THANDEKA GQUBULE

Thuli Madonsela became a household name for holding government to account, without fear or favour, during her seven-year tenure as Public Protector. We chatted to Thandeka Gqubule about writing the recently published biography, No Longer Whispering to Pow

On writing the recently published biography about Thuli Madonsela

I told people, ‘I’m going to write a book

about Thuli’ – even before she agreed to it. A friend said, ‘Listen buddy, you’d better cool it because people are going to think you’re crazy.’ I said, ‘I don’t care.’

I get her. I know that political position and that human rights stance. I know that way of thinking. We’ve travelled the same road: like Thuli, I was in the Young Christian Students Association; I was in secret political movements; I was a student activist – so I thought, ‘Let me explain this thing. Let me step up.’

My husband [Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of Thabo] is a publisher but he doesn’t

publish family. I’d never publish with him and he’d never publish with me. We were having lunch at the Hyatt, and Jeremy [Boraine] turned up. I went over to him and said, ‘Jeremy, you have to work with me. You have to give me a contract for Thuli’s book.’ He said, ‘That’s amazing! I’ve been looking for someone to do the Thuli book.’

Thuli knew I wasn’t going to write the

conventional biography. I wanted to look at the underlying issues rather than her idiosyncrasies – whether she likes her tea with cream, that kind of thing. She was comfortable with it being my take on what her story says about our society, why South Africa produced a Thuli, and about her influence on the issues of the day. We’ve known each other for many years. As young activists, we were in prison together, detained without trial at Diepkloof. I remember chatting in the quad, but I wouldn’t say we were tight. She was always reasonable, always together, always worried about securing provisions for the people she’d been arrested with. While researching the book, I was struck by how differently others I spoke to remembered prison – and Thuli – yet the stories all gelled. When I interviewed Thuli about prison, she too remembered things that weren’t dominant in my memories. She remembered songs we sang. But when she sang them, they came to me, then we’d sing together.

When you write about somebody who is

written about as much as Thuli is, you already have the first draft of her history to rely on, thanks to colleagues in journalism. But explaining the phenomenon that is Thuli – knitting it together and giving it colour – that was my task. And I took it on with relish.

I hope readers take away a more rounded

picture of Thuli. People see her in a one-dimensional political or legal sense, not as a whole person with her own influences and spirituality. Thuli is going to be written about far more than this; many other books will be written

with different interpretations, and I look forward to other takes on her. But I want the reader to understand the journey, the social movements, the ordinary people who stood up to tyranny and taught Thuli how to do it.

In July last year, when I was fired from the SABC with the SABC 8 for fighting for an

independent newsroom, I had to do so many other things: organise marches, go to the lawyers, file papers in court and so on. That threw me off the book-writing wagon a bit. But Jeremy, my editor and I rearranged the deadlines. When I was reinstated, we caught up.

It was difficult to get appointments to

interview Thuli for the book because she was so busy with things that were more important to her. I knew how hard she was working, so I just followed her around to her speaking engagements. ‘State of Capture’ was very demanding. She didn’t sleep on her last day of work; she worked round the clock so her lawyers could get to court.

Our lives dovetailed at some point. As former student leaders, we were involved in trying to bring a resolution to the #FeesMustFall situation at Wits. The youngsters tended not to listen to us older ones, but her presence shifted that. She was very helpful to the students.

When Thuli was young, she joined the

amadelakufa, those who defy death. It wasn’t so much an organisation as a spirit of political and social engagement – being part of those youth who felt ‘this is do or die’. She looked to lawyers who had put their lives on the line – Bram Fischer, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo – and she sees herself as a continuation of that.

Despite the death threats, I don’t think she questioned for one minute whether she was doing the right thing or not. I think she was more disturbed by the effect on her family; she worried about how destabilising it might be for her kids.

Jeremy and I loved the story behind the

title. We settled on No Longer Whispering to Power for a while, changed it to No Fear, No Favour, then went back to No Longer Whispering. It just made sense for us. In the VhaVenda tradition, the female leader, the Makhadzi, is a non-political figure who serves as a buffer between the ruler and the people. Thuli compared herself to her, whispering truth to the king, just as her office speaks truth to leaders in government. And when the Makhadzi is no longer whispering, when their altercations reach the public sphere, the whispering has not been successful.

When you’re an ANC insider, you realise how much of a broad church the organisation is. I came through the UDF, as Thuli did. Our political socialisation at a young age came from that kind of ethos: you need to be consultative; you must be socially conscious rather than power conscious; you need to be values-based.

Many of the houses of the ANC are saying,

‘We’re not comfortable being like this.’ It’s a bit like Red Riding Hood: ‘Ag, Grandma, your teeth are so big. You’re wearing the family clothes but you’re not family – you don’t have the DNA – the ideological and values DNA.’ You see them trying to force the organisation into some kind of realisation that it has to change direction. Thuli often talks about the purpose of power. When you have power, you must not use it for your own advantage or it will destroy you.

So many have had their comeuppance

because of the love of shiny things. I can’t imagine why somebody would make R1 billion disappear from an institution. What do you do with R1 billion? You can only sleep in one bed; one car is just the same as another, really. Thuli’s spiritual life may be what insulates her from all of that. I think she believes that all this materialism is banal, pointless, so even if it’s put in front of you it’s like, ‘What’s this for? I don’t need it. I don’t want it.’

The last time I saw her, I said, ‘Thuli, I’m really worried that I may have got things

wrong here and there.’ She said, ‘Don’t worry. As long as the heart story is correct, everything will be okay.’ She believes that if you want to take a stab at analysing her, you’re entitled to do so. She knows what she tried to do. She knows what was within her powers, and she did her best to deal with the challenges before her in that office. I find Thuli presidential. But she doesn’t want to be president and I respect her choices.

Thuli is abroad, studying. She’s going to leave Harvard for Oxford for a little while, then return to her obligations in Stellenbosch. She’s accepted a position as chair in social justice at Stellenbosch University – working on issues such as ethical governance in public institutions – which she’ll take up in 2018. They gave her a sabbatical for a year. She’s getting up to speed with the latest global thinking on the issues she’s been involved in and which she’ll continue to be involved in – governance, ethics, democracy building, Bill of Rights, jurisprudence. Once she’s done the Harvard/Oxford thing, she’ll hopefully have fresh ideas to take her beyond the office of Public Prosecutor. And she’ll hopefully feel rested too, after being in a storm for seven years. If it were me, I’d have PTSD!

I’m interested in Thuli 2.0. She’s now got the time and distance to reflect on where she’s been, to get a bird’s-eye view of her tenure, to see the good moves and the missteps. Once she’s done that, I’m sure she won’t just settle into Stellenbosch and enjoy the wine farms!