SA’S resistance politics through the eyes of a lifelong activist
Leon Levy, a giant of South Africa’s liberation struggle, has written a memoir in which he reflects on his life spent fighting injustice and racism. By Milton Shain
IYou stand tall amongst those brave men and
women of all races and creeds who took a stand against injustice, and whose vision and sacrifices made possible the birth of a free
South Africa
n the Jewish tradition, the concept of tikkun olam refers to efforts to repair and improve the world. This could be achieved through laws, as expounded in classical rabbinic literature, or it could be mystically focused on “repair”, as in Kabbalistic circles.
In modern times, however, the emphasis has shifted to the pursuit of social justice or “the establishment of Godly qualities throughout the world”.
As a child growing up in Johannesburg, Leon Levy would not have known – at least formally – about tikkun olam. With hindsight, however, Levy’s entire life – his remarkable and praiseworthy efforts on behalf of the marginal and oppressed – exemplifies the notion of tikkun olam.
Levy and his three siblings (famed anti-apartheid twin brother Norman, and an older brother and sister, David and Goldie), were raised by their Lithuanian-born widowed mother, Mary. She engaged in progressive causes and was inclined politically towards the left.
Mother and children moved from house to house in Johannesburg. Boarders were taken in to make ends meet, but a sense of home was maintained with a bookcase and piano taking pride of place.
Most importantly, Mary inculcated an ethos of care and concern for the less fortunate. Levy has maintained her sensitivities until today, always fighting for the underdog and challenging injustice.
He joined Hashomer Hatza’ir, a left-leaning Zionist youth movement, in his teens. Besides learning to reject “bourgeois class values and conventions, especially attitudes to material possessions and property”, he engaged in Zionist intellectual challenges that sharpened his fine mind.
Focus on South Africa
Like so many other graduates of Hashomer Hatza’ir (including Joe Slovo and Baruch Hirson), Levy’s gaze soon focused on South Africa. In particular, he awoke to creeping fascism that he monitored carefully.
Burgeoning antisemitism in the 1930s and 1940s, exemplified in the paramilitary Ossewabrandwag (Ox Wagon Sentinel) and the destruction of European Jewry during World War 2, also focused his mind.
But, in the final analysis, it was the South African reality that galvanised his political conscience and efforts. “My radicalisation,” he writes, “was a direct reaction to the daily racism and the economic inequalities so prominent in South Africa.”
Levy was at Kliptown in 1955 when the Freedom Charter was adopted by the Congress of the People. In his estimation, the gathering was “one of the most important, well-considered and truly representative events in the whole turbulent history of the 1950s”.
In 1956, he was accused number four at the Treason Trial, which ran for five years. Here, he and his co-accused brother Norman further cemented relations with the best and the brightest in the liberation struggle. They were among the 23 white people (15 of whom were Jewish) constituting the 156 defendants charged with treason.
In an absorbing account of these years, including his detention, legal twists and turns in the trial and the daily travails faced by the accused, Levy illustrates the importance of the Treason Trial in the forging of friendships and deepening commitment to the struggle.
Activism, exile and career
From his early activism, Levy went on to an illustrious career. From 1951 to 1961 he served as secretary of the South African Peace Council and also managed the Johannesburg Discussion Club, a serious left-wing talk shop. He was among the first South Africans to be detained under the 90-Day Detention Act.
In 1961, Levy met Lorna Borkum, a trade union activist in her own right, whom he married a year later. They went into exile in 1963 as the grip of the state security legislation tightened. Although he does not deal in detail with his decades in exile, what does emerge is his passion for labour relations and a deeper understanding of the economics of exploitation.
This served him well on his return to a free and democratic South Africa, where he was immediately welcomed by the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
Subsequently, Levy worked for a labour consultant and thereafter became a fulltime commissioner in the new Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, one of the gems of the new South Africa.
In 2015, he received the Rabbi Cyril and Ann Harris Human Rights Award. The citation noted: “You stand tall amongst those brave men and women of all races and creeds who took a stand against injustice, and whose vision and sacrifices made possible the birth of a free South Africa that truly belongs to all who live in it.”
As Levy moves into the twilight of his life, inequity in the new South Africa is apparent to all. Much work remains to be done.
But he can rest assured that he has, throughout his life, done his best to undo injustice and racism. He is among the giants of the liberation struggle and has left a mark on South African history.
Back to the Front should be read by all those interested in a first-hand account of resistance politics in South Africa, as well as labour struggles in the land of apartheid.
Back to the Front: A Memoir is published by Jacana Media.
R265