Patrick van Rensburg

Kevin Shillington

Description

This sensitive and compelling biography of Patrick van Rensburg does justice to a giant of a man, controversial throughout his life but undeniably a hero.
Patrick van Rensburg (1931–2017) was an anti-apartheid activist and self-made ‘alternative educationist’ whose work received international recognition with the Right Livelihood Award in 1981.

Born into a broken home and raised as an Anglophone in KwaZulu-Natal, Van Rensburg only discovered his Afrikaner heritage when applying for his first job in 1948, the year the Afrikaner National Party came to power with its programme of apartheid. His Damascene conversion to an opponent of apartheid occurred in the Belgian Congo eight years later, when he dramatically resigned as South Africa’s youngest vice-consul. Forced into exile from South Africa in 1960, Van Rensburg settled in Bechuanaland (Botswana), where he challenged conventional educational wisdom, founded three self-built schools, and established vocational training ‘brigades’ which offered a second chance to primary school ‘drop-outs’. Regrettably, his ideas failed to gain traction in liberated South Africa, but the strong network of self-reliant community trusts throughout Botswana represents an enduring testament to his unfailing commitment to justice and equality.

Van Rensburg was an energetic, innovative and charismatic visionary who captured the zeitgeist of the late twentieth century, and whose work and vision still have resonance for debates in educational policy today.



Acknowledgements

Abbreviations and acronyms

List of illustrations

Maps

Introduction

Chapter 1 Origins and Identity in South Africa

Chapter 2 An Anglophone South African, 1936–1948

Chapter 3 The Making of an Afrikaner, 1949–1953

Chapter 4 Diplomat and Rebel, 1953–1957

Chapter 5 Anti-Apartheid Activist, 1957–1959

Chapter 6 Boycott, 1959–1960

Chapter 7 Into Exile, 1960–1961

Chapter 8 Return to Africa, 1961–1962

Chapter 9 The Founding of Swaneng Hill School, 1962–1963

Chapter 10 Challenging ‘the Ladder to Privilege’, 1963–1965

Chapter 11 The Alternative Educationist, 1965–1967

Chapter 12 Expansion and Replication, 1967–1969

Chapter 13 Time of Crisis, 1969–1971

Chapter 14 Education with Production, the 1970s

Chapter 15 Foundation for Education with Production and Spreading the Word, the 1980s

Chapter 16 Education with Production and South Africa, the 1990s

Chapter 17 Return to Botswana

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Littérature Africaine
• Littérature Africaine
• Éducation
• Editors
• Autobiography
• General
• Education
• Journalist
• Publishing
• General officer
• Biography
• Publishers
• Journalists

Informations

• Publié par: WITS University Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776146062
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

‘Kevin Shillington is to be commended for bringing Patrick van Rensburg’s story to a wide audience. This book should be read by anyone interested in education, as Patrick’s Education with Production model is relevant to the whole education ladder, from early childhood through to university.’
— Gaositwe K. T. Chiepe, educationist and politician, Minister of Education, Botswana, 1995–1999
‘This is a story that has to be told and Van Rensburg has found a worthy biographer … The dominant image is of a man who had a great appetite for life – work, projects, parties, women, debate, travel – but who is simultaneously a semi-heroic, semi-tragic figure.’
— Linda Chisholm, Professor in the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg
‘Patrick van Rensburg is remembered by most people for his pioneering work in Education with Production … His most enduring legacy, in my view, is as a journalist and pioneer of the independent pluralistic press in Botswana and Southern Africa.’
— Methaetsile Leepile, Swaneng Hill School alumnus and former editor of the Mmegi newspaper
PATRICK VAN RENSBURG
Rebel, Visionary and Radical Educationist A Biography
Kevin Shillington
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright © Foundation for Education with Production 2020
Published edition © Wits University Press 2020
Images and figures © Copyright holders
Front cover image © Right Livelihood Foundation/Wolfgang Schmidt
First published 2020
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/12020076048
978-1-77614-604-8 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-608-6 (Hardback)
978-1-77614-605-5 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-606-2 (EPUB)
978-1-77614-607-9 (Mobi)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
All images remain the property of the copyright holders. The publishers gratefully acknowledge the publishers, institutions and individuals referenced in captions for the use of images. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders of the images reproduced here; please contact Wits University Press in case of any omissions or errors.
Published with the support of the Foundation for Education with Production

