What motivates you to get out of bed?
- William Gumede
Finding a purpose is the key to a meaningful life: why you get out of bed, what motivates you and gives you a reason to live.
Nic Wolpe found his purpose – to preserve South Africa’s precious historical memories. This sustained him. It gave him energy, passion and drive. Starting Liliesleaf Museum, a tribute to the heroes of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle, was his North Star.
His passion was to dig up, restore and safeguard historical memories for the present and the future.
Liliesleaf farm, in the Johannesburg suburb of Rivonia, was the headquarters of the ANC underground movement during the apartheid-era. The police raided the farm, and many ANC leaders were arrested and received life sentences at the Rivonia Trial.
In the post-1994 period, Wolpe came up with the idea to make Liliesleaf a place of memory and dialogue.
A big part of reconciliation, dealing with personal and collective trauma of those previously oppressed, restoring their individual and collective dignity, and fostering a new collective national identity, following a conflict between oppressor and oppressed communities, as was the case with colonialism and apartheid, is for a country to bring equality to previously excluded, forgotten and devalued memories.
By establishing an institution to capture the forgotten, unwritten and marginalised memories of the past, Wolpe has left a legacy that will outlive his physical life.
What is a legacy? What do we leave behind? Is it a big house, a fancy car, spouting slogans, outdated ideologies and destroying public assets during protests, or bullying others online, or being a fanatical follower of corrupt, violent and village-idiot political leaders?
An individual legacy benefits future generations. It makes the world so much better. Sometimes one may not see the fruition of one’s own legacy in one’s lifetime. Yet, it is critical to try to create something that is bigger than one-self. With a purpose, commitment, hard work, resilience, compassion and honesty, one can provide a positive legacy. Wolpe did so.
Wolpe personified individual resilience, grit and a growth mindset. The ability to recover from difficulties. Grit is courage, resolve and strength of character. Carol Dweck describes a growth mindset as that one’s basic abilities can be developed through hard work, dedication and determination – all essential for great accomplishment. Without his drive, it is very unlikely Liliesleaf would have been built.
Building new mission-critical institutions that can live on for generations is critical in especially developing countries. Many developing and African countries since of colonialism have failed because they were unable to create lasting institutions. In fact, institutions are often destroyed, rather than established, preserved or build. Societies fail if they do not have enough institution ‘builder’ leaders and creators.
To build legacy institutions that outlives one’s own life, requires commitment, selflessness, resilience, sacrifice, staying power and competence. Wolpe did that in building Liliesleaf. Sadly, institution building is not celebrated in South Africa.
Wolpe was a builder. Builders, rather than breakers, a critical in a developing society. They are the glue that hold institutions, communities and countries together. Builders are ‘revolutionary’ – and society needs to celebrate them, not denigrate them. SA does not have enough builders, like Wolpe.
Breaking institutions that work are in many places misguidedly seen as ‘revolutionary’, or ‘transformation’ or ‘progressive’ or as ‘decolonisation’. Or working institutions are often seen as a site for enrichment or the guise of ‘empowerment’ or ‘deployment’.
Sadly, in SA, many institutions are hijacked, in the same way cars, homes and businesses are hijacked, for self-enrichment, and founders or capable, well-meaning, hard-working, honest executives, are pushed out. Rarely, will hijacked institutions thrive over the long-term.
Creating a new collective memory after centuries of conflict between communities is critical to foster a new inclusive national identity. The memory of previously oppressed communities need to be heard, need to be recognised and given equal status. Memory helps us to learn from the past, not to repeat the mistakes of the past and to apply the knowledge of the past in imaginative, context-relevant ways in the present.
Endemic corruption, state failure, manipulating of the truth by leaders, the corruption of memories of the past for self-enrichment, combined with the silence of memories of those not politically connected, has resulted in the “capture” of memories.
Many white South Africans deny either involvement in apartheid or underplay the legacy of apartheid. Many young black South Africans again increasingly blamed the self-inflicted failure of the democratic government on ANC negotiators making too many concessions during the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) negotiations that birthed the new democracy.
Over the past few years, former President Nelson Mandela has often been wrongly attacked for allegedly making too many compromises in favour of white South Africans at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) negotiations, which supposedly make redistribution difficult. This is a clear example of a distortion of memory.
With the hand he was dealt by history, Mandela’s made his contribution within his capabilities, within his context and in the best interests of all South Africans. The corruption, incompetence and callousness of subsequent ANC leaders cannot be blamed on the compromises for the greater good of South Africa agreed on at the Codesa negotiations.
Restoring truth-full memory is critical, for better decisions in the present - Wolpe’s contribution in this has been immense.
Wolpe battled illness throughout his life. When he was six weeks old, he survived a rare pneumonia. As an adult, he survived a benign spinal tumour, a heart attack and a number of near-death experiences. He suffered from severe dyslexia. One can only imagine the single-mindedness to complete schooling and a degree at the University of Warwick. He told the story of how his schoolteacher told him that he would not even be able to be a successful dustman.
As someone, who also suffered from early life breathing difficulties, and near-death experiences and later life-threating cancer, and long chemotherapy – and a shared love for history, we felt like kindred spirits. Life felt so much more precious, felt as fleeting – as tomorrow may not be there, that to be alive is such a miracle, and finding one’s purpose so much more urgent.
South Africa can at times be a harsh, brutal and soul-destroying frontier-like place, where it seems only the violent, the corrupt, the dishonest and the cynical manipulators of the illiterate, the unread and the desperately poor, thrive, and the honest, and builder-leaders are often laughed at.
Wolpe was authentic. He stayed true to his values, was kind to others and honest. In the social media age where online ‘friends’, who are agree with one’s views and who ‘like’ one, are increasingly wrongly seen as ‘authentic’, genuine flesh-and-blood authenticity is sadly increasingly not seen as an important value of leadership.
As a country, we desperately need kinder, more honest, more constructive and more authentic ‘builder’ leaders such as Wolpe.
Professor William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand and Founder of the Democracy Works Foundation. This is an edited version of his address at the Memorial Service of the late Nic Wolpe (1963-2024).