/ 16 April 2012

Eugene Saldanha: The man who saw too much

Eugene Saldanha: The Man Who Saw Too Much

For his 13th birthday, the veteran activist Eugene Saldanha wrote a letter to his son, Keegan.

“You and I are presently engaged in a relentless negotiation about your 13th birthday present. Though I am, as always, almost ready to give in to your persuasion about getting you a new Pentium four computer, I am also aware of how momentous the period you are about to enter is: as you enter pre-adolescence and adolescence, there will be many changes in your life. The most important ones will be in you, though it will not always seem that way.

“I am therefore writing this letter to you so that in the years that follow, you will keep this and return to it from time to time to remind yourself that though life will get difficult, challenging, confusing, even exhausting, all those emotions are simply part of life’s journey on your way to adulthood. Most importantly, so that you will know that when I place pressure on you to take responsibility for yourself and others, to read more, work harder, and accept failure with the same fortitude that you accept success, you will know it is because you are loved and treasured by me and the other adults in your life.”

Nine months later, on a Sunday morning in September of 2006, Saldanha shot himself. He died in his bedroom in 15 Adam Tas Road, De Wetshof, Johannesburg. He was 47 years old.

Born in Boksburg on November 18 1958, Saldanha grew up in Actonville on the East Rand of Johannesburg and was raised by his mother, Carmelita Saldanha, a teacher and single parent. From an early age, he displayed an unyielding sense of responsibility and justice toward those closest to him, and toward those whom he had never met.

His drive to attain social justice, say family members, came from his family’s experiences under apartheid.

“The whole Saldanha family was moved from Boksburg to Benoni under the Group Areas Act,” his brother, Western Cape High Court Justice Vincent Saldanha, said. “Our family had a tremendous mixture of ethnicity, race and culture. So the notion of being classified as one race was absurd, almost hurtful. I think that sowed the seeds of rebellion that later translated into political activism.”

After attending Actonville Primary and then William Hills High School, he completed a BA in law in 1978 at the University of Durban-Westville, now the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 1993, he completed his diploma in marketing management at the University of South Africa and later received a Master’s in business administration cum laude at the Midrand graduate institute’s Milpark Business School. He completed another master’s degree in philosophy at the University of Johannesburg in 2005. He had plans to complete his doctorate in philosophy at Boston University in the United States at the time of his death.

As a journalist for the Star newspaper from 1980 to 1986, Saldanha was a strong activist for human rights. It was a volatile time and he was strongly influenced by the Black Consciousness Movement, while his narrative centred on township life. Flipping through the headlines of his newspaper articles, his focus becomes clear: “Coloured families out in the cold”, “Candle light protest against evictions” and “Reform: Indians draw battle lines”.

During his years as a journalist, Saldanha’s activism extended beyond the workplace. Family friend Karuna Singh says Saldanha was involved in political activism for as long as she can remember. In the 1980s, while still with the Star he was part of the Benoni Student’s Movement: “They started a bursary fund and a soccer tournament,” Singh recalls. “They wanted to politicise and activate students.”

During that time editorial policy often led to censored copy. Vincent said that black journalists were not usually assigned to cover major stories — such as prominent political trials. Several such trials took place during Saldanha’s stint as a Star journalist, including the Silverton trial and Soekmekaar trial in 1980, the Pietermaritzburg treason trial in 1984 and the Sharpeville Six murder trial in 1985. Vincent said that, within this climate of censorship and restrictions placed on black journalists, Saldanha became increasingly frustrated with the media.

After Saldanha left the Star at 1986, he did a stint at Diamond Field Advertiser — a small community newspaper in Kimberly. With no end to his frustration in sight, he left that publication in 1987 and exited journalism. But he kept a close eye on the newspapers.

“I remember on Sunday mornings, he’d sit with a pile of Sunday newspapers and a red pen,” recalls Vincent. “He’d fix the grammar and criticise every story. He would moan the whole way through. He became very irritated with the papers.”

