Achmat as Executive Director of Kagiso Trust. Paul Weinberg

In January 1986, leaders from the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the African National Congress (ANC) adopted a two-stream approach to mass mobilisation against apartheid. The UDF would work with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU – launched in December 1985) and white anti-apartheid organisations. Under the banner “people’s power”, the UDF supported local developments, such as the formation of street and area committees. It saw many advantages in civic organisations. As academics Jeremy Seekings, Khehla Shubane and David Simon (hereafter Seekings et al) noted in a in a 1993 report, street committees “brought a new rallying call for people’s power — empowerment of all the people from the street level up.”

The focus on people’s power necessitated more full-time organisers at regional levels. Financial accountability was stressed to pre-empt criticism and regional competition over money. Around this time, Achmat first met the UDF’s newly appointed bookkeeper, Jean de la Harpe. They would become close friends and would work together at Kagiso Trust established in mid-1986.

By then, the power of the people was putting increased pressure on the state, which responded with violent repression, increased surveillance, arrests, detentions and a second state of emergency. Seekings et al note:

“Even during the period of ‘people’s power’, the prominence of civics exceeded their direct importance. The grand rhetoric concerning ‘people’s power’ involved unrealisable ambitions, as the state proved more robust and the democratic opposition more fragile than imagined. Civics were unable to maintain their authority against the coercive force employed by the state.”

On 5 March 1986, the government announced the end of the current state of emergency, but on 12 June 1986, declared a broader state of emergency that, unlike the first, was nation-wide. Between 500 and 800 troops were deployed between 1987 and 1988, stationed at fourteen temporary military bases near so-called ‘unrest areas’ at a cost of R5.7 million. About 26 000 people were detained between June 1986 and June 1987, including politicians, trade unionists, religious and civic leaders. Achmat was detained for two and a half days. He recalled:

“They found my name on a computer, arrested me. While I was detained, I said something to an officer – for the life of me I can’t remember what – but he took it as an insult. So, he put me in a room, stripped me and, at one point, stood on my bare feet with his soldier’s boots while I was naked. It was terrifying because I didn’t know if I would get out of there. Those were two and a half days I’ll never forget.”

Subsequently, many anti-apartheid activists went into hiding. The state attempted to suppress protest, especially rent boycotts, and cultural events, such as the 1000 artists exhibition organised by the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee’s (DPSC established in 1981) and the “Towards a People’s Culture: Arts Festival” initiated by the End the Conscription Campaign (ECC) and organised by a range of cultural and community organisations. Under the state of emergency, political funerals were restricted, curfews were imposed, certain indoor gatherings were banned and the press was prohibited from covering political unrest.

Hundreds of publications were banned. In a 1986 interview with Nigerian born British poet and writer Ben Okri on BBC’s Arts and Africa Programme, Achmat explained:

“I think that everyone is aware that censorship has existed in South Africa for many years. Not only do we have official censorship in the form of secret committees whose identities may not be revealed, we also have an attitude in the minds of people that create censorship. The government has attempted to create an atmosphere of fear which they hope would encourage self-censorship through docility and conformity – it has not worked. However, now with the state of emergency this aura of fear has been given legal effect. Security forces have enormous power that allows them to seize publications for printing and distribution.”

In response, a group of publishers and writers in Johannesburg established the Anti-Censorship Action Committee. Achmat outlined what it would do:

“fight this physical aspect of censorship, through direct negotiation with the owners of the bookshops, but also by applying pressure to fight this all-pervading aura of fear. In practical terms we will end up more of a monitoring group … and highlight whenever it [censorship] occurs and find more effective ways of making a protest against it. We are creating study and action groups throughout the country, which we hope will galvanise and create cooperation between all people in the arts: writers, artists, musicians and publishers.”

For many writers political and literary work became intertwined. This was true for Achmat and at Duke University’s conference, “The Challenge of Third World Culture” in September 1986, he announced: “I find myself unable to distinguish between the personal and the political sides of my work.” In 1986, Achmat’s “Majiet: A Play” was published by the Open School. He was also working on what would become the Z-Town Trilogy (published by Ravan Press in 1990), set in Riverlea as well as Private Voices (published in 1992 by the Congress of South African Writers that was established in 1987). The threat of censorship was ever present.

“The noose of international disapproval” was, however being tightened around the neck of the apartheid government. Delegations, led by Beyers Naudé and Desmond Tutu had urged the Commission of the European Communities (CEC and after renamed European Union) to impose total sanctions. The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) and the Association of Western European Parliamentarians Against Apartheid added their voices, as did anti-apartheid activists elsewhere. Max Coleman, founder member of the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee (DPSC) and a founding trustee of what would become Kagiso Trust (KT), recalled: “We all did a fair amount of travelling abroad in different capacities… addressing gatherings in many parts of the world to garner support for the idea that sanctions would bring the government to its knees sooner rather than later.”

Horst Kleinschmidt, head of the International Defence and AID Fund (IDAF) and involved in early discussions between the KT and CEC remembered:

“There was constant demand for sanctions. The debates wouldn’t die down and the EU was put under ever more pressure. They decided that the way to go was to create a fund for South Africa. We were ambivalent about whether to take the money because it seemed that they were buying off pressure by saying ‘we will support worthy causes in South Africa.’ That was their idea: ‘We will do our bit’ and the issue of sanctions was put on the side fully.”

The CEC did not support total sanctions because some members (like Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives) believed all-embracing sanctions would hurt apartheid’s victims. During the first state of emergency, the CEC had created its ‘Special Programme for the Victims of Apartheid. The briefing paper of the CEC’s Special Programme for Victims of Apartheid explained how it planned to adopt a targeted approach to sanctions in combination with offering to support South African NGOs:

“The setup of an approach to counter the inequalities created by Apartheid in South Africa required careful design… the imposition of complete economic and political sanctions on South Africa would have inevitably resulted in negatively affecting those citizens the sanctions were aiming to benefit. This resulted in deciding on (an approach involving) both restrictive and positive measures… various sanctions (to be) imposed on the … regime in the form of political, economic and moral pressure. Simultaneously, a positive approach was used through providing support to several hundred programmes implemented by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in South Africa (and some in Namibia).”

Funding was to be channelled through four implementing bodies, which made framework agreements with the CEC: the South African Council of Churches (SACC); The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC); Trade Unions and would be administered by a secular entity not yet formalised, which was to become the KT. Under the agreements, these bodies had to work with NGOs and humanitarian groups in Europe.

Before the proposal was accepted, according to attorney, human rights activist and KT founding trustee, Yunus Mohamed, they had to be sure they had the capacity and that they were not getting themselves into a situation of dependency on donors. Mohamed recalled:

“The first grant was R10-million which was a helluva lot of money at that time. And we thought: how are we going to handle R10-million, because we had no capacity to handle that kind of money. And I remember Frank Chikane saying: ‘It is a valid point. It is a risk. But the trustees we are putting in place have integrity; they come out of the crucible of the struggle. So, we need to be alive to those risks and dangers and we have to manage them.

The second concern was co-option. You know, why are these people giving us this money and what are the consequences? It creates a kind of dependence: if you start getting R10-million, how many jobs are you creating? What if they start putting conditions on it? Would we still take the money? So, we debated and discussed before we decided whether to engage within the programme. And we had to establish the parameters.”

The four South African implementing organisations, including the KT, partnered with European NGOs who were the financial agents for CEC funding. Given the state’s attempts to clamp down on external funding, it was safer if money came from more than one source. Horst Kleinschmidt explained: “it was a very cumbersome route but it was a way to diversify the field as much as possible to make it difficult for the South African government to stop money from coming in.” Additionally, European NGOs had experience in working with their South African counterparts, as well as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).

To facilitate communication, secular NGOs were brought together under the umbrella of the South Africa Namibia Committee (SANAM); Protestant and Catholic NGOs each had a separate collective body, and all three came together in the Standing Committee.

At a 2004 conference of the International Anti-Apartheid Movement Sietse Bosgra, of the Holland Committee/ Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa, recalled the strict terms of the Code of Conduct that was developed:

“The Holland Committee first set up a coordinating body for the European NGO’s involved in the program, called SANAM, with the secretariat in the hands of Holland committee. The next step was to develop, with Beyers [Naudé], a ten-point Code of Conduct for the EU program. No money to activities that were normally funded by the South African government, no money to homeland institutions, no money to tribal organisations. Beyers convinced the four South African partners: they would stop their cooperation with the EU if they would not accept this Code of Conduct. Finally, Beyers went to Brussels, where he told the European Union that he would organise a press conference in Brussels to announce the end of the program if the demands were not met.”

