Dr.

Willoughby-Herard Interview Transcript E-mail Interview

Hello again, Dalida,

1. As we were researching Mandela, we were surprised to discover some people perceive him as a terrorist. What is your opinion on this matter? Yes, Mandela was like others including John Brown and Nat Turner and Assata Shakar and Ida B. Wells and Phyllis Naidoo and Steve Biko. After decades of using non-violent political strategies to negotiate with a white minority government he came to understand that there were not enough sit-ins, mass marches, boycotts, jail-ins, legal campaigns, letters to the editor and appeals to international public opinion to stop apartheid's system of power and humiliating violence. So he and his cohorts decided to draw on militant strategies that would cost them dearly for most of their lives. Many of them had to live in exile, witnessed their spouses and children killed, and experienced being banned, jailed, and tortured. They literally won the freedom in South Africa by fighting back and by demanding that the way power had been used against them must stop immediately. Sometimes it is hard for us to understand because somehow we believe that everyday kinds of acts of

state and social and interpersonal violence (the prison industrial complex, homelessness, public education that tells the children of the poor to get used to being poor, the 60% of bankruptcies that are caused by exorbitant medical expenses--something which no one can control, the extraordinarily outsized industry in military style weapons for civilian and military use in the society, the militarization of the culture, flooding poor neighborhoods with guns and drugs) are not caused by anyone and because many of us believe that structures and institutions are too big to be fundamentally changed. While the civil disobedience strategies and marches changed black people's minds and hearts and gave them strength to deal with the everyday experience of the grinding humiliation and starvation and police repression that was apartheid, being encouraged and hopeful and knowing that apartheid was wrong was not enough. People wanted change and they sacrificed to make that change. If you read Peter Abrahams book "Mine Boy" or look at Omar Badsha's book "Letter to Farzanah" on the South African History Online website you will get a sense of the everyday hardship that people endured under apartheid, the needless deaths, the hunger, the misery. White supremacy taught that black people were built to live in hunger and misery, that was simply the nature of black people who were believed to be sub-human. Such a lie no matter how often it is told and no matter how powerful the people are who believe it--cannot live forever.

2. How do you feel about apartheid in general? Apartheid is a name for a global system of white nationalism that has been deployed by the Dutch, the Belgians, the French, the Spanish, the British, the Japanese. It is meant to turn people into units of labor and to degrade their humanity. It is the cousin of Jim Crow and "benevolent colonialism" and "the white man's burden" and a more sanitary and bureaucratic expression of bondage and enslavement. One way to think about this is through works like Zine Magubane's Bringing Empire Home, Andrew Zimmerman's Alabama in Africa, Thomas Noer's The United States and South Africa, and Paul Rich's White Power and the Liberal Conscience and Jeff Sharlett's book The Family--all three demonstrate the many ways in which powerful people, elected officials, supposed philanthropists and humanitarians in places like the UK and the US have been deeply involved in creating humiliating and violent experiences for Africans. Most often, these authors would argue it is because they view Africans as being on the same sub-human level as Black Americans. So they would apply the same Jim Crow educational and social policies to Africans.

3. How has Mandela affected you on a personal level? Oh I have never met Madiba. I have met instead many everyday people who struggled to changed their society. He stood for a vision of human liberation for many people

on the planet. But, I know him more from a scholarly vantage point as someone who studies his ideas and the ideas of those around him. His generosity of spirit was to believe that even his jailers at Robben Island could be part of the transformation of the society, if they were taught that their personhood needed to be based on something other than repressing black people. He wanted them to understand that they were more than white men and that they were more than the apartheid system that they defended. One of the sad consequences of his heart for the white folks in his society and his heart for all kinds of black people who figured out ways to personally benefit from apartheid while the majority of black people of suffering--was that the set of compromises that were made during the negotiated settlement left the majority of the black population in a very bad position--vis a vis jobs, hunger, housing, and health care still today. One man could not solve all those problems. Even if we are moved by the sacrifices of a leader, one man is never a movement. I did see him when he came to speak at the old Tigers Stadium in Detroit when I was a child. I took my brother with me that day, we took the bus to hear him speak. I got a shirt that says "Arduous Journey to Freedom" with a picture of the country and check box signifying "one man one vote". When my four year old was first learning to identify his letters and know their sounds, he was reading that shirt--I still wear it sometimes. It was the first time my four year old had ever read a word on his own or tried to read a word on his own for

that matter. Again, I was grateful to Mr. Mandela for training another generation--metaphorically and literally.

4. What do you feel is in store for the future of South Africa? Struggles for economic and racial justice continue because unemployment is still near 50% and even though there is a slightly expanded black white collar/professional sector, these incomes are not the same thing as wealth. Wealth comes from owning land (for those who believe in owning land), owning other peoples labor, having power. These incomes are not communal but are earned by individuals. Black middle class people in South Africa engage in a great deal of conspicuous consumption but also share a lot of their money with poorer relatives (like the remittances that most migrant populations share with their relatives).

But, I think South Africa will continue to be a leader on the African continent in terms of peace-making. I think it was really important that Thabo Mbeki did not go along with the pressure from the global North to act militarily against Zimbabwe. I also think that South Africa's leadership on bringing gender justice , equality for HIV+ people, the plight of refugees, and equality for LGBT people to the United Nations has meant a lot globally. Getting these issues on the international human rights agenda doesn't always come from a fair-minded constitution--sometimes it comes from some horrible scandal like Oscar

Pistorious or from former Pres. Mbeki's misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS. Sometimes being an example to the world of what has gone horribly wrong can be powerful as well.

You are a very courageous and curious person. I hope that you will read these books and others (like Pamela Brooks,Boycotts, Buses, and Passes) soon. They will help you begin to clarify your thinking--and that doesn't have to wait until you get to college.

Keep well, Dr. Willoughby-Herard