Project manager: Lisa Compton
Copyeditor: Pat Tucker
Proofreader: Lisa Compton
Indexer: Margie Ramsay
Cover design: Hybrid Creative
Typeset in 11.5 point Crimson
For all those who benefited in some way from the life of Patrick van Rensburg
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations and Acronyms
List of Illustrations
Maps
Introduction
1  Origins and Identity in South Africa
2  An Anglophone South African, 1936–1948
3  The Making of an Afrikaner, 1949–1953
4  Diplomat and Rebel, 1953–1957
5  Anti-Apartheid Activist, 1957–1959
6  Boycott, 1959–1960
7  Into Exile, 1960–1961
8  Return to Africa, 1961–1962
9  The Founding of Swaneng Hill School, 1962–1963
10  Challenging ‘The Ladder to Privilege’, 1963–1965
11  The Alternative Educationist, 1965–1967
12  Expansion and Replication, 1967–1969
13  Time of Crisis, 1969–1971
14  Education with Production, the 1970s
15  Foundation for Education with Production and Spreading the Word, the 1980s
16  Education with Production and South Africa, the 1990s
17  Return to Botswana
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
I met Patrick van Rensburg on only one occasion and that was at his home in Serowe, Botswana, in 2016, just one year before his death. I had heard of him and his work from as long ago as 1969 and had heard him speak at a conference at the University of Botswana in the early 1980s. But that meeting in March 2016 was the only occasion that I actually got to speak with him; and by then Alzheimer’s had taken hold of his mind. He understood that I was doing something connected with his life and work and he was pleased.
In addition to that meeting, over a long weekend, I have had the privilege of being welcomed into the fold of his family: his wife, Liz van Rensburg; their sons, Tom Masego and Mothusi Joe; and the partner of his later life, Rosemary Forbes, and their daughter, Joanna. I am grateful for the time they have given freely in personal interviews, the photographs they have shared with me and their ever-helpful responses to email requests for further clarification. In addition, Liz and Rosemary have each sent me copies of Patrick’s unfinished, unpublished memoir, which he had entitled ‘The Making of a Rebel’. My thanks to Liz in particular for painstakingly editing her copy, with extracts from her diary, to add clarity, for my benefit. It is her version that is referenced in the notes as ‘Memoir’.
I am grateful to the Foundation for Education with Production (FEP) – founded by Patrick in 1980 to further his educational principles – which financed my research trips to Botswana in 2016 to 2018 and whose trustees – Frank Youngman, Mothusi van Rensburg, Bobana Badisang, Ditshwanelo Makwati and Hamish Bowie – have individually and collectively supported this project from the beginning. Without that financial underpinning and their unhesitating support it is doubtful that this biography could have been undertaken.
Thanks, in particular, to Mothusi for introducing me to Serowe; and to Bobana and her assistant Keaobaka Didi Tau for their ever-helpful work on bibliography, press clippings and so much more.
The biography was first proposed by Anne Mager of the University of Cape Town. In June 2014 she and Frank Youngman put it to Mothusi, with whom Patrick, in declining health, was then living. Mothusi readily agreed to the proposal and Anne Mager approached Peter Kallaway of the University of Cape Town to help find a biographer. I am grateful to them both – Peter for first broaching the subject of my undertaking the biography, Anne for providing the funding for a research trip to Cape Town, and both for hosting me during that visit in 2017.