Horst Kleinschmidt explained that funds “went officially, so that money went into open bank accounts, so it was debited through European Reserve Bank, credited through South African Reserve bank, into a Kagiso account, so there was no hanky-panky of that sort there at all.”

Funds allocated to projects were also monitored by the CEC who sent auditors. Eric Molobi, then working for the SACC on its Education Aid Programme but involved in some early KT discussions, recalled how strict they were:

“The EU used to send cohorts of auditors, some eight to ten individuals. They came and camped in our offices every day for two to three weeks. They didn’t tell you which project they were going to evaluate so every project had to be good. They did that for years and they found nothing wrong. And that helped us, because when the EU said ‘it’s clean, it works properly’, it was difficult for the South African government to say it’s wrong.”

Lauren Blythe Schütte, an academic writing on behalf of Synergos Institute noted that the initial discussions with the CEC referred to the entity that would administer the funds as a “consortium.” Mohamed explained why it would be better to establish the new body as a trust. That “would provide a legal framework for establishing a mechanism to receive funds, administer them and disburse them, whilst providing the flexibility to structure it in a way which allows [it] to achieve [its] objectives.”

The trust deed was drawn up, advised by the auditing firm Price Waterhouse and the founding members set up a Board of Trustees. Schütte quotes Desmond Tutu on the criteria for trustees:

“They [EU] obviously were keen to get the high-flyers in the South African struggle because that would give credibility. They looked for people who were representative, as it were; people who were seen to be leading stalwarts of the struggle.”

The first board of trustees comprised nine men who had deep roots in the liberation struggle: Archbishop Desmond Tutu himself, founder member and former director of the SACC and Nobel Peace Laureate (1984); Dr Beyers Naudé, secretary-general of the SACC and member of Ecumenical Advice Bureau; Fr. Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, president of the Central Transvaal Civic Association and member of the Institute for Contextual Theology; Dr Abe Nkomo, medical doctor and activist in the civic movement; Dr Max Coleman, founder member of the DPSC and later member of the Human Rights Commission; Yunus Mohamed, attorney and human rights lawyer; Rev. Frank Chikane, then former vice president of the UDF from 1983 to 1985, co-ordinator and director of ICT (from 1981 to 1987) and secretary-general of the SACC; Professor Jakes Gerwel, human rights activist and from 1987 to April 1994 vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, and Dr Allan Boesak, founding member and patron of the UDF and former President of the World Alliance of Churches.

On 10 July 1986 the Deed of Trust and Donation for KT was signed.

Notarial Deed of Trust and Donation

Know all whom it may concern

That on this the 10^th day of July in the year one thousand nine hundred and eighty-six before me, ISMAIL MAHOMED AYOB, the said notary, personally came and appeared the said CHRISTIANN FREDERICK BEYERS NAUDE and MAX COLEMAN and they declared that they had read over the foregoing Deed of Transfer and Donation and accepted the donation therein contained and the Office of the Trustees and bound themselves to carry out and perform all the terms and conditions of such Trust.

The first task of the board was to identify and recruit a person to lead the trust and build an institution.

In September 1986, Rev Beyers Naudé asked Achmat to become Executive Director. At the time, Achmat was in a senior management position at Revlon where he worked shortly after he was banned (see Era 3 for more details). At the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s memorial for Achmat, founding member and former trustee of KT, Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa recalled ‘poaching’ Achmat “from a very secure and well-paying job” and went on: “and he left Revlon, accepted a huge salary cut, in order to build a new organisation with very limited resources and a very uncertain future, thanks to the Apartheid regime.” Achmat recalls:

“Well, it started in 1986 when my sister, Jessie, was working for Beyers Naudé, and she came to see me and said, ‘Oom Bey wants to talk to you.’ So, I went to see him and he persuaded me to come and join the Kagiso Trust, it had just been set up. And that’s where the other kind of activism started. So, I agreed. Mr Nieman, the Chief Executive [of Revon] when I went to resign and hand in the car, he said, ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing here?’ It was a different life altogether after that. And those years, from 1986 till about 1991, at the Kagiso Trust, was very, very informative and exciting.”

KT started with just two staff, Achmat and project officer Peta Qubeka (now Mashinini). Their first tasks were to establish an office and start implementing programmes and projects of which there were about thirty. Father Mkhatshwa described Achmat’s “ground rules”:

“He was a very strategic thinker, dedicated organiser and manager, from the onset. He laid down uncompromising ground rules for KT as an organisation and he was very strong on what he described as a ‘People and Ubuntu Centred Culture’. These are the ground rules that he explicitly announced and these were accepted by the Trustees. One: No corruption in the Organisation. Two: No materialistic way of life. Money ear-marked for the upliftment of people, never to be abused for self-enrichment. Three: He himself never bought any expensive cars or anything of the sort. On the contrary, he bought almost a rickety little Volkswagen Beetle. He travelled economy class wherever he went. He took ethical leadership very seriously, not as a slogan, but he lived it.”

Achmat described the early years as a “roller- coaster ride”. He followed a gruelling travel schedule to Europe and the Americas and had to conceptualise and administer projects. He still found time for cultural work and writing. Initially, the team worked at the South African Council of Churches’ head office in Khotso House in Johannesburg, also the head office of the Black Sash and the End the Conscription Campaign. Later KT moved to the 2^nd floor of Darragh House, 12 Wanderers Street, Newtown, about a 1.7 kilometre walk from Khotso House. The people who worked at Khotso House and visitors were under police surveillance. Father Mkhatshwa recalls: “It was a very exciting time because the struggle for freedom had begun. But repression also became very severe indeed.”

Records and documentation were kept to a minimum. As Seekings et al note, briefcases served as mobile filing cabinets. Achmat described destroying computer disks and documents in airports and during flights in case he was caught by the authorities.

The security police also harassed the families of KT staff. Achmat’s daughter was often targeted. With the help of his comrade and close friend Beyers Naudé, Achmat arranged for Justine to attend Holy Cross, a private school managed by the Catholic Church.

The 1986 budget comprised R10 million for thirty projects, and over the following years grew steadily. At first, the Trust focused on supporting and funding education, human rights concerns, civic structures, advice centres, and freedom of the press by funding newspapers such as New Nation and South. KT was looking for ways of strengthening civil society and sought potentially viable community projects to assist communities to become more self-reliant and independent. Given the political situation, it was risky work.

Father Mkhatshwa remembers that Achmat:

“introduced programmes, especially in the beginning, that included, inter-alia, legal advice centres and later put a lot of emphasis on education, both formal education as well as informal people’s education, because he was quite aware that if you want to empower people, make sure that they are properly educated.

Achmat was also responsible for drafting key organisational documents such as funding criteria; reports for submission to the board of trustees negotiating with the CEC, and European NGOs.   Archbishop Tutu recalled:

“The first criterion for funding was: where did you stand in relation to the system? If you were anti-apartheid, then that was the first hurdle. And what were you about? Were you seeking to bring about change? … The test was whether you were empowering people to stand up to the degradations of the system.”

Seamus Jefferson explained that a project had to be driven by a local NGO and generated from within South Africa. The relationship between South African organisations and the CEC was seen as a way of transferring organisational capacity.

Once applications for funding were approved by KT, a grouping of progressive European NGOs would receive the applications and write them up in the approved format for submission to Brussels where the CEC would take them through the formal procedures and secure the funds for the recipient organisations. After proposals were approved, the relevant NGO administered them. KT was contracted to provide European NGOs with progress reports.

Precise record keeping and report writing at KT was close to impossible because of police surveillance, which the CEC did not fully understand. Tensions between the CEC and KT mounted. According to Schütte, Achmat believed that some of the European NGOs saw KT as nothing more than a convenient way for them to make direct contact with South African NGOs. Schütte referred to Achmat’s “claims that several European NGOs began subtly to undermine Kagiso Trust, bypassing it, making offers to communities directly, and expecting KT to send the documents to Brussels. He attributes this to their belief that KT did not have the capability to do the job. There were, however, many European NGOs he quoted as being supportive and interested in putting a project on the ground, not in controlling it.”

