From Exile to Exile

Foreword by Rev. Brian Brown Edmund Mankazana and I were at ‘Sister Universities’ – Fort Hare and Rhodes in the Eastern Cape – when in 1960 the apartheid regime severed the academic links. The introduction of ‘Bantu’ education (education for black subservience) meant the government would henceforth control what was taught, and by whom it was taught, at Fort Hare. At Rhodes many of us walked the local High Street in protest, while a massive military presence sought to intimidate. But I was both one step removed from the evil and protected by my whiteness. Not so Edmund and his colleagues who were at the sharp end of the brutality evidenced by the security forces. Our paths further converged when we experienced the apartheid regime’s ruthless capacity to deal with activists. Within a year of each other, in the late 1970s, our respective families had sought exile in Britain. Edmund’s insights as to how he was dealt with are an important part of this ‘ordinary man’s’ history. One day some revisionist historians, seeking to defend the indefensible, will seek to deny apartheid’s evil. The cumulative impact of the authentic stories of those who, like Edmund, were victims of its viciousness, will allow truth to prevail. There are many written ‘histories’ that document the sacrificial and prolonged struggle to end apartheid; they invariably culminate in recording the death of that scourge. So when Edmund declared his intention to write an autobiography, which would necessarily be placed in the era of that struggle, I wondered – ‘what’s new?’ Edmund has dispelled this anxiety by setting out to tell what he calls a ‘hidden history’. It is doubly hidden. Firstly, the history is told from the perspective of what he calls 'an ordinary man’. While I am unsure as to what an ordinary man is, Edmund is more extraordinary than ordinary! But I respect from where he is coming. Invariably, those whose written stories are set in the apartheid era are luminaries of the struggle. To read of Mandela and Tambo, of Sobukwe and Biko, of Tutu and Huddleston, is to rejoice in their heroic stature. It’s a history of giants. However, they would be the first to acknowledge that the victory was essentially that of their ‘ordinary’ fellows. South Africa’s well-established oral tradition has not encouraged these ordinary people to record their extraordinary history; Edmund seeks to redress this imbalance. But the ‘hiddenness’ goes further. So much of South Africa’s political history ends with the birth of the Rainbow Nation. Edmund’s story embraces the post-euphoria era of the new and emerging democracy. It tells of how hopes of a new order, in which political and moral values would converge, have not always materialised. Edmund and family experienced what seemed like a second bout of oppression (though it was qualitatively different) and came to know the sadness of a ‘second exile.’ How could this happen? He had everything going for him in the new South Africa. It was the time of Black Empowerment, of White brain drain, of an impoverished Black education system that had produced too few professionals, of society crying out for mature medical practitioners such as Edmund. In retrospect, it seems inconceivable that at such a time he felt obliged to forsake both his roots and material possibilities. That the inconceivable happened is bound up, in part, with his uncompromising belief that truth and justice determine ones actions and responses. Not race, not ideology, not advancement, not sycophancy, not party-political alliances. He sensed that the electoral democracy he helped to secure had not brought the dawning of the participatory democracy for which he longed. He said so, and suffered. Edmund had a vision of a Health Development Institute, co-ordinating lay and professional persons to offer a multi-disciplinary and holistic health response in areas of social deprivation. A series of projects, workshops, and conferences affirmed the vision. They provided an unprecedented analysis, prioritising health needs for individuals and community alike. But while business and funding agencies were willing to sponsor the analysis of the needs, they were unwilling to enable this paradigm shift in health care to be implemented. No wonder that Edmund laments over unfinished business. ‘From Exile to Exile’ is a fascinating story of one man’s vision and values, and of his struggle to have them prove transformative in pre and post apartheid South Africa.