"Outrageous to be heard"
Across
Boundaries, The Journey of a South African Woman
Leader
by Mamphela Ramphele
reviewed
by Diane R.
Schulz
"As
a woman, an African woman at that, one had to
be outrageous to be heard, let alone be taken
seriously."
Mamphela
Ramphele's life runs parallel to the rise and
demise of the National Party which took over the
South African government in 1948 and instituted
apartheid, a strict separation of racial
groups resulting in extreme repression of
"Bantus", as the national policy, but she has
outlived this particularly odious form of
discrimination. Born in an isolated area of the
poverty ridden, northern Transvaal state of
South Africa, to an educated mother and father,
a principal and a school teacher of the Dutch
Reformed Church, Mamphela Ramphele's remarkable
life story reveals her power in overcoming
extreme economic, racial and gender barriers to
become a medical doctor. As she states in her
autobiography, Across Boundaries, she had
a "passion for freedom to be my own
mistress." She is currently the
Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape
Town, a highly respected educational
institution.
During
her student years she experienced a political
transformation, becoming an outspoken activist
against apartheid. She studied the work
of Malcom X and Martin Luther King and began to
understand her own life in the context and
analysis of racial and economic discrimination.
She became committed to making the political
personal by establishing clinics in rural areas,
even when she was under "banning orders" by the
government for her political affiliation.
Along
with Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela, her name
should be listed with all the courageous black
South Africans who refused to be treated as
slaves anymore. She is an inspiration to all
women who strive for a more humane existence for
earth's people. Her story is one in a series of
books, "Women Writing Africa", reissued in
paperback by The Feminist Press in 1999,
originally published in South Africa in 1995.
In the
West many people are familiar with political
activist Steve Biko -- his brutal death in 1977
at the hand of prison guards, his martyrdom, and
the legacy he left behind -- because of the
popular movie, Cry Freedom. Although
Mamphela and Steve were lovers as well as
activist compatriots, because he was married,
Mamphela was careful to stay out of the
limelight. Nonetheless, her passion for justice
for her people drove her to keep his dynamic
company. She bore him two children, a girl who
died in infancy, and a son, Hlumelo, born after
his death.
The
author begins her story where all life begins.
In "My Roots," she recalls stories about her
amazingly resourceful great- grandmothers and
grandmothers, and particularly her own mother's
"passion for independence." Mamphela was named
after her maternal grandmother who was an
illiterate healer, teacher and "mobile archive"
for her large, extended family. Both her parents
supported her goals, always finding a little
extra money to help her in during her long
educational process to become a doctor. Even
after her father's death, her mother continued
to help out, even though her own pay as a
primary school teacher was meager.
In every
situation, Mamphela found a way to help her
people during the horrible days of apartheid
South Africa. After medical college and
internship, in 1975 she established a clinic in
Zanempilo, not far from King Williamstown where
Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement
had their operations.
With
very little in the way of supplies and a limited
staff, the clinic became well known and used by
a large number of the surrounding villagers. It
also became known as a center for the Black
Consciousness Movement, a fact which brought
about her banishment in 1978. Banishment was a
popular technique, along with detainment,
torture and "accidental" death, of the National
Party government to silence the ever increasing
opposition.
Not
about to be stopped however, Mamphela
established another clinic in the arid, rural
area of Transvaal in which she was forced to
live for five years, then chose to stay and work
for another year after the lifting of her
banning orders, "to ensure its long-term
survival financially." It was here, at Ithuseng
Community Clinic, where "Projects aimed at the
empowerment of women also took root....Women
learnt to work together and to shed their
powerlessness at many levels."
She took
delight in defying the security police by
outwitting them, going on scenic outings with
her staff "openly, in broad daylight. They also
would not have expected a medical doctor to ride
on the back of a truck like a laborer, as was
the practice in this farming area. It is
interesting how easy it is to fool people who
operate on the basis of rigid stereotypes."
Mamphela certainly doesn't fit into any
stereotype. While under banning orders, as well
as running the clinic, she managed to find time
to complete her Bachelor of Commerce degree, a
postgraduate Diploma in Tropical Hygiene and a
Diploma in Public Health.
Mamphela
married in 1983 and had another son, Malusi, in
1984. She attempted the life of a married woman,
but found it not to her liking, instead deciding
to move back to Cape Town to re-involve herself
in the intellectual community at the University,
this time as a member of the faculty, and as a
single mother of two boys. As always, she was up
for the challenge!
In
collaboration with Francis Wilson, the head of
the Southern Africa Labour and Development
Research Unit, she wrote and published
Children on the Frontline: A Report for
Unicef on the Status of Children in South
Africa in 1987, and Uprooting Poverty:
The South African Challenge in 1988.
Remarkably, she also found time to work at the
Guguletu Day Hospital, which was "a typical
apartheid health facility."
"On any
one day 600 patients would be crowded into the
inadequate waiting-room. Some had arrived at the
gate as early as 6 a.m., only to be seen for
about five minutes by caring but overwhelmed
medical doctors after five hours or so of
waiting."
In 1988
she was awarded the Carnegie Distinguished
International Fellowship, which entitled her to
a year's stay at the Bunting Institute at
Harvard University. Finally she had the time to
engage in discourse with other educated women.
"I sat back and immersed myself in the community
of women scholars and the wealth of Harvard
University's library resources. I had the
opportunity to engage in discussions with
powerful women of all ages who were making a
name for themselves in their careers: poets,
painters, sculptors, astrophysicists,
mathematicians, political scientists,
anthropologists, and many more. It was an
intellectual feast."
In the
final chapter of her book, entitled "Stretching
Across Boundaries," Mamphela makes clear her
role in the transgression of social boundaries
that ultimately forced the government of South
Africa to abolish apartheid and hold its
first democratic elections on April 27, 1994.
She highlights her ongoing friendship with
Nelson Mandela which began while he was still a
prisoner.
"Mr.
Mandela's presence makes the task much easier of
lowering boundaries in our divided society. This
involves both stretching across well-established
boundaries and transgressing them, because some
parties that have retreated behind barriers are
too far to be reached by merely stretching to
them from the safety of one's comfort
zone."
"My
transgressive activities have been focused on
one central goal: transforming the major
institutions of our society...the major problem
area is the development of human resources,
which have been sacrificed on the altar of
racial bigotry. The major task ahead of us in
south Africa is making human development the
centre of a process of reconstruction which will
create a better fit between the infrastructure
and the people whom it is intended to
serve."
Mamphela
is not blind to the continuing after effects of
apartheid policy. "The capacity of the
poor to engage effectively in the development
process and to use substantial resources has
been found to be extremely limited. The most
devastating impact of apartheid on poor
black South Africans has been the destruction of
people's faith in themselves as agents of
history...They have been taken advantage of for
so long that they have stopped trying, and have
become apathetic."
Not
content to stay within the academic community
and work for change, Mamphela has transgressed
the last boundary for an African woman in her
country -- she has become involved with the
corporate world by sitting on the board of one
of The Big Six companies that control the South
African economy, Old Mutual-Nedcor. She is
keenly aware of the power that the business
world wields, and hopes her presence will
contribute to the socio-economic transformation
of her country.
This
amazingly accomplished woman still comes across
to her readers as a very real human being. As
she states in conclusion, "For as long as one is
human, one is destined to deal with conflict. A
good dose of humour and some willingness to take
risks give one the chance not only to transcend
artificial boundaries but to derive deep
pleasure in doing so."
1999.
The Feminst Press, NY. Across Boundaries, The
Journey of a South African Woman
Leader by Mamphela Ramphele.
Buy
this book at Powell's
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