Horst Kleinschmidt recalls how difficult it could be dealing with conflicting “agendas”:

“I attended meetings in Brussels repeatedly with a number of European non-governmental organisations as head of IDAF. Those meetings were aimed at us finding efficacious ways of applying that money in South Africa. Tutu, Boesak, Beyers Naude and Achmat Dangor were there, and others. Our agendas were quite mixed: on the one hand, we were negotiating with the very conservative EU establishment and at the same time we were involved in what we called internal reconstruction. I flew from London to Brussels endlessly to try and mediate these relationships because our people, the South Africans, clashed with the EU quite severely a lot of the time. And there were complete breakdowns. And then there would be some repair work done at night and we would try again. And three months later: poof! The whole thing all over again. They would always say: ‘You’ve got to write all these reports’ and inevitably in South Africa in the eighties, that turned out to be not very do-able.”

Yunus Mahomed remembers a tense 1987 meeting that led to KT delegates walking out:

“We called it Black Friday. We had taken a delegation of trustees to Brussels. …I don’t think they had met people like us before. We were not dependent on their money and we were also very principled about it.

We said to them: ‘We cannot comply with your ACP requirements because we are living under very abnormal conditions.’ Our coordinating body we felt was fine because we had our auditors and sound financial systems – although the cops could have raided us and taken our records. It was a very uncertain political climate. But we knew that where the CBOs (community-based organisations) operating in the townships were concerned, people were being detained and harassed; there were raids and we knew there was massive infiltration by the security forced. Then a whole lot of funny things would go on. We said to the EU: ‘These are conditions of uncertainty, so if you expect us to comply with your requirements, you must keep your money.’ They were stunned. Here they were giving money and these poor blacks didn’t want to take it. And we left the meeting and said: ‘Think about it and then come back to us.’ And they had to accept our conditions.”

Although relations were strained from then on, according to Yunus, “Black Friday” was a “milestone”. It marked the turning-point when the EU realised it had to work with the KT. In Mohamed’s words:

“They didn’t like us from that day on but the political decision had been made. They couldn’t go back on that and they couldn’t find anyone besides us [through whom to channel the money] because they had to have credible leaders like these church elder statesmen who had established a worldwide reputation. And they also knew we had the support of the ANC and the UDF because of the personalities involved. If the EU wanted to make an intervention which had any legitimacy, we were the only option. If you scrapped us, nobody else would have touched it. You might have got the homeland guys to do it but then the money would have been wasted and abused. So that’s why we called it Black Friday, because it was a milestone: we established the basis of the contract with them.”

By 1987, KT was certainly not simply a conduit for foreign funds, but an enabler for development across several sectors. Eric Molobi notes:

“We could not allow our living areas and people simply to deteriorate under the joint conditions of apartheid and resistance. In some instances, we were responsible for setting up new organisations. Kagiso Trust was not simply a funder. It became a catalyst for new development institutions and initiatives. Support was spread across a whole range of sectors: rural and urban struggles, advice centres, welfare, health and, importantly, education.”

Under Achmat’s leadership, KT grew rapidly. Between 1986 and 1994, 450 million Euros in funding was channelled solely through Non-Governmental Organisations to over 700 projects. Although KT received funding mostly from the CEC, the Trust estimated that R107.8 million was donated by the Japanese government between 1987 and 1997.

In its second year, KT employed twenty-six people. KT’s national reach expanded. In 1987, additional staff were recruited, and five regional offices opened in: Johannesburg (covering the former Transvaal, Orange Free State and Northern Cape), Cape Town (Western Cape), and Durban (Natal). The Port Elizabeth (Eastern Cape) office was opened the following year. The King William’s Town (Border) office was only opened in early 1991 (dates vary). The Transvaal regional office carried a disproportionate share of the national workload.

In 1987, one of KT’s main programmes the Civics and Advice Centre Programme (CACP) was launched. It aimed “to improve the legal and social position of the local population by supporting Advice Centres and Civic Associations all over the country”.

Seekings et al found that during the 1987-89 period the CACP prioritised “charterist” civics and advice centres (those who supported the Freedom Charter):

“a persistent bias in favour of the mainstream of broadly Charterist-oriented organisations, including both civics and advice centres. The great majority of active civics and advice centres have been Charterist-inclined. But several non-Charterist civics and advice centres would arguably have met KT’s formal criteria, and it is to be regretted that they do not seem to have applied for funds.”

ANC activist, Veronica Simmers, a member of the UDF and Rocklands Civic Association, joined the Trust as a Project Administrator in the Western Cape in September 1988. She recalled how difficult it was for her to operate without a UDF bias:

“Understanding Kagiso Trust’s mission as a conduct for grant aid and especially its criteria of being non-sectarian, and without any bias towards any specific organisation, was at first an extremely difficult task for me. I was still very militant in my thinking and found it very difficult to treat all funding applications the same. It was difficult for me to fund non-UDF organisations”.

Eric Molobi explained KT’s strategy around funding:

“The Trust was always viewed as something of a menace by the apartheid regime. Our offices were raided and things destroyed. They wanted to disrupt everything we did. They thought they’d harass us out of existence. But they did not want the EU to know they were harassing us. Those who opposed us said in the newspapers that we were acting as a conduit for funds to the ANC but that was nonsense. We knew they would send us to prison if we did that. So, we had to oppose the state the other way. We helped organisations that were affiliated to the United Democratic Front – not the UDF straight or its head offices”.

Key members of the UDF were murdered by agents of the state, including Matthew Goniwe (UDF organiser in the Eastern Cape) and Victoria Mxenge (UDF treasurer in Natal). Almost the entire leadership of the UDF was restricted in the period 1985 to 1987. At its fourth anniversary on 20 August, a new theme was announced: “Defend, Consolidate, Advance”. The 1987 UDF congress was held in near-total secrecy.

The UDF Cultural Desk, established between 1985 and 1987 (dates vary) was tasked with facilitating the growth and organisation of local culture and helped establish organisations including the South African Musicians’ Association (SAMA) and the Congress of South African Writers (COSAW). It also assisted in implementing the international cultural boycott. According to academic Jane Duncan, who researched the cultural boycott in the late 1980s, a resolution on a selective academic and cultural boycott was passed at a UDF National Working Committee meeting, which was to put the Cultural Desk in an invidious position. Following the resolution, the UDF and COSATU took it upon themselves to make decisions about who would be allowed access to the country. The Cultural Desk’s role in this was supposed to be temporary.

Duncan notes that several artists were unhappy, arguing “that consulting with the UDF cultural desk and its structures was tantamount to ‘asking for permission’ to go overseas …. other artists not aligned to the UDF feared a situation emerging where artists who identified with the liberation movement, but who were not prepared to ‘ask for permission’, could have their passage blocked. Achmat was a member of the cultural desk from 1987 and had to manage some of the difficulties that arose. Wilhelm Liebenberg, Grahamstown ECC chair; Reverend Arnold Stofile, executive member of the UDF; Mzwakhe Mbuli, poet also known as “the people’s poet”; Colin “Jiggs” Smuts, of the Open School, and Paul Weinberg, photographer and co-founder of Afrapix amongst others were also appointed to the Cultural Desk.

Achmat was also involved with a low-key, “below the radar”, as Paul Weinberg called it, organisation called the Progressive Arts Project (PAP) that mostly undertook logistical work for other cultural organisations or events. It was started when a group of four or five practitioners from various disciplines in the arts came together to form a collective in 1987. Barbara Schreiner’s report in Staffrider described PAP as being committed to furthering “the struggle for a non-racial, democratic South Africa through the medium of culture and to engage in the building of a progressive people’s culture.” She wrote that “(t)o achieve this, it sees the need to organise cultural workers and particularly cultural activists on a project-oriented basis. One of its aims is to work closely with progressive organizations, responding to their needs and programmes.”

PAP organised several public events and co-hosted some with the DPSC, FEDTRAW, UDF, SAYCO, ECC and COSATU. Spark magazine was one of two magazines produced by PAP. Other projects included documenting progressive culture, compiling tape-slide shows, and hosting a series of discussions on culture.

Achmat recalled that after the second conference of the Writers’ Forum in July 1987, “Literature Beyond the Platitudes”, it was decided that writers could not “merely come together and talk shop, they had to do so from a clearly defined political position…writers could not stand aloof from the massive political movements throughout the country that were embodied in the UDF and the COSATU. Thus, the Congress of South African Writers (COSAW) was formed.”  Politically, COSAW was aligned with the Charterist organisations (those like the UDF adopted the Freedom Charter). However, Achmat stressed it was “open to anybody who accepts the constitution. It includes essayists, poets, writers, critics, literacy workers and anyone interested in writing. The Writer’s Forum has now become the publishing arm of COSAW.”

