Partnerships based on history

Known as ‘the university of the left’ in the 1980s, the University of the Western Cape (UWC) played a prominent part in the anti-apartheid struggles of that decade.

In 1987 the then Rector of the university, Prof Jakes Gerwel, set up a committee to investigate the idea of a kind of ‘holocaust museum’ for apartheid. Dr André Odendaal was asked to take the idea forward, and he spent 1988 and 1989 in England, visiting international heritage projects and working closely with the then banned ANC and the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF).

On his return to South Africa, Dr Odendaal was asked by UWC to set up the Mayibuye Centre for History and Culture, which he did between 1990 and 1992. The Centre soon established itself as a pioneering ‘alternative’ project, and built up a large collection of multi-media material on apartheid and the struggle. Through its conferences, exhibitions, publications, lobbying activity and policy input, the Centre played an important role in the heritage andcultural sectors during the build-up to democracy.

In 1994 the Centre produced 14 exhibitions, which travelled overseas as well as to 21 South African towns and cities. The Mayibuye History and Literature Series became one of the biggest university-based publishing ventures in the country, with 91 titles published under its imprint.

The Centre received numerous donations of material from organisations and individuals involved in the struggle. The core collection came from IDAF; after the unbannings in South Africa and the closure of IDAF, the ANC recommended that IDAF’s extensive archives relocate to the Mayibuye Centre.

In the mid-1990s, representatives of the Centre were actively involved in the cultural structures and planning processes of the new government: within the Arts and Culture Task Group to develop new national policies; on writing committees for new heritage legislation; and as advisers on special projects. The Centre was also requested by government to help set up the Robben Island Museum.

In 1996 Cabinet recommended that the Mayibuye collections be incorporated into the new Robben Island Museum. After intensive negotiations between RIM and UWC, the Centre was disbanded in April 2000 and its collections incorporated as requested.

Part of the above agreement provided for long-term co-operation between the two institutions. The Robben Island Heritage Training Programme (RITP), aimed at developing heritage managers for the future, is one example of the practical benefits of this co-operation. Co-ordinated by both UWC and the University of Cape Town, it is the first post-graduate course in South Africa to be awarded jointly by two universities. So far more than 100 students have studied this course, which includes two nine-week internships on the Island.

The University of the Western Cape has in this way contributed significantly to the development of RIM as the first national museum of the new democracy, as well as to the creation of the unique multi-media collections it manages.

The IDAF story began in 1956 when Canon John Collins of St Paul’s Cathedral in London agreed to guarantee the defence costs of Chief Albert Luthuli, later to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the other 155 political leaders on trial for treason after the historic Congress of the People in 1955 produced the Freedom Charter.

A ‘treason trial fund’ was set up, which paid not only for the legal costs of the trial, which lasted for four years, but also assisted the dependants of the trialists. After the trial, which saw the dismissal of charges against all the accused, ‘Defence and Aid’ was formed. In the days after Sharpeville and the bannings of the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress, the organisation continued its work of supporting trialists and their families.

The Defence and Aid Fund had offices in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. When Nelson Mandela and his co-accused appeared in the famous Rivonia Trial in 1963–64, Defence and Aid procured an outstanding legal team which defeated the prosecution’s call for the death sentence. The South African government responded in 1966 by banning the Fund.

As a result, Canon Collins and others took the organisation — which was renamed The International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa – underground in South Africa, and new offices were set up at Amen Court, in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. Later, IDAF national committees opened in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, the United States and Ireland, where the committees help to sensitise public opinion and put pressure on their governments to assist the struggle against racist South Africa.

Canon Collins set about devising a sophisticated method of payment of legal and other fees using numbered trust accounts in Swiss banks. Money came mainly from the United Nations and the Scandinavian countries. South African government spies were unable to penetrate this complex, layered system, which was only properly understood by a handful of people committed to the struggle.

Interestingly, IDAF became the South African legal profession’s most reliable employer, with more than 150 attorneys and 80 advocates on its books. Few of these legal eagles knew where the money was coming from. In 1990 alone IDAF pumped R35 million into South African political trials. Compare this to the R17 million paid by the state in legal aid for all criminal trials in that year!

Without IDAF’s millions the mass of men and women in political trials over three decades would have entered the dock at a distinct disadvantage, without adequate and experienced representation. There is no doubt that many were saved from the gallows and long jail terms because of such good legal help. In addition, IDAF also provided the families of many political prisoners with regular support grants.

With the unbanning of the liberation movements in February 1990, the IDAF trustees decided to terminate the Fund’s 10-million pounds a year operation in London. IDAF’s public face in the years of clandestine activity was its publicity and information department, the material of which today forms the core of the Robben Island Museum collections. Its task was to keep the conscience of the world alive to the issues at stake in South Africa.

‘The apartheid regime produced an increasing flow of information through its embassies and because of state suppression of alternative views, the media, scholars, researchers, businesses and tourists made increasing use of the South African government’s propaganda, reinforcing conservative, even racist responses to the liberation struggle,’ says Barry Feinberg, who worked for IDAF from 1975 to 1991 and was IDAF’s Director of Information for most of that period. Consequently IDAF became the nerve centre of an information counter-offensive by the broad international anti-apartheid movement, and much material was generated, which students and researchers can now study in the new UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye Archives.