Anthony Egan
Portraits of Power: Profiles in a Changing South Africa by Mark Gevisser (David Philip, R59,99)
Readers of the Mail & Guardian will need no introduction to Mark Gevisser’s profiles of South Africa’s powerful, famous and infamous. Regular readers of his column may, in fact, wonder whether they deserve a re-reading . The short answer is: they do.
It is all too easy to reduce history to a Great Man narrative (or indeed, in our case, a Madiba narrative), but Gevisser manages to avoid such temptation admirably. One manages to see each subject within his or her contexts (political, cultural, religious or even military), interacting with other persons, products of their circumstances yet also actors within them.
Gevisser’s approach combines the empathy of a psychoanalyst with the critical eye of an investigative journalist. He usually gives each subject the benefit of the doubt, lets them defend themselves if necessary, but does not hesitate to press them to answer difficult questions.
An added bonus is Gevisser’s command of language and understanding of his subject’s backgrounds. Add to this a sense of the ironic or humorous and what we have in Portraits of Power is a book that is not only highly informative but also well- written and very enjoyable.
The people interviewed include government ministers and deputy-ministers (Gill Marcus, Bantu Holomisa, Zola Skweyiya, Brigitte Mabandla, Trevor Manuel, among others), regional premiers (such as Raymond Mhlaba, Mathews Phosa, and Tokyo Sexwale), academic and cultural figures (Hugh Masekela, Anant Singh, Mbongeni Ngema, Malegapuru Makgoba, Charles van Onselen), religious,political and trade union leaders (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris, Sam Shilowa).
They are all revealing portraits of the shifting social realignments of the new South Africa. Ironically, since publication some of the subjects interviewed here have shifted quite dramatically. Gevisser’s book has become part of the record of such “seismic” activity.
ANTHONY EGAN