Nico Ferreira: Pioneer of small business and a moral revolutionary 1929-2020
Ifirst met Nico Ferreira, who died in Hermanus at the age of 90, in 1989 when he was mayor of Stutterheim in the Eastern Cape and I was a rookie at the Development Bank of Southern Africa. Being sent to work in Stutterheim gave me an allexpenses-paid trip to my home region but it was a tough assignment. The community was up in arms against the white municipality and mayor Ferreira. They demanded the dismantling of the puppet black local authority structures and backed their demands with a crippling consumer boycott.
I remember the ashen faces of some of the white business leaders when I arrived. The exception was Ferreira, a tall, handsome and talkative man who was strangely friendly for an Afrikaner in those days. I told him I did not see a way out of the deadlock unless the municipality at least agreed to dump its black local authority partners and talk directly to the civic association.
I did not know the actors in the Stutterheim Civic Association but a family friend, Smuts Ngonyama, connected me to their charismatic leader, Chris Magwangqana. Magwangqana invited me to a community meeting, held in King William’s Town because the police would not allow it in Stutterheim. There I presented the possibility of direct engagement with the municipality without the black local authorities.
The comrades were surprised by the move. It took the leadership of Magwangqana and Ferreira to take the town across the chasm. They established the Forum, the first structure of its kind in SA. Every month we gathered at the town hall — the black community, municipal leaders and business people — to hash out the people’s demands.
I will never forget the day when a group of elderly men sat silently in the front of the hall for the duration of the meeting. Then one raised his hand and said in Xhosa: “Khawubuze u-Ferreira lo bayakuwubuyisa nini umhlaba wethu?” (“Young man, can you ask
Ferreira when they will be returning our land?”).
Through that process I became close to Ferreira and his wife Loël. The Forum led to the establishment of the Stutterheim Development Forum (SDF), through which vast improvements were made in the areas of housing, agriculture, schooling, infrastructure and employment initiatives.
Loël recalls that landmark moment. “I remember so well you and Nico signing the SDF’s first contract on the bonnet of our car at a petrol station in King William’s Town,” she says.
Stutterheim has since become the cottage industry for local government planning and Ferreira is owed much of the credit for early bridge-building.
Before moving to Stutterheim in 1982, Ferreira managed social responsibility initiatives, focusing particularly on the skills development of small manufacturing enterprises and the empowerment and upliftment of entrepreneurs in industry and agriculture. His efforts contributed significantly to the now widely recognised concept of local economic development.
Born in the Free State town of Odendaalsrus on September 28 1929, Ferreira studied political science at Pretoria University and was a strong believer in racial unity.
He met PQ Vundla, father of business person Peter Vundla, when they both protested against the forced removals of Sophiatown residents. In the 1950s, the two men joined forces in the Moral Rearmament Movement (MRM) and worked on conflict resolution and social cohesion projects in many countries, including Brazil, Germany, Nigeria and Kenya.
In SA, the MRM preached a religious approach to the political struggle, seeking personal transformation through increased interaction between blacks and whites.
Vundla snr articulated this as follows: “We are not happy about things in the country. We feel change is needed. But how do we get it moving? The Africans are bitter against whites. We understand that. The whites are scared of the Africans and don’t want to give way. So nothing happens. But suppose each person began with himself, because none of us is perfect? As far as we are concerned we are going to start changing ourselves and not wait for anyone else to begin.”
Ferreira got into trouble with the Nationalists because even though he worked for the native affairs department he had personal friendships with these individuals. But the MRM’s emphasis on spirituality, personal relationships and dialogue at a time of heightened repression also alienated it from the mainstream liberation movement.
The notion that personal relations between blacks and whites would solve the nation’s problems may not have been what was needed in the time of revolution, but it surely is the prerequisite for a racially integrated society.
Ferreira was no Beyers Naudé or Bram Fischer, but he modelled and lived an insight that is more relevant today than ever before.
Mangcu is professor of sociology and history at George Washington University in the US and visiting professor at the Eastern Cape’s Nelson Mandela University