Jaspreet Kindra
Banking on Change by Helena Dolny (Viking)
Rainbow Nation revisited by Donald Woods (Andre Deutsch)
So was there a concerted effort led from the top to remove anti-apartheid activist Helena Dolny from the helm of the Land Bank? And did Dolny, a lefty in her own right and the widow of the South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo, really give herself the alleged 123% increase?
These questions are raised by events which dragged Dolny into the glare of media attention in 1999. Banking on Change is her account of the saga.
But the book is much, much more than that. It is one of the most fascinating texts on contemporary South Africa. In fact it is the only significant book on the transformation of former apartheid institutions to have emerged since the country went democratic seven years ago.
Dolny paints an extraordinary picture of this “Kafkaesque citadel”, as she describes the Land Bank, where white patriarchy reigned supreme, three years after apartheid structures had been dismantled. Black employees ate separately and were served a plate of pap, vleis and gravy free of charge. All the women and black staff wore uniforms. The explanation offered was that since they took home smaller salaries, the uniforms represented a saving for them. Amazingly enough, two of the women who had made it as senior directors still wore uniforms.
Dolny writes amusingly: “The men, had, however, decreed that on Friday the women could choose to wear their own clothing if they so wished. Even this dispensation had limitations the white tribal patriarchy enjoyed laying down the law and up until a few months before my arrival Friday’s own clothing choice did not extend to the wearing of trousers! By now I could imagine the 11 elderly white male deputy general managers gathered in Conference Room One on the ninth floor deliberating whether or not to grant women employees the right to wear trousers on Friday.”
Within a couple of years, after numerous battles with a hostile clientele comprising white rightwingers and an equally hostile top management Dolny ushered in a new work environment of debate into the bank. She had seven new directors in place, five of whom were black. There was now a Mmoloki Legodu being welcomed as head of the bank’s branch in the deep ultra right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging heartland of Potchefstroom by Eugene Terre’Blanche. There was the tea lady Hope, who had been studying accounting at night school; with a bit of encouragement she was now working in the accounting department.
But it was not only racial transformation Dolny set in motion. She soon had the stifled members of management and women who had had to take a back seat opening up and performing. But, ironically, Dolny was somewhat politically naive, and did not realise that support for her at the top had waned with the removal of Derek Hanekom from the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs. The new minister, Thoko Didiza, surrounded herself with advisers who resented Dolny and felt it was now time for a black face at the top. Dolny was condemned, charged with racism, forced to go on leave. She fought back and won. It’s classic material for a Hollywood movie in the little-guy-versus-the-establishment tradition. But she still had to go.
That gives a sad ring to Dolny’s story. Here is an individual born in England to working-class immigrant parents; after school, she opts to teach children in Zambia, loses religion for African spirituality. She decides to pursue a subject of study which will bring a substantive change to the lives of the rural poor agricultural economics. She finds herself in South Africa, chooses to become a member of the African National Congress and a citizen of the country because she believes in it.
Despite the “Night of the Long Knives”, Dolny was recently voted on to the executive of her predominantly black local ANC branch. She expresses no bitterness:”So many comrades had stood by me in the last few months that I felt indebted; it was right that I should begin to give something back.”
After Dolny’s personal account, Donald Woods’s Rainbow Nation Revisited, which promises an insight into the transformed South Africa, is a disappointment. From the man who gave us the incisive Asking for Trouble (his account of his relationship with the Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve Biko), his new offering though well written does not enlighten us about the new South Africa. It’s about Woods, who spends time between England and South Africa, revisiting South Africa. It translates into an account of revisiting Asking for Trouble, which I would rather just reread.