Achmat’s colleague and friend Njabulo Ndebele who gave the opening address at the COSAW launch held at the University of the Witwatersrand later recalled at the memorial for Achmat:

“I first met Achmat in the winter of 1987, when everyone who was a writer at the time, known or unknown, gathered in Johannesburg, to found a grassroots writers’ organisation, ‘The Congress of South African Writers’ or more popularly known as COSAW. It was my fate and the fate of all of us, that while I was elected the founding president of the organisation, Achmat was one of three founding vice-presidents. It was an historical moment, 1987, a state of emergency and the sort of gathering space of what was in just ten years, not too long, we are going to become a free country.”

According to Njabulo, the writers at the conference pledged to devote their “total creative resources to advance the struggle for the creation of a non-racial, united and democratic South Africa.” They recognised that “writers and cultural workers generally, are products of and belong to the community. As such, they have a responsibility to serve the community.” This was a point Albertina Sisulu also made at the COSAW launch. She encouraged writers to be more attuned to their immediate communities: “if you cannot concern yourself with the fact that people cannot pay rents, that there are diseases, that there is illiteracy and that education is inadequate, you are going to be isolated from what should be your constituency.”

Achmat called on writers to make work that was accessible to, and meaningful for a worker constituency:

“The role of workers within the South African community is so important that it cannot be ignored. The vast majority of people are workers. If we cannot create literature that not only appeals to workers but in many ways comes from workers, we are going to be guilty of creating or perpetuating the class differences that exist. This position on the centrality of workers’ culture was the outcome of a long period of discussion and consultation with people across the country. COSATU and COSATU cultural workers themselves played an important part in this preparation period and the planning of the conference. They were the ones who wrote that manifesto. Mi Hlatswayo, director of COSATU’s cultural desk and the Vice-President of COSAW, is a poet and a worker. The greatest constituency for culture is workers. The intellectuals, those who have the world’s platforms at their disposal, were confronted? Hlatshwayo by the issues that the workers raised at this conference. What came out of there was the workers’ assertion of the leadership. And recognising the central role of working-class literature forces us all, as writers, to confront the issues that confront workers.”

The challenge to writers is to create, as cultural workers, new forms of writing that are accessible to people. This brought us back to the fundamental questions of why we write and how we write. Questions like who reads and who writes? And we have to consider the question of literacy. How can we talk about literature when almost 50% of the adult population cannot read what we write? One of the most popular and successful literatures is that of Mzwahke Mbuli who has developed the tradition of the oral poet and performs and records rather than writes his poetry. We also have to reconsider the measure of success of our writing. Having our work read is so much more important that publishing a book every year and having it sit on bookshelves somewhere.”

COSAW initiated literary projects, hosted literary events, conducted research, liaised with literacy organisations, established writing groups, facilitated workshops for aspirant writers from disadvantaged communities, published materials and hosted a literary award for fiction. Achmat described COSAW’s work to “valorise” workers’ culture and to make resources available to them:

“COSAW’s [work] involves breaking down class and language barriers, legitimating and valorising workers’ culture and providing skills, education and resources for writers. One of the first steps taken by COSAW has been the formation of the Can Themba Institute, which comprises regional resource centres for workers and writers. There are to be libraries and reading rooms where people can have access to literature from all over the world, with an emphasis on Third World literature. As it is, it is only the few privileged and world-travelled amongst us who have been exposed to cultural developments and influences from other parts of the world. Our literature lacks a universal dimension. The literature from situations similar to our own remains unheard of in our country.”

The resource centres will also come to serve as centres for training people in such techniques as story writing and other such skills denied most South African writers. We are talking about translating literature into simple English for readers with limited English language skills. We already have some research projects underway. A student is presently studying the development of Third World literature and will come back to set up a methodology for teaching this. The other important focus of our attention is the language issue. We started a research project on vernacular writing: who writes it, who reads it, what are the barriers to its acceptance, how to disseminate it? All of these things have just been started and we will really see the fruits of it in a year or two, when the results of our research come home and are made accessible to people.”

The first resource centre is due to open in Johannesburg imminently, another in Durban in the near future, and interestingly, one in Newcastle, a rural town in Natal where there is a large group of writers. COSAW has been launched to date in three regions the Transvaal, the Western Province and Natal.”

Njabulo recalled the value of Achmat having a “practical sense of things”:

“What I remember most for those days, was how the practical side of him, how to register the organisation, how to start … open the office going, how to go around getting enthusiasm of establishing the organisation, to stay alive, because structures had to be set up, the branches had to be set up and I always admired and been forever grateful to him, for his practical sense of things, that he seemed to have tremendous wisdom of getting in, getting things done. And so, COSAW, lived for many, many, years, establishing a publishing house and all other things.”

In 1972 Ravan Press, which became an influential alternative publishing house had been established. Peter Randall was the director and one of the founding trustees. His name provided the “Ra” of “Ravan”, with the “va” and “n” coming from co-founders Danie van Zyl and Beyers Naude. Mike Kirkwood, then editor of the Durban-based literary magazine Bolt, succeeded Peter as director. Under Kirkwood’s leadership, through its books and magazines such as Staffrider, Ravan published the work of African writers including Miriam Tlali, Mtutezeli Matshoba and Achmat. Histories that placed Africans on centre stage, written by Jeff Guy, Charles van Onselen, Jeff Peires, Peter Delius and Phil Bonner were also published by Ravan. According to the Mail & Guardian, a tradition of black prose was identified in Sol Plaatje’s writing, for which Achmat had a high regard. Ravan republished Plaatje’s non-fictional work, Native Life in South Africa (1982) and his novel Mhudi, as well as Brian Willan’s biography of Plaatje. 

By the mid-1980s, the editorial board at Ravan was functioning as a collective. Dwindling funds and competition from other publishers put it under a lot of pressure, which contributed to friction among the editorial staff. Glenn Moss was appointed in 1988 after Mike Kirkwood left. Moss’s job was to trim the organisation, turning it into an economically viable operation – turning it into something more like “a company”, as he said. Achmat was appointed as one of four directors (also called trustees). Ravan Press survived until 1994 when the post-apartheid withdrawal of foreign aid jeopardised its future. It was bought by the South African subsidiary of British-based Hodder & Stoughton.

Many Ravan Press employees were on the security branch’s radar because of their political activities. Achmat’s colleague, friend and editor, renowned novelist Ivan Vladislavić, who worked for Ravan Press, talked about the “real danger”:

“The people working at the Press who were directly involved politically were in real danger, people like Jessie Duarte and Esther Maleka. William Smith was working there, Chris van Wyk was doing certain kinds of political work. Kevin French was working with the unions. Those who were active in political organisations were obviously targets and some of them were detained during that period. Some of us who worked there were not involved directly in political organisations but regarded the publishing itself as a kind of activism.”

In March 1987, as the Index on Censorship reported, “(t)he offices of Ravan Press “were petrol-bombed by three white men. 15,000 Rands worth of damage was done, mainly to books. The fire was put out by the night guard. This was the second attack within a week. The previous Friday, 13 March, two unidentified men had broken in and stolen R900 in cash. On their way out they daubed “Communist Pigs” and “We’ll Be Back” in red paint on the walls. Evidently, they kept their promise.”

In September of the next year, Ravan was fire-bombed on the same night that Khotso House was attacked.  It felt like working under a “state of siege”. To learn more about Achmat’s perspective of the siege click here

The Cultural Desk organised a conference and festival for the end of 1987 called, ‘Culture in Another South Africa’ (CASA) with the Anti-Apartheid Beweging Nederland (Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement) and the ANC’s Cultural Desk. The purpose of the festival was to bring artists, political organisations and solidarity movements together to develop a programme for the transformation of culture after the end of apartheid.  Glenn Moss recalled “Achmat was involved critically in the organisation of it, the organisation of the South African delegation, probably the selection of the delegation and how it was decided who would go and what they would do and then in the funding of it through, I think, Kagiso Trust funds.” However, Achmat did not attend the festival, probably due to other commitments.

In December 1987, 180 exiled and 120 internal ‘cultural workers’ attended the conference in Amsterdam, Holland, to debate the direction of progressive culture. The resolution adopted at the conference read: “cultural activity and the arts are partisan and cannot be separated from politics. Consequently, a great responsibility devolves on artists and cultural workers to consciously align themselves with forces of democracy and national liberation in the life and death struggle to free our country from racist bondage.”

The conference was an important rallying point, and a showcase for progressive cultural work in South Africa.

