Ziwani’s podcast series Big Change: How Ordinary Christians Change Their World explores how Christians can drive significant change in society. Jonathan Wilson is co-founder and Managing Partner at ThirdWay Capital, a venture holding company investing in and scaling small-to-medium businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. Simon Lerefolo qualified as a mechanical engineer, worked for Unilever, and now serves as senior pastor of Every Nation Rosebank. This summary was written by Lise-Marie Keyser, and you can listen to the full episode here.
Introduction
In this third article of the series, Jonathan Wilson and Simon Lerefolo recall the incredible stories of Christians who greatly contributed to South Africa’s transition into a democracy. They discuss the important role played by these largely forgotten, behind-the-scenes heroes – as a vivid example of ‘big change’ in history.
Apartheid was an explicitly racist system of government that for almost 50 years (1948–1994) enforced racial segregation and political, social, and economic discrimination against non-white people in South Africa. By the 1980s this powerful system had become so entrenched in the country that even those opposed to it believed that it could only end through civil war. Yet end it did, and without the expected bloodshed and destruction.
How did reconciliation become a possibility? And what can we learn from the process? As Simon reminds us, “If we don’t learn from history, we are prone to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
Anti-apartheid activism
Growing up in Ikageng township outside Potchefstroom in the North West, Simon joined the anti-apartheid struggle while still in high school. He resented that the government had stolen the vast farmland belonging to his father’s family. He resented the disparities between blacks and whites that were evident everywhere, such as the dusty barrenness in the township set against the tar roads and lush gardens in town. He resented that his parents had accepted the status quo. “You’re told you can’t live there. That’s white privilege. That’s what they have. This is what we have. There’s nothing you can do about it. And obviously, the anger builds up,” he remembers.
After a few late-night encounters with the police, Simon’s father realised his son was heading for jail, or death – and decided to send him to boarding school in Bophuthatswana. “To protect me,” says Simon. “I was still angry. But under the homeland government, if there were any protests in your school, they sent in the army. That’s how we were silenced.” It turned out that this three-year exile ‘saved’ Simon in more ways than one, however, because during that time he ended up converting to Christianity. “That was a turning point for me. It gave me hope that there’s a way to engage the apartheid government in a different way, without having to be violent.” “When you encounter Christ,” Jonathan agrees, “you receive God’s generous gift of forgiveness and reconciliation. Out of that gift can you start extending the same to others.”
A repentant church
Sadly, the institutional church was divided in this time. On the one hand, many white Christians supported the apartheid government, and especially the Dutch Reformed Church were known to use a warped theology to support the ideology. On the other, there were many who were saying, “No, this is evil. What can we do to change it?”
By November 1990, 300 representatives of 85 churches met to “confess our sin and acknowledge our part in the heretical policy of apartheid which has led to such extreme suffering for so many in our land.” They admitted its devastating consequences, including “the emergence of a social climate in which violence and death rather than cooperation and life have become the norm.”[1] Together they drafted the highly significant Rustenburg Declaration, which urgently called on leaders from the state, political parties, and civil society to come together, and discuss strategies to bring an end to the violence.
This resulted in the National Peace Accord (NPA), which was signed by all major political and labour leaders in June 1991. And by the end of that year, the Conference for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) had been created as a forum through which negotiations between the National Party government and other political groupings could take place. Eventually this resulted in the drafting of an Interim Constitution in 1993 – which paved the way for the first democratic elections.[2]
Widespread violence and destruction
“That’s not to say there wasn’t major opposition to this process of negotiating with your sworn enemies,” Simon comments. For example, about 3,000 members of the right wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and the Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF) tried to disrupt CODESA by storming in with guns, and actually driving into the venue with an armoured vehicle. And in the townships the tensions were very high, even between black tribes. “In Ikageng,” Simon recalls, “groups of Zulu men would roam the streets. And if they found you walking alone at night, they would basically kill you.”
“You couldn’t have asked for a more toxic situation,” Jonathan remembers. “Through the 1980s and early 1990s South Africa was convulsed with violence. There were killings in the townships almost on a daily basis.” The assassination of Chris Hani. The massacre at St James Church in Kenilworth. The infamous incident of Amy Biehl, an American anti-apartheid activist, who was pulled from her car in Gugulethu township by a mob and stoned to death. “It just felt like everything that could go wrong was going wrong, and that everybody who had an opportunity to do something destructive was doing it.”
Within international diplomatic circles and within the country itself, everyone knew South Africa was dangerously close to the edge of a precipice. The political stand-off was so severe that the international mediation team abandoned all hope. As he left, well-known American diplomat Henry Kissinger exclaimed, “I have never been on such a catastrophic mission, and its failure now has cataclysmic consequences for South Africa.”[3]
Sworn enemies in the same room
Yet at the same time there were those who had been, and still were, pursuing consensus-building outside official channels. One of them was Michael Cassidy, a Christian who throughout the 1980s and 1990s consistently and carefully built relationships across the political spectrum. “Even with people that most of us would find problematic to have a relationship with, like an outspoken white supremist,” Jonathan comments. “This made Michael an easy target, because conservatives could call him a communist. And those who were more liberal could say he was too conservative. Maybe the very fact that he could be accused by both sides, showed his commitment to include everyone.”