After 1987, he began working in the civil society sector. He knew that, to benefit from democracy, people needed to be educated to know what their rights were. From 1987 until 1995, Saldanha worked as the resources executive at the Urban Foundation, an organisation that worked to ensure access to shelter for poor, improving teachers’ skills and furthering preschool education as well as lobbying to change policies that would allow black South Africans property ownership and freedom of movement.

After a brief stint as assistant general manager with the Small Business Development Corporation in Johannesburg, Saldanha helped to establish and headed up two organisations: The Non-Profit Partnership and the Charities Aid Foundation, Southern Africa.

The former focused on improving governance and management for non-profit organisations. Formally founded in 1998, at a time when non-profits were closing down because international funding was diverted to the new democratic government, the NPP sought to help desperate charities from closing their doors. The Charities Aid Foundation in South Africa was an offshoot of the CAF in London.

The CAF focuses on grant-making and assisting donors to make effective social investments. Although formally founded in 2000, Saldanha worked from 1997 to establish the CAF. While there, he was successful in lobbying government to grant tax-exemption status to non-profits.

But Vincent said the NGO sector was an unlikely area for Saldanha to work.

“He became increasingly frustrated because there was no sense of sustainability,” said Vincent. “He thought that money could be better used to promote investment; he was also frustrated with the fact that NGOs relied on hand-outs from business and grant-makers, instead of generating their own income.” Eventually Saldanha moved away from the NGO sector, leaving CAF in 2004.

After that, he was seconded on a contractual basis by the national treasury to assist in the drafting of the Finance Intelligence Centre Act but despite its lucrative beckoning, Saldanha never entered politics or government. “In later years, he became extremely cynical because of politicians who had amassed wealth,” Vincent says.” He was a dire and avid supporter of the ANC, but he became increasingly disenchanted.”

In January 2006 he joined Print Media South Africa, and was employed there at the time of his death.

Saldanha was known for being eccentric and controversial — he never did anything halfway. “All the complexities of this individual, with all his crazy faults — every time I speak to someone about him, I see a new perspective. He lived his life hard, and well. He had to make a difference [in his work],” says Vincent. “If not, he became angry and frustrated, which made him even more grumpy.”

He was not always easy to get along with: “He was always seen as a difficult person,” recalls his cousin, Anastasia Peters-Francis. While those close to him describe him as a “very serious” person, at the same time, he was also known as a “joker”.

“He had a very playful side. He loved jazz — Miles Davis was his favourite,” says Peters-Francis.

Saldanha was very committed to family. “He went out of his way to meet family members which I never knew existed. He was the connection between the different strands of the family. He was very good with children. He loved them. He had a very special link with all the kids in the family,” said Vincent.

He was a particularly dedicated father, according to family members. On January 8 1993, Saldanha became a father to Keegan Adams. Although she never married Saldanha, Keegan’s mother, Lorraine Adams, kept close ties with him.

Saldanha was a strict yet doting father and was a strong and constant presence in his son’s life.

But Saldanha waged a secret personal battle — one that he seldom shared with anyone, even those closest to him. In the end, it would cost him his life. A partial explanation for Saldanha’s complex personality could well be found in the bipolar disorder from which he suffered.

Says Singh: “He was tortured by it. He could have done so much more for our society. The week before he died, he was having an episode.”

Saldanha finally lost his battle to his illness. On a Sunday morning in September 2006, Saldanha shot himself.

He was found dead in his Johannesburg bedroom.

Conflicted and creative this eccentric man cared for the well-being of others perhaps more than he did for himself.

The ending of Saldanha’s letter to his son highlights what a tragic loss his death was for all who knew him.

“Now to return to the issue of your present on your 13th birthday. It is this, my beloved son: unconditional love, care and unflinching support. And as you enter your 13th year a renewed promise that I will always be there for you.”

To commemorate the work of the late Eugene Saldanha, the M&G and CAF Southern Africa have created an annual fellowship in social justice reporting. View our special report