Advisor to Nelson Mandela was once a VUB student

Nelson Mandela is the figurehead of the struggle against South Africa’s apartheid regime. In 1962, he was arrested as leader of the ANC’s military branch and spent 27 years in prison. In 1994, four years after his release, he was elected president. VUB awarded him an honorary doctorate the previous year for his peaceful struggle for equality, the welfare of South Africa’s black population and his involvement and solidarity with oppressed peoples worldwide. But Mandela was not the first South African activist to be connected with VUB.

In 1971, Gert Johannes “Jakes” Gerwel (1946-2012) obtained a degree in Germanic philology at VUB as an international scholarship student. He then taught for several months at Bracefield Primary, a small school founded under the impetus of his parents, who were local farmers. Shortly afterwards, he went on to teach Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). In 1979, he returned to VUB to earn his PhD in Germanic literature with the thesis Literature and Apartheid. He was appointed professor and head of the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at UWC in 1980, and head of the Faculty of Arts two years later.

Courageous and pioneering

Professor Gerwel was an exceptional, courageous and pioneering South African intellectual, scholar, leader, activist and citizen with a deep commitment to equality, social justice and democracy. A product of historically disadvantaged schools in the Eastern Cape, he had to fight against the dictates of the regime in which black people had no place. In a country still facing the great challenge of improving education and harnessing the potential of all young people, he became an example of the country boy who achieved remarkable success under adverse conditions and an inspiration for generations to come.

Intellectual Home of the Left

Gerwel built the UWC’s Department of Afrikaans and Dutch into the largest at a South African university, at precisely the time when the radical community was speaking out vehemently against Afrikaans as the language of the oppressor. After his appointment as rector of UWC in 1987, Gerwel, a staunch supporter of the black consciousness ideology of activist Steve Biko – who had been gruesomely murdered by the regime in 1977 – unequivocally rejected the apartheid principles on which UWC was based. He wanted a university that would connect with people and institutions working to fundamentally change the old colonial order. At the same time, he transformed the university into an “intellectual home of the Left”, a home for those who openly opposed the government’s inhumane policies. That non-violent struggle against apartheid on campus intensified under his leadership. Students praised him as the man who stood between them and the Casspirs, the heavily armed armoured vehicles of the South African riot police.

Political career

In 1987, Gerwel was a member of the historic delegation to Dakar that held talks with members of the ANC who were living in exile at the time. Participants included Thabo Mbeki (Mandela’s later successor), Pallo Jordan (who worked for the ANC in London and narrowly survived a bomb attack by South African intelligence services), Frederick van Zyl Slabbert (leader of the official opposition in South Africa’s then-white parliament between 1979 and 1986), human rights activist Franklin Sonn and writers Breyten Breytenbach and André Brink.

Gerwel was elected to the ANC’s Western Cape regional committee in 1991, but continued his work at the UWC. In 1994, Zola Skweyiya, minister of public services and administration, asked if he would be willing to become director-general of President Mandela’s cabinet. He turned out to be ideal for the role, because he had experience of transforming an institution at a time when the whole of South Africa needed to be transformed. For Mandela himself, Gerwel became his personal speechwriter, adviser, right-hand man and friend.

Major role

Gerwel played a major role in the transition from apartheid to the establishment of constitutional democracy and was internationally respected in government circles. He was a member of several government and cabinet committees, chair of the Standing Committee of Senior Officials of the Southern African Development Community and presidential envoy to several international missions. He was Mandela’s envoy in negotiating the extradition of the two suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing. For this service, Mandela awarded him the Order of the Southern Cross in 1999.

After Mandela’s presidency, Gerwel oversaw a number of his philanthropic foundations and scholarship funds and became rector of Rhodes University in 1999. He also served on several boards, including a media company and a holding company of healthcare institutions. Close friends said he did this not as a businessman but because the South African business community was in need of conscientious people.

Gerwel received honorary doctorates from Clark College Atlanta, City University of New York, University of Cape Town, University of the Western Cape, Rhodes University, University of the Witwatersrand, University of Natal, University of Missouri-Columbia, Stellenbosch University, University of the Free State, University of Pretoria, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Monash University.

Professor Jakes Gerwel died on 26 November 2012 following bypass surgery.