By 1993, Michael had enough relational capital to host opposing political leaders at a series of Dialogue Encounters. “These were secret meetings in a luxury bush lodge that took place over two or three days,” Jonathan explains. “Each encounter brought together 12 to 15 people, who utterly hated one another. They would arrive with their bodyguards and would have to leave their weapons at the door.”
Three ingredients made those encounters incredibly powerful: first, each person would share their life story with the others in the room. “When you hear your enemy describe the horrific things that had happened to them and their families, you start to connect with them, with their humanity,” Jonathan explains. Second, they did fun things like bush drives together. “Again, it was about stripping away all the things that come between people and allowing them to have a common experience in beautiful surroundings.” Third, Michael would ask each person to describe the future South Africa they wanted for their kids. “Everyone realised that essentially they want the same things. They want peace, they want access to education, they want jobs, they want a flourishing society.”
Later, a prominent political leader admitted that if it hadn’t been for those Dialogue Encounters, working together on critical issues like drafting an Interim Constitution would have been impossible. “This is the history of South Africa that you don’t hear about,” Simon sighs. “This was not front page news. But that mediation helped salvage the future of South Africa. You think about a right wing leaders, left wing leaders. You think about people who are sworn enemies sharing a meal together, hearing each other’s stories, and then dreaming about the future together. That was a turning point in the politics of South Africa. Literally.”
The partnership of faith and work
Another key intervention by Michael was inviting Washington Okumu from Keyna (who was also a Christian) onto the mediation team.[4] He recognised that “this was an African problem, and it required an African presence. Western diplomats were not going to bridge this great divide on their own,” Jonathan explains. “Okumu was extremely skillful, but he must have hardly slept. He was traveling back and forth across the country for months, trying to align everyone’s demands and counter-demands. It was really hard work.”
At the same time, Christians initiated a prayer network across the country, which kept going 24/7 for two years non-stop. “That Christians from all races were humbly and consistently calling on God to intervene in South Africa definitely changed things in the spiritual realm,” Simon says.
When negotiations broke down between the African National Congress (ANC), the Nasionale Party (NP) and the militaristic Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Michael and Washington made one last desperate attempt to meet with then-IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, but they arrived at Lanseria airport too late. A malfunctioning compass forced the pilots had to turn the plane around and land back at Lanseria, however, where they were still waiting on the runway.[5] “Some would call it divine intervention, others a lucky coincidence, but when the technical crew on the ground checked the compass and other instruments, there was nothing wrong,” smiles Jonathan.
On 17 April 1994 (literally only 10 days before the planned elections) the major political players at last reached an agreement – in the VIP lounge at the Jesus Peace Rally at Kings Park stadium in Durban, with about 25,000 people praying in the background.[6] As Simon points out, “It just shows the importance of the spiritual side and the practical side. It is important for us as Christians to realise the partnership of the two – while we are praying, what are we doing practically to be the answer to problems facing our society?”
The world recognises a miracle
So South Africa held its first democratic elections on 27 April 1994, and elected its first representative government during a period of unprecedented peace. “The headlines from the time are fascinating,” says Jonathan. “Even the secular press admitted that something extraordinary had taken place.” Here is just a sample: ‘History has thrown up an authentic miracle’ (Time magazine), ‘Faith had role in apartheid’s end’ (Boston Sunday Globe), ‘How God stepped in to save South Africa’ (The Daily News in Durban), and ‘The Jesus Peace Rally tipped the scales’ (BBC).
“This is at least part of the story of how South Africa became a democratic country,” Jonathan concludes. “And if the story had followed its natural course, Kissinger would probably have been right. But it didn’t! Looking back there is no way you cannot attribute what happened (and what didn’t happen) to the hand of God and to the work of God’s people.”
Conclusion
“What I learn from this,” Jonathan declares, “is that we need to take responsibility for the environment we’re in – whether we caused it to be the way it is, or whether we didn’t. After 30 years of democracy, we have a fresh opportunity to rise to the occasion as Christians did then, and engage in radical and sacrificial efforts of collaborative compromise that chart a healthier way forward for South Africa as a whole, instead of each stakeholder pursuing their own interests at the expense of others.”
Simon agrees, “Yes. We may not be at fault, but we are responsible. We may not have contributed to apartheid in the past, but we live with its legacy in the present. Are we blaming the politicians for the problems in our country, or are we asking, ‘How can I be part of the solution?’ If we started thinking that way as Christians, we can again play a significant role in big change.”
[1] https://kerkargief.co.za/doks/bely/DF_Rustenburg.pdf
[2] https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/peacebuilding-in-south-africa-a-historical-overview
[3] Cassidy, Michael. 1995. A Witness Forever: The Dawning of Democracy in South Africa. Hodder & Stoughton, p.168.
[4] https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-04-11-sas-1994-election-was-saved-by-a-kenyan-the-fascinating-story-of-washington-okumu-the-accidental-mediator/
[5] https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll/
[6] https://michaelcassidyandfriends.org/2017/08/14/jesus-peace-rally/