My thanks are due to Kajsa Övergaard of the Right Livelihood Award (RLA), especially for inviting me to the 2018 RLA award ceremony, held in the Vasa Museum, Stockholm. Thanks, too, to Karin Abbor-Svensson and Anita Callert of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation (DHF) for allowing me free access to the DHF Archives in Uppsala.
I am grateful for the help offered by the staff of the National Archives of Botswana in Gaborone and of the British Newspaper Library in London, the Bodleian Library in Oxford for the archives of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the staff of the Khama Memorial Museum in Serowe. I am grateful, too, to Tom Holzinger for sharing with me his own extensive Van Rensburg archive and photographs, as well as his personal memories and interpretations; to Evelyn Oakeshott, who generously entrusted me with his brother Robert’s letters home to his mother over the period 1968 to 1970; and to Gerry Pozzani for creating and maintaining the Swaneng Hill School website.
I have relied heavily on personal interviews, in person, on Skype, by phone and email, with people who knew and worked with Patrick van Rensburg over the years. Many of these interviewees are not directly footnoted in the text, but all contributed in some way or another to helping me establish the broad picture and environment of Patrick’s life and work. Apart from the Van Rensburg family already mentioned – Liz, Tom and Mothusi, Rosemary and Joanna – I am grateful to the following individuals for granting me their time and memories in interview, in the order in which the interviews took place between 2016 and 2019: Methaetsile Leepile, George Moalosi, Modise Maphanyane, Ditshwanelo Makwati, Mike Dingake, Otlhogile Bojosi, Bram Dilrosun, Titus Mbuya, Tsetsele Fantan, Motlhaleemang Ntebela, Ralph Nickerson, Joel Pelotona, Neil Parsons, Anne Mager, Richard Whiteing, Jeff Jarvis, Debbie Budlender, Peter Kallaway, Marcus Solomon, Paula Ensor, Tariq Mellet, Judy Seidman, Quett Ketumile Masire, Jeff Ramsay, Sandy Grant, Otsogile Pitso, James Olesitse, Deborah Nkolane, Moaci Montshiwa, Reggie Koee, Scobienol Lekhutile, Frank Youngman, Pelonomi Venson, Gaositwe Chiepe, Hamish Bowie, Philip Segola, Seth Sekwati, Florence Shagwa, Monageng Mogalakwe, Lord (Frank) Judd, Thomas Maseki, Charles Bewlay, Vernon and Tineke Gibberd, Derek and Hazel Hudson, Ian Martin, Tessa McArdle, Alison Kirton, Julia Majaha-Jartby, Pierre Landell-Mills, Ted Comick, Murray McCartney, Mike Hawkes, Tom Holzinger, Modisaotsile Hulela, Sebofo Motswane, Philip Bulawa, Frank Taylor, Rahim Khan, Queen Notha, Nthaga Keoraletse, Kgosi Mokhutshwane Sekgoma, Elijah Makgoeng, Bishi Mmusi, Olle Nordberg, Fay Chung, Jakob von Uexkull, and Wouter and Titia van der Wall Bake. Many others offered advice or referred me on to other sources. In addition, I wish to thank the two anonymous publishers’ readers and, once again, Liz van Rensburg and Frank Youngman, all four of whom read an early draft of the completed manuscript and offered some invaluable advice. Responsibility for any errors of interpretation or fact, however, remains mine alone.
I am grateful to the following for granting me permission to use their photographs in the book: the Anti-Apartheid Movement Archive, the British Library Board, the Khama Memorial Museum, the Van Rensburg family, Rosemary Forbes, Mary Kibel, Benny Wielandt, Mike Hawkes, Sandy Grant, Karl-Hermann Handwerk, Peter Jensen and Andrew Gunn. Despite efforts made, it has not been possible to trace all the photographers whose images form part of the Van Rensburg family collection.
Thanks to the staff of the Motheo Apartments in Gaborone and the Serowe Hotel in Serowe, who always made my research visits to Botswana so pleasant and enjoyable. Finally, special