SA’s national treasures saluted
Publish date: 11 October 2021
Issue Number: 944
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Corruption
Three prominent men who played a pivotal role in reshaping the landscape of SA – and the rest of the continent – have been hailed over the past week. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was pivotal in crushing apartheid, turned 90 on Thursday, while autobiographies of the late musical giant Johnny Clegg and Siya Kolisi, the country's first black rugby captain, were released. Legalbrief salutes these extraordinary men – and the role they played in uniting a fractured society – in three-part analysis.
Born Desmond Mpilo Tutu on 7 October 1931, in Klerksdorp, the Anglican cleric received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1984 for his non-violent role in opposing apartheid. The 11th Tutu Peace Lecture was addressed by the Dalai Lama and Graça Machel, former President Nelson Mandela’s widow. US President Joe Biden issued a statement saying he was inspired by Tutu’s personal commitment to championing human rights and to always speaking out for what is right. ‘I join the world in celebrating his life of service and contributions to humanity. The world first came to know Archbishop Tutu as he modelled the highest tenets of his faith in challenging the injustice of apartheid in South Africa. His courage and moral clarity at that time helped inspire my own commitment as a United States senator to change American policy toward the apartheid regime in South Africa. And in the years since, the world has continued to learn from Archbishop Tutu's message of justice, equality, and reconciliation, he said. A report on the News24 site notes that President Cyril Ramaphosa also paid tribute to Tutu for his ‘role as a fighter in the cause for human rights, for equality and for social justice in the 59 years since his ordination’. Although he largely withdrew from public life more than a decade ago, the Nobel Laureate is remembered for his leading role in denouncing white minority rule in apartheid-era SA. More recently, he has spoken out against corruption and xenophobic violence.
Last week’s Daily Maverick webinar saw the launch of Johnny Clegg’s autobiography with his sons, Jaron and Jesse. It is also celebrating the legacy of the man the French called ‘le Zoulou blanc’ (the white Zulu). In the 1970s, Clegg and Sipho Mchunu, a migrant worker and guitarist from KZN, formed the band, Juluka. Their song Scatterlings of Africa launched their international career and the band found global fame. Their music was the soundtrack for many South Africans’ lives during the violent 1970s and 1980s as the revolution to end apartheid gathered steam. ‘He came from a congruence of chaos which coalesced into him filling a void with the Zulu culture where he embraced it and it embraced him,’ said Jaron Clegg. The webinar was also the launch of the late award-winning singer and songwriter’s autobiography, Scatterlings of Africa, which follows his formative years. Clegg was born in England but grew up in SA, Zambia and Zimbabwe. ‘Johnny was fascinated by the dancing Zulu migrant labourers he met in hostels as a teenager. They were conveying messages with their bodies. It was a potent and visceral language that he’d never seen. It was a profound language he wanted to be able to express,’ said Jaron. Clegg died from pancreatic cancer in 2019.
It’s not often that a professional rugby player at the peak of his career publishes a book about his life before retiring from the sport, but Springbok captain Siya Kolisi has not had a normal life. Rise, the title of his autobiography, reflects on how his mother died when he was a teenager and she, like many women in SA and other members of his family, was a victim of gender-based violence. On his journey to the top of his sport, alcohol was a big lure and something that affected his personal life more than anything else. For the Springbok captain, who achieved hero status after becoming the first black captain to lift the Web Ellis Cup at the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan (and SA’s first black captain), it was important to tell his story now so that people could learn from him and that the next generation could see he was only human. His is almost a quintessential young South African story, with traumatic experiences of gender-based violence, poverty and substance abuse that he had to overcome. A report on the EWN site notes that 60% of the proceeds of his book will go to the Kolisi Foundation, which is working with various organisations towards the eradication of violence.
