Mac Maharaj, Special Envoy to the President, trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and veteran of the freedom struggle will deliver the DCS Oosthuizen Memorial Lecture on Academic Freedom at Rhodes University on 29 September.
Maharaj has a long and illustrious career in politics, law, government and now business, and credentials that make him the ideal choice for this memorial lecture, which honours the extra-ordinary DCS “Daantjie” Oosthuizen, Professor and HOD of Philosophy at Rhodes from 1958 until his untimely death at the age of 43 in 1969.
Alan Paton delivered the first DCS Oosthuizen Memorial Lecture in 1970 and described Oosthuizen as “a South African whose love of his country was deep and loyal, surpassed only by his love of mankind.”
Oosthuizen received his undergraduate degree from the University of Stellenbosch, then went on to post-graduate studies in the Netherlands, at Oxford and in the USA and obtained his Doctorate (cum laude) in 1955. Probably one of the youngest ever professors at Rhodes, Oosthuizen’s academic brilliance was matched by an unflinching search for truth and justice, even if it courted controversy or rendered him persona non grata with his fellow-Afrikaners.
Born in KZN in 1935, Maharaj started his studies at the University of Natal as a part-time student and almost immediately became involved in student resistance politics and journalism, as a member of the SRC and editor of the student newspaper. He completed his BA in 1955, but left for the UK in 1957 as he was unable to complete his law degree studies anywhere in South Africa. He resumed his law studies at the London School of Economics, but returned to South Africa in 1962 at the request of the Congress movement to serve in the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe while also working for a firm of attorneys.
In 1964, Maharaj was arrested on charges of sabotage and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment on Robben Island. Whilst in prison, he completed a Bachelor of Administration, an MBA and two years of a BSc degree. But perhaps his most lasting achievement during that time was his role in copying Nelson Mandela’s memoirs in miniscule handwriting on thin sheets of paper that could be taken out of prison and would form the basis for Mandela’s legendary autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, published in 1995.
Upon his release, Maharaj was immediately served with a five-year banning order prohibiting him from leaving his home at night and was not allowed to take up employment in central Durban. He escaped and spent 12 years in exile, after which followed a period of intense political and resistance activity, and even renewed arrest, as a member of the highest structures within the ANC, until the election of a new democratic government in 1994. He was appointed Minister of Transport for five years, then had spells in the business and academic world, all the while teaching, writing and editing work on the struggle for freedom in South Africa.
Brenda Schmahmann, chairperson of the Academic Freedom Committee, summed up the advantage of having someone of the calibre of Maharaj, who has personally experienced severe restrictions to his freedom of movement and speech, to deliver the lecture on this important occasion: “Given his history as well as the perspectives he will have gleaned in terms of his current position, we envisage that he will have rich and nuanced insights about issues to do with freedom of expression.”
Pic source: The Times website.