The cultural boycott was hotly debated. Some members of the Cultural Desk maintained that allowing cultural workers from South Africa to go overseas for the conference was in violation of the boycott. Achmat argued that an “adjusted” boycott was more appropriate for the changed circumstances of the 1980s than was the old blanket boycott:

“The cultural boycott was conceived in a time when all peaceful opposition had been driven underground. The people’s organisations and their leaders were arrested, driven into exile and even the culture of the people was suppressed. The necessity to fight and isolate apartheid and white supremacy on all fronts included a cultural dimension. In the eighties, the blanket boycott was adjusted to accommodate the emergence of resistance culture and to implement it in a democratic fashion. Although there have been difficulties, this strategy in relation to the other fields of struggle has been effective and it will remain in place until apartheid is abolished. It should be remembered that neither the cultural boycott nor sanctions are ends in themselves, but means to an end.”

Cultural workers returning from CASA were optimistic, but also expected more repression with the on-going State of Emergency thwarting the implementation of many of the conference resolutions.

The CASA Foundation, established to organise the conference and follow-up activities ceased to exist in about 1990. In 1992, playwright Mike van Graan wrote a satirical play called “Some of our best friends are cultural workers”, which he also directed and in which he acted with his and Achmat’s close friend Junaid Ahmed. Premiering at the Standard Bank National Arts Festival Fringe in 1992, the play “reflected (critically) on the days of the cultural boycott and ‘the cultural desk’”. It won the “Hot off the Fringe” award and was also performed at the Market Theatre in Newtown, Johannesburg. Van Graan explained that the play reflected “our willingness to challenge some of the prevailing dogmas and to exercise the principle of freedom of expression that the anti-apartheid struggle was partly about, within the anti-apartheid movement itself.”

One of the outcomes of the CASA conference was the establishment of the Film and Allied Workers’ Organisation (FAWO) in 1988 and soon branches were formed in the Transvaal, Western Cape and Natal. that Achmat was invited to speak at the launch. FAWO had its own technical equipment and assisted with progressive film education, training projects, building distribution and exhibition networks and published a newsletter. Through these activities it sought to “liberate cinema from its apartheid domination; facilitate video for the masses and provide policy options for a post-apartheid industry.” At the end of August 1990 FAWO led a march on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to protest against apartheid state-controlled broadcasting as part of its “Campaign for Open Media”. Over 1 000 people, from political and cultural organisations including COSATU, the ANC, the UDF, Black Sash, Media Workers’ Association of South Africa, COSAW, Association for Democratic Journalists, amongst others joined in solidarity. The “South Africa Now Show” featured the march in one of its episodes it includes statements by Nicola Galombik, actor Ramolao Makhene and FAWO organiser Michael Markowitz amongst others.

Another outcome of CASA was the Cultural Workers Congress (CWC) established in July 1988. CWC, affiliated to the UDF aimed to mobilise cultural workers. CWC contributed to the establishment of the Federation of South African Cultural Organisations. After facilitating the formation of the Arts & Culture Development Network in 1994, CWC disbanded. To explore archival material and photographs of the CWC click here: https://asai.co.za/peoplesculture/culture-workers-congress/

The principle of the cultural boycott did change from the call for a blanket application. The ban was restricted to those who were not prepared to take a stand against the apartheid system. In a paper given at an ANC cultural forum in 1989, Albie Sachs challenged cultural workers to produce more works “which by-pass, overwhelm and ignore apartheid”. According to South African History Archive, he was echoing “the sentiments of other cultural workers” who thought that “subtlety, complexity and ambiguity” were essential for “effective cultural work” and were anxious to avoid sloganeering and platitudes – the kinds of things Van Graan later satirised in his play which he and Achmat’s friend and comrade Junaid Ahmed performed in 1992. A revised Cultural Boycott Policy was adopted by the ANC’s National Executive Committee in May 1989.

The National Arts Initiative (NIA) was established in 1989 by the COSAW, Performing Arts Workers Equity (PAWE), Association of Community Arts Centres (ACAC), and the Film and Allied Workers Organisation (FAWO) amongst others Mike van Graan, COSAW’s National Projects Officer and Junaid Ahmed, general-secretary of COSAW played a key role in its establishment. Van Graan notes:

“The NAI hosted the National Arts Policy Plenary, with more than 800 delegates representing the broadest range of arts and culture interests ever gathered till then, in the Wits Great Hall, in December 1992. Delegates committed themselves to two goals to be achieved within a year: 1) To formulate post-apartheid arts policy recommendations based largely on our needs and the policies of countries that espoused democratic principles and, 2) To launch a nationally representative structure to represent the arts and culture sector across geography, disciplines, ideological, cultural and other divides.”

It achieved its goals and in December 1993 the National Arts Coalition a non-partisan, representative arts body comprised of 80 organisations was formed with Andries Olifant as chair. It would play an influential role in arts and culture policy development under the new democratic dispensation.

By 1988, the UDF had between 600 and 700 affiliates with more than 2,5 million members. In February 1988 the Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok published new Emergency regulations, banning the UDF and 16 other organisations including five civics – in Soweto, Port Elizabeth, Cradock, the Vaal Triangle and Western Cape. Banned organisations were allowed only to take legal advice, and to keep financial accounts. They could not hold meetings, run campaigns, publish media, and hold protests. The Friends of the UDF was formed to help raise funds for imprisoned activists. Achmat and Jean de la Harpe were founder members.

Friends of the UDF was an initiative of Jean de la Harpe, Sheila Weinberg and others. This UDF document presents biographies of some founding members including Nthatho Motlana, Eric Mafuna, Nadine Gordimer, Richard Luyt, Prema Naidoo, Ismail Ayob, Achmat Dangor and Jakes Gerwel. South African History Archive, University of the Witwatersrand / Digital Innovation South Africa / University of Kwa Zulu Natal

In March, New Nation and South newspapers were banned. Twenty-six English language newspaper editors handed petitions to the government against press restrictions. In a bold act of resistance anti-apartheid newspaper the Weekly Mail, forerunner of today’s Mail & Guardian, printed articles New Nation had intended to publish under the front-page headline “What New Nation Would Have Said”. The government sent warnings that they too would be banned. The Weekly Mail intensified its campaign against press restrictions. Weekly Mail founding co-editor Anton Harber recalled:

“we had received a five-page letter from the government warning that we would be closed down under State of Emergency regulations if we continued to muster support for revolutionary organisations … a special Government Gazette was published giving us a formal warning to desist or face closure. Another warning arrived in April and the government closed another paper, South… We threw everything we had into a campaign to get the government to limit the closure, if not to stop it. We had every Fleet Street editor sign a letter to the South African government. We visited three embassies a day in Pretoria to urge them to protest. The formidable British Ambassador, Sir Robin Renwick, organised a European Community démarche. US Ambassador Edward Perkins issued an unusual statement of support. Stephen Spender of Index on Censorship organised an advert which appeared across the country with the names of 500 journalists and prominent figures protesting against the threat. We were consumed with this campaign, tapping the power of local and international solidarity.”

The Weekly Mail was also, in collaboration with COSAW, securing Salman Rushdie as a keynote speaker for its annual book festival themed “Censorship under the State of Emergency” which sparked much controversary and drew more attention the paper. In late September, Harber recalls “a sheriff of the court had arrived with a letter from the minister: ‘The production and publishing, during the period from the date of publishing of this order up to and including 28 November 1988, of all further issues of the periodical Weekly Mail is hereby totally prohibited.’ It was the blow we had feared.”

The security branch arrested UDF and SAYCO activists in Braamfontein near the Johannesburg city centre and in the CBD itself. Patrick Flusk and Achmat’s sister Jessie were among those arrested. They were held in solitary confinement at John Vorster Square (now Johannesburg Central). Jessie was detained without trial. Addressing the security branch official she said: 

“You know what took place in that space. You stood with folded arms as chair backs were used as racks and as many of us were choked, smacked and kicked. You watched as pee ran down our legs because you made us stand for hours. You cannot say you did not torture, you were the torture master.”

Achmat recalled:

“My sister Jessie Duarte she was in solitary confinement for more than a year and my mother always had to bear the brunt of what happened to us the boys too went into exile… also what I observed growing up in Newclare when the apartheid police came, they seemed to make women their target…”

Upon her release Jessie was placed under “restriction orders” which controlled her movements.

Trade unions were not banned and stayaways, organised primarily through the trade union movement and rent boycotts by civics were still able to go ahead. The state tried to put an end to rent boycotts. However, according to Seekings et al, sometimes state repression only strengthened civic organisation.

