal, democratic constitution, backed by a strong and independent judiciary. While the ANC has remained the strongest party, elections are vigorously contested and democratic safeguards are respected. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigated abuses and crimes committed during the apartheid era.

Freedom House’s 2013 Freedom in the World report categorized South Africa as “free” with an overall freedom rating of two, with one being the most free and seven being the least. The country also received ratings of two in political rights and civil liberties. However, in the 2013 Freedom of the Press report, the nation was categorized as “party free” due to government restrictions on the press and the prevalence of civil cases brought against journalists for libel.