The man who `can’t show mercy’
WILLIAM MAKGOBA was probably born arrogant. He is proud of this natural trait, which he sometimes refers to as self-confidence or self-assurance. It’s not his fault. He knows he’s intelligent and sees no point in hiding it. The problem is: he likes to ram it up other people’s noses.
“I am a first-rate, world-acclaimed African scientist,” he proclaims in his book Mokoko (the wake-up call). “In fact my CVs are an understatement of my achievements.”
It took him three months to write his 241- page version (some might consider it self- indulgent) of what we know as the Makgoba Affair – his turbulent battle with a group of 13 academics (12 whites and one black, led by Professor Charles van Onselen) for the soul of the University of the Witwatersrand, soon after he had been appointed deputy vice-chancellor.
But more about the university row later. I wanted to talk first about his ego. “Yes I’m arrogant, but I’ve done and achieved a lot in my life to be proud of,” he said with not a whiff of irony. “As a child I was always known to be that way.”
The eldest of nine children born to educated and well-to-do parents in Sekhukhuneland, Northern Pro-vince, Makgoba (45) said he was brought up to think that his brain was the most important thing about him. “We grew up knowing or believing that we were the best and most capable children.”
As leader of the pack (his own phrase), he was groomed to be “a successful machine academically”, which might account for him not interacting well with people, and keeping largely to himself in order to “reflect on things”.
We were lunching at the Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein. He had arrived early, casually dressed in a blue shirt with zips instead of buttons, which hung loosely over his khaki trousers. The hair looked greyer than I remembered from our last meeting in London about three years ago; and surprisingly, he appeared more relaxed.
“Your skin is looking much better than it did in London,” he said with the air of a man accustomed to speaking his mind. I wondered for a minute if he was flirting with me. “I’m a medical doctor,” he reminded me later. “You can tell a lot about a person’s health by their skin.” I still think he was trying to charm me.
The restaurant was very good, he said – also within walking distance of his office at the South African Institute of Medical Research in De Korte Street; which is convenient because Magkoba does not drive.
“I spend so much of my time thinking, that I never thought it was something I wanted to do in my life. My father doesn’t even ride a bicycle and I identify mostly with the things he does.” He paused briefly before adding that the one time he tried to drive on his own he had a nasty accident and decided to stick to science.
Only a day later, on the phone, he reminded me that the hotel was also the spot where Etienne Mureinik, one of the “Gang of 13”, chose to end his life last year by jumping from the 23rd floor.
Referring to the suicide and to reports of personal and career problems which others of the Gang have suffered, he sniffed: “I can’t show mercy when these people showed none for me.” I sensed a little boy hurt by bigger bullies who had tried to take away his marbles.
But Makgoba’s no wimp in need of defence. Actually, he can be quite brusque. Before we had even taken our seats in the elegant room, I made an error in calling him an academic. “Actually, I’m an intellectual not an academic,” he quickly corrected. Well, excuse me!
“What’s the difference?” I asked.
“An academic is someone employed in the business of teaching and doing research. An intellectual is someone who is reflective and looks at the wider issues affecting society … challenging authority all the time to improve the boundaries of human existence.”
Which is what Makgoba thinks he did in taking on the established white male liberal elite at Wits when he challenged their Eurocentric attitude to higher education.
He believes he was chosen for the Wits job because of the perception that he would be a compliant black man, happy to hold a prestigious title and earn a generous salary, while leaving real power in the hands of his white sponsors. “Like so many black South Africans seem to do at the moment.”
Because, during his 15-year absence, Makgoba had restricted himself to scientific instead of political struggles, the Wits power brokers (who were under pressure from outside to get a senior black face to reflect the new South Africa) also thought him to be apolitical and acultural.
So they panicked when their toy telephone turned out to have revolutionary ideas of usurping his masters’ position.
“I was not trying to change things overnight. I think what was discomfiting for people was that it was not expected of me because they had assumed when they recruited me that I was a token. That I had become Anglicised or Americanised in my time overseas.”
Van Onselen admitted after the row broke out that the man he was fighting was not the calm individual he had interviewed. “He is correct. I’m not a very fiery person. I’m at my best when I use a pen, because I express my thoughts naturally,” said Makgoba..
He does have a deceptively laid-back manner and delights in rocking the boat (though I think that Wits was more like sinking the Titanic). “I sometimes find it most satisfying to be living on the edge, or taking issues to the limit of debates, emotions, temperament or anger. These are the limits that break new ground and bring intellectual orgasm.”
I guessed Makgoba is an unemotional and calculating man – though admittedly he miscalculated badly with his approach to Wits – who can turn on the charm when it suits him. Though I also saw a man who carries anger that so many of his people have been denied access to the education and privileges he had.
He recalled his almost idyllic rural childhood: “The countryside environment was important in a number of ways: it was relatively free from the harsh realities of apartheid, as I later came to appreciate at boarding school.
“As a child I did not miss white culture or white people. I could not have cared less if they did not exist. As far as I was concerned, my world was happy devoid of them.”
It is not that he wants to get rid of whites. “When approached, I spent a year in London formulating my agenda. I wanted to transform and fundamentally change tertiary education to make it more African. We need intellectual transformation to reflect ideas and thought of the African culture.”
Both he and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, who wrote the foreword to the book, share the same dream of an African Renaissance in South Africa. “Wits should be a university that draws its inspiration from its African heritage and environment.”
He talked about setting targets for each tertiary institution to introduce affirmative action programmes, changing the curriculum and the cultural ethos. “The problem is the government has been trying to please white people to the detriment of blacks … We wait for the new leader with bated breath.”
Although he insisted his plan was not to “wipe out what we got from Europe, but to combine all our identities”, Makgoba believes most white South Africans are intrinsically racist, though many don’t even realise it.
“There is a level of subconscious racism that must have seeped into the minds of even white liberals. It is subliminal and has become part of the language.
“The liberal establishment realise that they will never have political power and can only influence the direction for this country by seizing control of institutions like education establishments, which they got by dint of apartheid.”
Makgobagate certainly brought the debate into the open. Although Makgoba stepped down from his position in the agreed settlement, he says his was a victory.
“I have lost nothing. My academic prestige remains intact despite the attempts to smear me. None of the allegations about me falsifying my CV were true – as I explain fully in my book.” In the words of the French chanteuse Edith Piaf, his credo is: “Je ne regrette rien (I regret nothing).”
So why did he reach a deal and quit, instead of standing his ground and fighting it out? Because, he said, there was pressure on both sides to settle the matter without more blood on the carpet. In any event, “the administration was not legitimate … no self-respecting intellectual would have stayed on as deputy vice-chancellor”.
Yet he took the job in the first place – and still remains at the university as professor of molecular immunology. “It’s not a demotion as some people think. I needed a position that was of the highest academic order in order to vindicate my academic standing and this is it.”