The Ford Foundation in South Africa: 2
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LAFFTHE LAFF SOCIETY Promoting Social and Professional Contacts Among Former Staff Members of the Ford Foundation Summer 2015, No. 80 THE FORD FOUNDATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: 2 he newsletter published three articles in its Summer 2014 issue that provided Tdetailed background on the early work of the Ford Foundation in South Africa, and how its commitment to that country’s quest for “dignity, justice and equality” evolved. In this issue, two writers explore the development of that commitment through the crucial decade of the 1980s, when the Foundation played a pivotal role in creating the conditions that led to South Africa’s independence. David Bonbright, in an article written for the newsletter, examines the conditions Nelson Mandela and Franklin Thomas, president of the that “propelled our grantees” forward and Ford Foundation. Ford Foundation photo. considers the lessons learned. Then, in an article reprinted from Alliance Magazine and published originally in its Summer 2003 edition, he reviews the influential impact of the strategies pursued by a former president of the Foundation, Franklin Thomas, and of William Carmichael, a veteran of the Foundation’s international development programs, whom he describes as the “drivers” behind the Foundation’s “effectiveness in promoting social justice in South Africa”. The third article, by the late John Gerhart, also is a reprint of an article from Alliance Magazine, published in its March 2004 issue. In it he discusses the role of non-governmental organizations in meeting the needs of South Africans and draws lessons from that country’s experience to provide a blueprint for the development of a “healthy philanthropic sector”. THE FORD FOUNDATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: 2 A LOOK BACK AT FUNDING LIBERATION STRUGGLES by David Bonbright David Bonbright, who worked in the Foundation’s Africa and Middle East program from 1983 to 1987, a crucial period in South Africa’s modern history and its involvement with the Foundation, continues the story begun in the previous issue and examines the possibilities for “new areas for inquiry and discussion.” “What worked?” he asks. “What didn’t? Why? What are the lessons for social justice grantmaking today?” His “ruminations” on these and other questions “offer a couple of working hypotheses that currently preoccupy me.” he Foundation’s programming in South see law itself as illegitimate. grown stories to the global anti-apartheid Africa grew five-fold in what turned out We funded direct legal services—ranging canon. Tto be apartheid’s last decade, and had from community-based rights advice offices But the main thrust of these grants was to three inter-related and overlapping themes. to public-interest law litigation—and re- fund intermediary organizations of trained The first was human rights and fairness. We search. Both the direct service and research professionals who were directly supporting supported efforts to use the limited legal and work attracted the ire of the apartheid state, the broader liberation movement. Many pro- regulatory space available within the apart- with our grantees often attracting official vided legal representation for the black trade heid system to express and defend human persecution. The only progressive legal work unions and the pre-eminent national political rights and fairness principles. that we did not fund was the defence of the organization, the United Democratic Front, I cannot quote him exactly, but I remember politically accused as this had adequate fund- including the activist lawyers at the Centre for clearly the argument that Archbishop Des- ing from the international anti-apartheid Applied Legal Studies (CALS). mond Tutu made to us. He fully expected to movement and, in any case, would have been Many of these professional NGOs, includ- lose every case we brought to the courts. But challenged as being so directly political as to ing CALS, were predominantly white, with he felt that it was important to make the case be against United States law. roots in the more progressive universities that justice and law are not the same thing, I have long suspected it was our support and churches. They spanned every field of and that an unjust legal system can and must for human rights research—and in particular endeavor, from the environment and pre- be challenged. Otherwise people may come to support for the first scholarly book published schools to primary health care, rural develop- on torture in South Africa—that resulted in ment and distance education. They shared a my being declared persona non grata in 1987. clear purpose: to end apartheid and establish The LAFF Society The second theme was civil society. The democratic equality in social, economic and c/o Nellie Toma democratic resistance struggle in the 1970s political spheres. PO Box 701107, East Elmhurst, NY 11370 and 1980s spawned an astounding array of The third theme was black leadership. E-Mail: [email protected] associational activities inside South Africa. Sometimes we spoke of this