The best example was the formation of the Soweto People’s Delegation in December 1988 while the Civic Association was restricted. The Delegation took up the grievances of the rent boycott, commissioned research on urban issues and started negotiations with state officials.

The apartheid state made repeated attempts to shut down KT by harassing staff and trustees and imposing legal constraints. Key trustees and staff members were detained, and police searched offices in the middle of the night. The government also made it difficult for KT to raise money internally by refusing to grant KT tax exempt status and a fundraising number. In March 1988 the government adopted measures, which would have curbed the entry of foreign funding for human rights organisations under the Promotion of Orderly Internal Politics Bill. Fighting the threat became part of KT’s work.

KT sent delegations to the government, to the EC, and to foreign embassies to apply pressure on the National Party and, after an outcry, the Promotion of Orderly Internal Politics Bill was abandoned. However, it was replaced by the Disclosure of Foreign Funding Bill, which was not very different. 

When the Foreign Funding Bill was introduced in March 1988, it was Achmat’s second year at KT. Ronel Schefer, director of publications of the Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa’s (IDASA) quoted the KT’s response in the March 1989 issue of Democracy in Action:

“‘In the long term, said Kagiso Trust, ‘the EEC Special Programme for the Victims of Apartheid cannot survive under the provisions of the Bill. ‘Humanitarian and developmental assistance will no longer be possible without direct state knowledge, interference and manipulation. The bill criminalises innocent and inadvertent errors that are inevitable in day-to-day practise,’ says KT. ‘For example, an organisation that ‘neglects’ to inform the Registrar of the arrival of foreign funds may be deemed to have committed a crime and be prosecuted.”

Eric Molobi recalled KT sending Archbishop Tutu to tell the CEC it had to oppose the Bill or be guilty of ‘collusion’:

“The Bill said all organisations which receive money from outside the country must register. And once they had registered, they would be investigated. And the end of that might have been a recommendation to close down that organisation. We knew they were aiming the legislation at us and we sent a delegation led by Desmond Tutu to Brussels and he said to the European Union: ‘If you don’t oppose this, they will close us down and you would have colluded in it.’ And they stood up for us and opposed it and the law was never passed. But many other organisations were also saved, like the Black Sash, for instance. They really wanted all these sorts of organisations to shut down.”

The consistent threat of new legislation to curb funding was combined with continued police surveillance and harassment. The Weekly Mail & Guardian of April 1-7, 1989, reported that security police had tampered with the locks on KT’s Durban office, “searching through drawers, and roughing up Mahommed when he caught them.” Eric Molobi believed that the CEC did not understand that incoming funds did sometimes go to sabotage President P.W. Botha’s plans, as he suspected. Molobi had no time for the CEC’s ambivalence about opposing apartheid:

“There was another crisis when [the President] PW Botha started with his Improper Interference Act and said these monies were used just to sabotage his plans for the Tricameral Parliament. A lot of this money was used precisely to sabotage the Tricameral Parliament. The EU didn’t understand that. As in so many debates, the EU wanted to be half-baked. But in the real world, you could either be here or you could be there but you couldn’t be in the middle. You had to do it fully.”

In August 1988, the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM), an alliance of anti-apartheid groups, notably those affiliated to the UDF and COSATU, came into being. In July 1989, COSATU took the lead, calling on the MDM to support a nation-wide six-week Defiance Campaign. In August, the MDM embarked on a massive campaign against racial segregation with people ignoring “whites only” signs on hospitals and beaches.  A stay-away to protest the tricameral parliamentary elections took place in September 1989. More than 3 million people participated.

Archbishop Tutu, addressing a non-racial march in Cape Town in late September 1989 of about 30 000 people is quoted by SAHA: “We say, hey Mr de Klerk (the new President), you have already lost. Our march to freedom is unstoppable. It is the march of all of us South Africans, black and white.”

By the end of 1989, it was clear that change was near. A conference called, “From Opposing to Governing: How Ready are We?” also known as “From Opposing to Governing: How ready is the Opposition? was organised jointly by the MDM and KT in late December 1989 or early January 1990 (dates are contested). Another conference, “Conference for a Democratic Future” was organised by a committee representing the UDF, COSATU, the churches, the black consciousness organisations, the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) and the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU). The two conferences, notable for their size and the diversity of their participants were turning points in South Africa’s history.

“From Opposing to Governing” focused on developing a vision of what a democratic South Africa would look like and what the role of the NGO sector would be. Cas Coovadia, then head of ACTSTOP warned: “If civic organisations do not begin to have a more developmental approach now, we will be unable to address these massive problems in the future. Civic activists urgently needed education and training in fields such as urban administration, housing, transport and health.” Trevor Manuel, then a prominent UDF activist, looking toward the imminent victory of the democratic movement said it was time to stop thinking like people in the opposition and begin thinking like people who would govern.

On 2 February 1990, President FW de Klerk announced that the ANC, Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and other organisations would be unbanned and that Nelson Mandela would be released unconditionally. On 11 February, Mandela was released and led the negotiations for the country’s political transition to democracy.

Resistance alone was no longer a productive strategy. KT, as well as the NGOs it served had to reimagine their activities. The CEC indicated in 1990 that funding would cease in 1993 and discussions on forming KT Investments and other measures to keep the trust sustainable were initiated. Under Achmat’s leadership, KT started a process to change from a funder of victims of apartheid to a development agency with a sustainability plan. According to Kgotso Schoeman, KT staff and later CEO:

“a set of staff was chosen to carry out a new mission, to move the South African resistance from the streets to the corridors of development. Kagiso Trust, in the period between outright resistance and the institution of development organisations, became quite important.”

Father Mkhatshwa pointed out that the “mind-set” itself had to change, a necessity of which Achmat was very conscious:

from being a political support, to development support, because developmental ensures that people are empowered and they have the potential to be more self-confident. Achmat was also very, very incisive about the relationship between donor and recipient which had to change, he said, in favour or emphasising a partnership based on mutual respect. That was Achmat for you.”

Lumko Huna (who was appointed project officer in July 1989 and later became KT’s Western Cape Regional Director) recalled:

“We moved from reactive to proactive. The criteria became very strict. We looked for sustainability. I used to go to Jo’burg once a month for a meeting to assess projects. People were joining then who had a knowledge of development. We discussed whether Kagiso Trist could survive. That was a very important period. We were focussed now. It was just development.”

The shift to a more developmental approach involved a broader role for civics. Reports became more critical, exploring the weaknesses as well as the successes of civics and advice centres. Increased emphasis was placed on training. The Programme aimed: “to strengthen the capacities of umbrella and service bodies offering training, advice and a networking service with [civic] organisations (and advice centres) and to support the processes of research, planning and policy generation in order to underpin a major shift towards developmental needs in a rapidly changing South Africa.”

The SACC and SACBC set up the Joint Enrichment Programme (JEP) to build a culture of learning and provide creative skills programs in art, including drama.

In 1990, KT was awarded the King Baudouin International Development Prize by the King Baudouin Foundation established in 1976 based in Brussels whose objective was to contribute to justice, democracy and respect for diversity. Particular attention was paid to activities which have snowballed into further development. Achmat and some KT trustees attended the award ceremony in the presence of the King and Queen of Belgium, the Prince of Li and Prince Philippe. Jean de la Harpe recalled:

“I actually accompanied Achmat and Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa and Reverend Beyers Naude, on the trip to go and receive the price. So, the day before the prize, there was an event where we all had to attend to prepare for this big prize-giving ceremony and the protocol of this, where they told everybody where to sit and where you had to walk and specifically told the recipients of the prize, how they should address the king and queen…”

In 1990, Achmat travelled to Scotland for a meeting with an international funding organisation based in Glasgow. Audrey Elster worked there, and this would be their first meeting. She recalled:

“I’m a literature graduate I did my MA in Latin-American and French language and literature in Glasgow and later studied in Mexico. In ’89 I came back to Scotland from Mexico and I got a job with an NGO that provided funding to development NGOs in South Africa and elsewhere. Because I was the most junior member of staff, my job was to take [visitors from] Asia, Africa and Latin America to buy warm clothes, because they hadn’t anticipated the weather in Scotland! I remember taking Achmat to buy a sweater and then Achmat invited the whole programme team out for dinner. I got there early and Achmat was there and we were talking … I’d never met anyone who was involved in development work and politics, but also knew a lot about literature. So that’s how we met, and our relationship began then and because KT was getting a lot of EU money, Achmat was always in Europe, Amsterdam and Brussels in particular and sometimes in London. So, for about a year before I finally moved to South Africa, I’d meet him in London or in Brussels or Amsterdam.”

