During that year, I was nominated to stand for the Student Representative Council, which was the highest student organization at Fort Hare. I did not know at the time that the events surrounding a student election would create difficulties that would change the course of my life. The SRC elections were held in the final term of the year, while we were in the midst of examination preparations. According to the Fort Hare constitution, the entire student body elected the six members of the SRC. Shortly before the election, a meeting of all students was held to discuss problems and voice our grievances. The students unanimously felt that the diet at Fort Hare was unsatisfactory and that the powers of the SRC needed to be increased so that it would be more than a rubber stamp for the administration. I agreed with both motions, and when a majority of students voted to boycott the elections unless the authorities accepted our demands, I voted with them.
Shortly after this meeting, the scheduled voting took place. The lion’s share of students boycotted the election, but twenty-five students, about one-sixth of the student body, showed up and elected six representatives, one of whom was myself. That same day, the six elected in absentia met to discuss these events. We unanimously decided to tender our resignations on the grounds that we supported the boycott and did not enjoy the support of the majority of the students. We then drafted a letter, which we handed to Dr. Kerr.
But Dr. Kerr was clever. He accepted our resignations and then announced that new elections were to be held the next day in the dining hall at suppertime. This would ensure that all the students would be present and that there would be no excuse that the SRC did not have the support of the entire student body. That evening the election was held, as the principal ordered, but only the same twenty-five voted, returning the same six SRC members. It would seem we were back where we started.
Only this time when the six of us met to consider our position, the voting was very different. My five colleagues held to the technical view that we had been elected at a meeting in which all students were present and therefore we could no longer argue that we did not represent the student body. The five believed we should now accept office. I countered that nothing in fact had changed; while all the students had been there, a majority of them had not voted, and it would be morally incorrect to say that we enjoyed their confidence. Since our initial goal was to boycott the election, an action that had the confidence of the student body, our duty was still to abide by that resolution, and not be deterred by some trickery on the part of the principal. Unable to persuade my colleagues, I resigned for the second time, the only one of the six to do so.
The following day I was called in to see the principal. Dr. Kerr, a graduate of Edinburgh University, was virtually the founder of Fort Hare and was a greatly respected man. He calmly reviewed the events of the past few days and then asked me to reconsider my decision to resign. I told him I could not. He told me to sleep on it and give him my final decision the following day. He did warn me, however, that he could not allow his students to act irresponsibly, and he said that if I insisted on resigning, he would be compelled to expel me from Fort Hare.
I was shaken by what he had said and I spent a restless night. I had never had to make such a consequential decision before. That evening, I consulted with my friend and mentor, K.D., who felt that as a matter of principle I was correct to resign, and should not capitulate. I think at the time I feared K.D. even more than I did Dr. Kerr. I thanked K.D. and returned to my room.
Even though I thought what I was doing was morally right, I was still uncertain as to whether it was the correct course. Was I sabotaging my academic career over an abstract moral principle that mattered very little? I found it difficult to swallow the idea that I would sacrifice what I regarded as my obligation to the students for my own selfish interests. I had taken a stand, and I did not want to appear to be a fraud in the eyes of my fellow students. At the same time, I did not want to throw away my career at Fort Hare.
I was in a state of indecision when I reached Dr. Kerr’s office the next morning. It was only when he asked me if I had reached a decision, that I actually made up my mind. I told him that I had and that I could not in good conscience serve on the SRC. Dr. Kerr seemed a bit taken aback by my response. He thought for a moment or two before speaking. “Very well,” he said. “It is your decision, of course. But I have also given the matter some thought, and I propose to you the following: you may return to Fort Hare next year provided you join the SRC. You have all summer to consider it, Mr. Mandela.”
I was, in a way, as surprised by my response as Dr. Kerr. I knew it was foolhardy for me to leave Fort Hare, but at the moment I needed to compromise, I simply could not do so. Something inside me would not let me. While I appreciated Dr. Kerr’s position and his willingness to give me another chance, I resented his absolute power over my fate. I should have had every right to resign from the SRC if I wished. This injustice rankled, and at that moment I saw Dr. Kerr less as a benefactor than as a not-altogether-benign dictator. When I left Fort Hare at the end of the year, I was in an unpleasant state of limbo.
8
USUALLY, when I returned to Mqhekezweni I did so with a sense of ease and completion. But not so this time. After passing my exams and returning home, I told the regent what had transpired. He was furious, and could not comprehend the reasons for my actions. He thought it utterly senseless. Without even hearing my full explanation, he bluntly informed me that I would obey the principal’s instructions and return to Fort Hare in the fall. His tone invited no discussion. It would have been pointless as well as disrespectful for me to debate my benefactor. I resolved to let the matter rest for a while.
Justice had also returned to Mqhekezweni and we were mightily glad to see one another. No matter how long Justice and I were apart, the brotherly bonds that united us were instantly renewed. Justice had left school the year before and was living in Cape Town.
Within a few days, I resumed my old life at home. I looked after matters for the regent, including his herd and his relations with other chiefs. I did not dwell on the situation at Fort Hare, but life has a way of forcing decisions on those who vacillate. It was an entirely different matter unrelated to my studies that forced my hand.
A few weeks after my homecoming, the regent summoned Justice and me to a meeting. “My children,” he said in a very somber tone, “I fear that I am not much longer for this world, and before I journey to the land of the ancestors, it is my duty to see my two sons properly married. I have, accordingly, arranged unions for both of you.”
This announcement took us both by surprise, and Justice and I looked at each other with a mixture of shock and helplessness. The two girls came from very good families, the regent said. Justice was to marry the daughter of Khalipa, a prominent Thembu nobleman, and Rolihlahla, as the regent always called me, was to marry the daughter of the local Thembu priest. The marriages, he said, were to take place immediately. Lobola, the brideprice or dowry, is normally paid in the form of cattle by the groom’s father, and would be paid by the community in Justice’s case and in my own by the regent himself.
Justice and I said little. It was not our place to question the regent, and as far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. The regent brooked no discussion: the bride had already been selected and lobola paid. It was final.
Justice and I walked out of our interview with our heads down, dazed and dejected. The regent was acting in accordance with Thembu law and custom, and his own motives could not be maligned: he wanted us to be settled during his lifetime. We had always known that the regent had the right to arrange marriages for us, but now it was no longer an abstract possibility. The brides were not fantasies, but flesh-and-blood women whom we actually knew.