work in instru- www.laffsociety.org Many of these were informally associated mental terms: the future will require black with the exiled political movements for liber- South Africans to run government and Shepard Forman, President ation. Within the limits of U.S. law (we could business. Sometimes in normative terms: de- Betsy Campbell and Suzanne Siskel, Vice Presidents not fund the most important black-led orga- mocracy in South Africa is intrinsically about Nellie Toma, Secretary-Treasurer nizations in the country, the trade unions), we black leadership. We took our cues from the Dorothy Nixon, Administrative Secretary Michele Cole, Administrative Secretary invested in the building blocks of organized few areas where black leadership was already civil society within a repressive nation-state. evident: the churches, the trade unions and EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Our lawyer grantees played an important NGOs aligned with the black consciousness Judy Barsalou John LaHoud role here as well, defending the right of citizen movement. The goal was to transform orga- Peter Geithner Janet Maughan groups to associate despite state persecution. nizations and communicate a clear message: Sheila Gordon Michael Seltzer South Africans, black and white, are church- white leaders had to move over and encour- goers, and we supported the high-profile age black leadership to emerge. ADVISORY BOARD organizations that associated themselves with To the historically white universities, we David Arnold Ruth Mayleas the liberation struggle, like the South African offered seed funding for programs to advance William Carmichael Mary McClymont Council of Churches, headed by then Bish- black graduate students and black faculty. At Peter Cleaves Mora McLean op Tutu, and the Southern African Catholic least one prominent university chose not to Joan Dassin Janice Molnar Bishops Congress. take up these grants on the grounds of a com- M. Lynn Huntley Sheila Nelson An important sub-theme was expression mon white liberal view against “positive dis- Mahnaz Ispahani Raymond Offenheiser Lance Lindblom S. Gowher Rizvi and voice. We tended not to fund the inter- crimination”. One of the beacon institutions Michael Lipsky Anthony Romero national anti-apartheid campaigns because of liberal ideology, the South African Institute Theodora Lurie Kerwin Tesdell we believed our scarce resources were best of Race Relations, lost its longstanding sup- invested in local voices. We supported the port from the Foundation when it missed the John LaHoud, Editor first black-led publishing house, Skotaville opportunity in the early 1980s to hire a black Nellie Toma, Assistant Editor Press, and a range of documentaries, plays person for even one of two leadership recruit- Susan Huyser, Graphic Designer and books that fed a steady stream of home- ments. Continued on next page 2 The LAFF Society / Summer 2015 but it was emasculated by the new democratic state. It certainly was not able to convince government to invest in the kinds of partici- patory and accountable governance that were the hallmarks of the liberation struggle. The former head of the largest trade union confederation, COSATU, and the Minister for Reconstruction and Development in the Mandela Government, Jay Naidoo, has argued in recent years that the greatest mistake of government after coming to power was the demobilization of civil society in the attempt to create a “development state”. Only now, as grassroots protest against incompetent, cor- rupt and unaccountable public services swells to a level that suggests electoral vulnerability, The black consciousness movement of the 1970s led by Steve Biko is the ANC beginning to look at working with unsettled and disrupted the world of old and young activists, white and black, with its critiques of white liberal politics and the “non-racial” civil society to cultivate citizen voice. tradition of the Congress movement. Fair use photo Steve Biko Founda- Black leadership today is a given. Our work tion (l). Sign from the apartheid era. Public domain, El C (r). in the 1980s to promote black leadership seems anachronistic now. Leadership today is One of the important sub-themes was the principles and away from the corrupting ef- not about who, but about how. How to root extent to which our grantees were conscious- fects of power. It is fair to say that the judicia- out growing corruption? How to help create ly modeling a post-apartheid society. The ry remains the bedrock and bulwark of South and support the citizen challenges that will black consciousness (BC) movement of the African democracy today, just as we hoped force the ANC to rediscover and renew its 1970s led by Steve Biko unsettled and dis- it would be when, controversially, we started internal democratic principles? How to build rupted the world of old and young activists, sending sitting apartheid judges (who were all an effective political opposition to the ANC? white and black, with its critiques of white white) to attend the Aspen Institute’s interna- How to transform the organizations of gov- liberal politics and the “non-racial” tradition tional human rights seminars.