Audrey came to realise that “there was no way Achmat was leaving South Africa in 1990 and so in order for our relationship to continue, I had to move. So, I did.” By this time Achmat had moved out of his home in Riverlea. He had lived in Berea and Hillbrow for a time, which he used in some of the scenes in Bitter Fruit. He recalled: “People used to ask where do you live? When I said in Berea, they said ‘what! How can you survive there?’”

In May 1991, 28-year-old Audrey moved to South Africa. The couple lived in Bertrams. Audrey was determined to find work, although it proved challenging:

“I actually found it really difficult when I first got here. I moved here in May 1991 but I couldn’t get a job that wasn’t somehow connected to Achmat and I found that very difficult. I had these kind of unrealistic principles that I would get a job off my own steam and I found it really hard to not work… I was here for about four, five months, not doing anything and I couldn’t drive, because being Scottish it wasn’t essential there (at the time), so I felt quite isolated. Achmat was really busy. He was still at KT and I remember finally getting a job on The New Nation. And, of course, Zwelakhe (Sisulu) did know Achmat. I soon found out that Achmat seemed to know everyone!”

Audrey’s work was organising the first international writers’ conference “Making Literature: Reconstruction in South Africa” held at Witwatersrand University on Dec 1-6, 1991. Audrey described what it was like:

“It was huge. I mean, even though I knew a lot about literature, I didn’t really know that much about African literature. Latin-American was more my thing and so deciding who would be invited was crazy. I can’t remember who funded it, but Junaid Ahmed was on the organising group with me … He was a wonderful, wonderful theatre/film person who sadly died. I also remember working closely with [Abdul] Shariff who was a photographer. At the beginning of 1994, he was shot dead by a sniper during the violence in Katlehong.  It was captured live on TV which was very traumatic for all of us.”

According to Dennis Brutus, the conference “marked the recognition of the changing intellectual atmosphere in South Africa…The implication of the changing political climate for the creativity of protest writers and the role of women and their tensions, in terms of conflicting loyalties to women’s progress and the liberation movement, were among the discussed subjects.”

The CEC set up its own Programme Coordination Office in Pretoria. Schütte notes that despite the end of the formal relationship between the CEC and the KT, “this relationship continued de jure for some time because the EU office did not have the administrative capacity to deal with a large volume of project proposals, while Kagiso Trust did.”

To support KT’s transition to a fully-fledged development agency, it employed more professional staff with experience in development. Yunus Mahomed explained that while they had “started off by dealing with victims of apartheid and our primary staffing strategy for the first five or six years had been to look at people who had an affinity to those communities and came from that background. When you move into a development-oriented direction, you need people with more technical professional skills who are more project-oriented.” KT offered a voluntary retrenchment package which Horst Kleinschmidt described as a way for people who did not feel comfortable to leave.

By the time Achmat left in 1992, a total of 62 staff were employed and the annual budget had risen to R 300 million.

In August 1991, the UDF dissolved. It had been involved in the establishment of regional civic structures in preparation for the formation of a national civic body, the most prominent of which was CAST (Civic Associations of the Southern Transvaal), formed in September 1990. A National Interim Civic Committee was formed in February 1991 to prepare for a national civic organisation and in March 1992, the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) was launched at a conference in Uitenhage.

Among some communities and organisations, a “culture of entitlement” developed. Individuals thought their anti-apartheid credentials entitled them to material benefits. Schütte maintains that Achmat expressed a concern about the practices that developed in some sectors of the NGO community. He drew the line at people helping themselves to money intended to help poor people change their lives.

KT played a significant role in preparing for a democratic government. For example, it influenced the formulation of policy and the setting up of institutions such as the Independent Development Trust and the National Drought Consultative Forum to coordinate drought relief in South Africa.  Achmat played a leading role in both organisations. KT was also part of a meeting in November 1991 to discuss drawing up a charter of rights for people living with HIV / AIDS, which resulted in the formation of the AIDS Consortium. Achmat later became a key HIV / AIDS activist, and took up senior leadership positions in the World AIDS campaign and was later recruited by Peter Piot at UNAIDS.

Achmat left KT in 1992, and Eric Molobi was appointed as the Executive Director. Schütte maintains that Achmat “by his own admission, had become quite a controversial figure” for some of the more conservative governments that had supported apartheid but who now wanted to fund the development work. Achmat himself thought that Eric Molobi’s appointment was timely:

“The concept [of a development agency] had reached maturity and the time had come… to give momentum to this whole new development direction and Eric was ideally suited to that.…In a way this did two things: it removed the controversies and the arguments centred round me for many years so that the British government, for example, suddenly withdrew its opposition to Kagiso Trust. And secondly, it allowed us to introduce the development focus unambiguously…”

Achmat looked back with pride: “What we achieved…was, in a sense, to introduce to South Africa and to South African communities the sense that we could determine our destiny in development terms.” Father Mkhatshwa acknowledged Achmat’s legacy:

“When it became clear that the apartheid regime was going to end, KT, and the trustees, initiated programmes that generated income to ensure continuity and the sustenance of the work that had been started. Even after he left KT to take up other challenging responsibilities, he remained very contented that the foundation, very solid foundation that he had laid for KT, will continue and this is exactly what is continuing today. We really believe that his legacy will continue to inspire many young people now and in the future.”

Achmat Dangor Legacy Project interviews: Justine Dangor, Mohammed Dangor, Audrey Elster, Patrick Flusk, Horst Kleinschmidt, Glenn Moss, Ivan Vladislavić and Paul Weinberg

Africa is a Country, “Nadine Gordimer: Obituary”, https://africasacountry.com/2014/07/obituary-nadine-gordimer

Aghogho Akpome, ‘Human beings are far more layered than you see’ On Complexity, Identities and Otherness in the Creative Writing of Achmat Dangor An Interview in Africa Insight Vol 44(1) – June 2014

Aghogho Akpome, “We are here now. We must take responsibility: An Interview with Achmat Dangor, 2013.

Beschara Karam Athesis, “Putting a Future into Film: Cultural Policy Studies, the Arts and Culture Task Group and Film Reference Group (1980- 1997)”, MA, 1997, University of Natal, Durban

Sietse Bosgra, “Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa”, https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/DC%20Metadata%20Files/Gandhi-Luthuli%20Documentation%20Centre/2357/12/2357/12.pdf

Denis Brutus, “Literature and change in South Africa”, Research in African Literatures, vol. 24, no. 3, fall 1993, https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA14208486&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00345210&p=LitRC&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E9e8072e5&aty=open-web-entry

Aurella Chapman, “The Ties That Bind: The Relationship between Politics and Cricket in South Africa (1989-1992)”, MA, University of Stellenbosch, 2005

Yvette Christiansë, “Power struggles: Tsitsi Dangarembga & Achmat Dangor”, interview by, published on PEN’s website and dated April 3, 2007, https://pen.org/power-struggles-tsitsi-dangarembga-achmat-dangor/

Achmat Dangor, “summary CV”

Ilsa de Lange, “Duarte describes apartheid cop as ‘torture master’”, The Citizen, 17 August 2017, https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/apartheid-cop-was-torture-master-says-duarte/

Margreet de Lange, “The muzzled muse: Literature and censorship in South Africa, 1963- 1985”, PhD, City University of New York, 1993, https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/the19930000.010.000.pdf

Jane Duncan, “Cultural boycotts as tools for social change against the apartheid regime” Transformation, 92, 2016, https://transformationjournal.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/T92_Part6.pdf

EU, “Briefing Paper: EU-South Africa Cooperation: The Special Programme for Victims of Apartheid 1985 – 1994”

Patrick Flusk, ‘Tribute to an Outstanding Fallen Revolutionary Comrade’, https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=907699829682980&id=317843595335276

Julie Frederikse, Horst Kleinschmidt interview, https://africanactivist.msu.edu/record/210-849-19674/

Phillippa Garson, “D-day for Ravan”, Mail & Guardian, 8 August 1996, https://mg.co.za/article/1996-08-08-d-day-for-ravan/

Karen Hurt, “Interview with Achmat Dangor” for the Banned People’s Memory Project, 21 November 2019

Index on Censorship, “Ravan Press Petrol Bombed”, News & notes. (1987). Index on Censorship, 16(5), 3–6., https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=f6c8adfec1bdf456c&q=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/030642208701600502%3Fdownload%3Dtrue&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiZnuTWvpKIAxVvTaQEHQuRHnIQFnoECAIQAg&usg=AOvVaw3YLBiO6aK2S9iUGVzPpb-D

Stuart Jeffries, “Legacy of abuse” The Guardian, 14 Jan 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/14/southafrica.books

Kagiso Trust, Legacy of KT, https://www.kagiso.co.za/2018/05/10/legacy-of-kagiso-trust/

Simon Lewis, “Review of de Villiers, G.E., ed., Ravan Twenty-five Years (1972-1997): A Commemorative Volume of New Writing”, H-AfrLitCine, H-Net Reviews. February, 2000, available online, http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3781

Trevor Mannuel’s comments on the second conference and shifts in budget allocations https://nai.uu.se/library/resources/liberation-africa/interviews/trevor-manuel.html

Elizabeth Mehren, “U.S. Gathering Lures Third World: Writers, Editors, Critics Ponder the Meaning of Culture”, LA Times, 3 October 1986, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-03-vw-3997-story.html

Njabulo S. Ndebele, The Writers’ Movement in South Africa, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 20, No. 3, Fall 1989, p. 416.

Ben Okri, Interview with Achmat Dangor, BBC’s Arts and Africa Programme, African Service, London, 15 August 1986, https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/DC%20Metadata%20Files/Centre%20for%20African%20Literary%20Studies/ALS%204_5_6_1_34/ALS%204_5_6_1_34.pdf

Andries Olifant, “Interview with Achmat Dangor”, 1990 reprinted in 2020, https://mg.co.za/friday/2020-09-12-achmat-dangor-on-writing-and-change-2/

Mario Pissarra, “Imvaba in the ‘hub of the struggle buzz’, an interview with Annette du Plessis”, 23 June 2017, https://asai.co.za/imvaba-in-the-tte-du-plessis/

Ronel Scheffer, “Afrikaans writers struggle with transformation: signs of change … but where is the action?”, Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa, October/November 1990, Democracy in action, https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/DeOct90.1017.0243.000.000.Oct1990.2.pdf 

Ronel Scheffer, “Foreign Funding: govt keeps opponents in suspense”, Democracy in Action March 1989, IDASA’s director of publications quoted KT’s response to the bill, https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/DeMar89.1017.0243.000.000.Mar1989.23.pdf

Kgotso Schoeman (ed) Reflections: Kagiso Trust a Twenty-Year History, Kagiso Trust, circa 2005

Barbie Schreiner, “Report on the Progressive Arts Project” Staffrider, Vol 7, No 2, 1988.

Lauren Blythe Schutté (1997), The Kagiso Trust (South Africa). The Synergos Institute Voluntary Sector Financing Program Case Studies of Foundation-Building in Africa, Asia and Latin America, 1997, available online: https://www.kagiso.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/ktcasestudy_Synergos1997.pdf

Jeremy Seekings, Khehla Shubane, David Simon, An Evaluation of the European community / Kagiso Trust Civic and Advice Centre Programme, Final report, March 1993

Southern Africa Report, “Literature Beyond the Platitudes: An Interview with Achmat Dangor” in Southern Africa Report, Vol. 4 No. 1, July 1988, https://africanactivist.msu.edu/recordFiles/210-849-24343/sar0401.pdf

Sarah Smit, “Media Workers’ Union gets the Boot”, 13 August 2019, https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-13-media-workers-union-gets-the-boot/

Staff reporter, “Ravan: Child of a special time”, Mail & Guardian, November 1996, https://mg.co.za/article/1996-11-01-ravan-child-of-a-special-time/

Staff reporter, “Sol Plaatjie”, Mail & Guardian, https://mg.co.za/article/2016-09-30-00-native-life-100-after-sol-plaatje-published-it/

Synergos, “Achmat Dangor”, https://www.synergos.org/network/bio/achmat-dangor

Mike van Graan, “Towards a People’s Culture Arts Festival notices”, signed by Mike van Graan, http://historicalpapers-atom.wits.ac.za/uploads/r/historical-papers-research-archive-library-university-of-witwatersrand/6/c/f/6cfc5463ded8a96f3d3d8e3fdf1cf25e0dbca2006d0bbb2c6aef98842538c2ac/AG1977-A15-2-5-001-jpeg.pdf

Mike van Graan, “Plays”, https://mikevangraan.co.za/plays/some-of-our-best-friends-are-cultural-workers

Mike van Graan, “Arts in South Africa Under Existential Threat: We have to imagine and remake our society”, Daily Maverick, 20 September 2021, available online: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-09-20-arts-in-south-africa-under-existential-threat-we-have-to-imagine-and-remake-our-society/

Jim Wallis, “The House of Peace”, Sojourners Magazine, November 1988, https://sojo.net/magazine/november-1988/house-peace

Washington Post, “Jessie Duarte, senior aide to Nelson Mandela, dies at 68”, 18 July 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/18/duarte-mandela-south-africa-dies/

Website entries and posts

African National Congress

ANC, “Statement of the National Executive Committee on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the ANC”, 8 January 1987, https://www.anc1912.org.za/anc-january-8th-statements-1987/

Africa South Art Initiative

“FAWO”, https://asai.co.za/peoplesculture/film-allied-workers-organisation/, ASAI, “Towards a People’s Culture”, https://asai.co.za/peoplesculture/towards-a-peoples-culture-festival-1986/, “People’s Culture”, https://asai.co.za/peoplesculture/culture-workers-congress/

Digital Innovation South Africa

Rixaka: Cultural Journal of the ANC, 4, 1988, https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/Rin488.1684.811X.000.004.1988.pdf, UDF Statement, Fourth Anniversary of the UDF: Four Fighting Years, 20 August 1987, https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/art19870820.043.027.pdf

Historical Papers Research Archives

Kagiso Trust Guide to Applications, http://historicalpapers-atom.wits.ac.za/kagiso-trust-a-guide-to-applicants, Press cuttings: http://historicalpapers-atom.wits.ac.za/press-cuttings-and-correspondence-3

Nelson Mandela University

Nelson Mandela University, Rev Frank Chikane, https://www.mandela.ac.za/Leadership-and-Governance/Honorary-Doctorates/Rev-Frank-Chikane-2019, Jakes Gerwel, https://www.mandela.ac.za/Leadership-and-Governance/Honorary-Doctorates/Jakes-Gerwel-2008

O’Malley Heart of Hope entries

Five Freedoms Forum, O’Malley Heart of Hope, https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03201.htm, UDF entry https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03222.htm,

South African History Archive

Hlanganani Basebenzi: Commemorating South Africa’s Labour Movement, SAHA. https://www.saha.org.za/workers/index.htm and https://www.saha.org.za/udf/trade_unions.htm, “UDF defiance”, https://www.saha.org.za/udf/defiance.htm, “Under a State of Emergency”, https://www.saha.org.za/ecc25/ecc_under_a_state_of_emergency.htm, “The Doors of Culture Shall be Opened”, https://www.saha.org.za/imagesofdefinace/culture_the_doors_of_culture_shall_be_opened.htm, “Politics: Forward to People’s Power!”, Images of Defiance https://www.saha.org.za/imagesofdefinace/politics_forward_to_peoples_power.htm, “Troops Occupy Townships”, https://www.saha.org.za/udf/troops_occupy_the_townships.htm

South African History Online

“Allan Boesak”, https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/reverend-allan-aubrey-boesak, “People’s power”, https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/peoples-power-1986, “Progressive Arts Project”, https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive-files/spark_-_18_-_progressive_art_project.pdf, “State of Emergency South Africa 1960s and 1980s”, https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/states-emergency-south-africa-1960s-and-1980s and https://fwdeklerk.org/the-1985-and-1986-states-of-emergency/, “Mass Democratic Movement”, https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/mass-democratic-movement-february-1988-january-1990 and “New Nation and South banned”, https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/new-nation-and-south-newspapers-are-banned

Thebe entry Peta Mashinini, https://www.thebe.co.za/peta-mashinini-2/

Trialogue

“Frank Chikane”, https://trialogue.co.za/frank-chikane/

Wikipedia

Wikipedia entries: Ben Okri, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Okri, King Baudouin International Development Prize, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Baudouin_International_Development_Prize

Videos

Nelson Mandela Foundation, An Extraordinary Life: Remembering Achmat Dangor, 17 September 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FgWsVaq2mI&t=788s

SABC, “Poet and novelist, Achmat Dangor on his book titled ‘Dikeledi’”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ed_QEZGR9g&t=9s

Eugene Skeef, “Culture on Another South Africa (CASA) – ‘Before Dawn’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJWQVCEbDYE