Servant Leader
BEYOND SELF INTEREST
EPISODE THREE
Sophia de Bruyn
in conversation with Prof. Daniel Plaatjies
Jump straight to the Episode or Full Interview
1955 Co-found SA Clothing and Textile Union and organiser of Coloured People’s Congress
1980 Co-founded ANC education council
1990 Moved ANC admin from Zambia to SA and head HR at Shell House
2001 First woman to receive the Women’s Award for exceptional national service
2001 Received the Mahatma Gandhi Award
It was in the morning of the 9th of August, 1956. A large crowd had assembled at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa. This was no typical gathering in the 1950 apartheid era. A group of some 20,000 women of all races, from different parts of the country, came together with one voice, to oppose the segregating “pass laws” which were designed to further oppress them in a system that had already stripped them of their freedoms, dignity and human rights. Today, women’s day marks this event on the 9th of August in honor of the heroic actions of those brave women.
At the forefront of that march, one of the leaders and organisers of that march was an 18 year old teenager, Sophia de Bruyn, a young colored girl from Villageboard in Port Elizabeth. Sophia was born in 1938 to parents who displayed servitude in their careers as well as in their community interactions. Growing up, she observed closely how her dad, a retired, minimally educated soldier, helped the many deprived, uneducated and poverty stricken people in their area who would often come to him in large numbers to solicit his help to write letters applications. While he was at this, her mother would cook up soups for them.
These acts left a lasting impression on her, deepening her compassion and awakening her political sensibilities to the inequalities around her. This went on to define and set her apart in the work space. Working at a textile factory after dropping out of high school, Sophia started championing the cause of her work colleagues and bringing their grievances to the fore to demand better working conditions, this soon led her to be appointed on the executive of the Textile Workers Union in Port Elizabeth. Rising in ranks and later joining to found the South African Congress of Trade Union (SACTU), later on known as COSATU.
Sophia’s activities singled her out and the Congress Movement soon took notice of her and her work, and in 1956, she was tasked to be the full-time organiser for the Coloured Congress, forming a part of the Women’s League. All of this culminated in her being assigned to organise that eventful march in August 1956. In some of these movements that Sophia has been a part of, all of which were formed under the umbrella of resisting an oppressive system, she has not been oblivious to the cracks of disunity that have crept in over the years, some along the lines of racial differences, others stemming from personal and political gratification. Far from being a passive onlooker, Sophia continues to highlight and actively speak out against issues she sees plaguing the systems that she helped forge and has been a part of for decades. In her words “I was always the wild one that speaks truth to power”. The job of securing a better tomorrow, a better future for our nation will certainly do with a good number of #thewildones like Sophia de Bruyn.
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Never Sweep Things Under the Carpet
Key Quality of a Servant Leader
Sophia de Bruyn
South African
Public Servant
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2000 Member of Commission of Gender Equality
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2005 Deputy speaker - Gauteng Legislature
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Things You May Not Know About Sophia
These are drawn from the full interview, which for Daniel was from "OneComradeToAnother. Watch the full interview here.
The interview took place October 2016
Please note this is a word-for-word transcript from Daniel and Sophia's conversation.
1940's
1
The family and community that forged compassion in her
"... There was all this poverty around, then my senses started awakening, and I noticed all the poverty around us. And the semi-literate people used to come to my father because he was actually known as an educated man, although he didn't have matric, he was like a learned man The people respected him, and they would come to him... to write their letters for them, make applications for them, for their pensions and their grants, and so on. And this is what he did. So my mother would cook soup and give it to the people. By the time we would wake up the yard would be full of people having come to see him, and she would share what we had with them. And this touched me very much, to see the extent of the deprivation and the poverty they went through, because when my father interviewed them ... they didn't know their ages. And he would take them through his system, he had his own system that he developed, because they couldn't say when they were born, and he would ask them… And I always feel that, for me, it was compassion, a deep compassion, and I think that the compassion came from my mother, cause she was a peaceful, compassionate person that always tried to serve people that were worse off. You know, you don't have that much, but there were people worse off than you. So what you have you share with them. And this was a deep compassion… because even as a child if I saw other children fighting, I wouldn't even know what they were fighting about, but the one who's got more blood, or beaten up the worst was the one that I would go and comfort, not knowing that this is actually the culprit, you know? So this was always my compassion; feeling sorry for the underdog. And wherever I worked the same thing applied..."
1950's-1960's
5
How fear comes after activism
"... Together, because we would go in the night, at a certain hour of the night, out of comrade Kathy’s flat, ’cause most of the time his place was the central meeting point. If you leave Colbot House in Market Street you will cross Market Street and go just round the corner, into West Street and go down the steps of this building, the basement that I’m talking of. So we would all congregate as young people, young men and women, with our buckets of paint and our brushes, not being scared, knowing what we were going to do was dangerous jobs. You know danger, scaredness and fear never ended, and in our head, when you are going to do a dangerous job, you don't give yourself time to think; “Am I going to be arrested? What’s gonna happen?”, and all of that. Your whole psyche is geared to what you are going to do; fear comes afterward perhaps when the police pounce on you..."
since 2000's
Today's Women MP's: fashion, no substance
"... They've moved away from the real issues. What is important to them is the glamour. It's about glamour, it's all about them. If you see them today in parliament you see them painting their nails in public, knowing that they're an MP, knowing that there are people in the gallery, they don't care; they are insensitive to the people who put them in parliament, or the people that voted for them In many respects they are disrespectful. And I think for me the women's League is just a fashion, another cult. And the things that they want to do are not for the right reasons... "
8
1990's-2000's
Why she was the wild one
"... I was never a favorite of anybody in exile because I always insisted don't ‘ let’s put things under the carpet’. I was always the wild one that speaks truth to power… ”Why are you telling us to say what you want us to say? Why must we sweep things under the carpet? Why can’t we say things the way they are, what is happening?” All along my life, I've been coming with that policy, up till Saturday, when I was in another forum which I belonged to. You remember with the hoax email? I was on that commission. And the who in the line up of the people who came to submit was the President Thabo Mbeki, and the deputy, who is today the president, and all the cabinet ministers. And my one question to them, all of the time that we were sitting there, was why is it… So my contention is that sweeping things under the carpet, it can't stay there forever, it eventually finds its way out. And it has a greater impact… So rather talk about it, open up about it, get people together, and see a way how we can mend it but if we keep sweeping, like we've been doing over the years, or over the centuries, over the decades, this is the result ..."
9
1950's
2
How families lifes changed because of their hair
"... So I physically witnessed what I'm telling you now - putting the pencil in the hair and over the nose and so on and so forth. So that was an area where we could mobilise around, showing the coloured people that worse things were awaiting us if we don't belong to a movement to help ourselves and so on. And that was a very important point to make to them and a very interesting, important mobilising tool… the coloured people were politically nil. They were not interested until the issue of the coloured classification came into being. And that was a very busy time because now I had to play a role... What happened was when coloured people were classified as African, and a lot of these people didn’t have, didn’t know how to accept this thing or how to, you know, treat it. It was something that was very alien to them. And it was also ruining their lives. It gave them a lot of hardships. Because you can imagine, you are a coloured family and in that family, there is somebody that is very dark and this is an offspring from your own family. So what happened? Suddenly this person is called to be classified, and I think you know a little bit of the history, how people were classified, with the pencil going through their hair. If it doesn't come out soon enough it’s “coarse” hair ‘cause the pencil is sticking. So then they make a note. {Daniel: Coarse hair} …, Like we say {Afrikaans} ‘Kroes hare’, ‘Kroes kop’… you know the fibres of a mattress, now that coarse. Now, this coarse hair doesn't come out quick enough - the pencil, sticks in the hair, and perhaps a person didn’t comb their hair in the morning. So this was being jotted down. Then that same pencil is put across the nose, measured. Whatever they are measuring they are putting down the nose is too broad. Then the lips are measured and also jotted down and that is how you are being classified, by the score of a pen. You are now, your whole life is being changed, and you are now somebody else. Which has a lot of implications because this now means, as you know there was the Group Areas Act, you live in a certain area which is demarcated for your ‘group’. Now, being classified, you can't live there anymore, as a young person, a child, a son or a daughter or even a father, or a mother must go out of their group now, to an African area. All your schooling, you must now go to a different school. Now, what does that do to your life?..."
1980's-2000's
6
Comrades need to recognise others contributions
"... ANC comrades, so-called comrades, don't understand that it was not only our African people that freed this country. They don't understand what they don't know about it, and you can’t tell them. So this is what is the problem here is that you are unrecognised. You never ask for recognition when you are doing those things. You never ask to be awarded, or applauded, and to have statues about you. And those things you are grateful for, today, for that recognition. But what about the whole nation? You see? So that is a sole point to see today, that people are not taken as part of the whole nation, that they are left behind. And that a certain group of people are alone recognised… I'm thinking that mostly our problems started, as the ANC party, our problems started mostly when the premier Ebrahim Rasool was removed, for whatever petty reasons - I'm not aware of, I'm not familiar with the reasons why he was removed. But from that time things went wrong, and it started going badly, worse and worse…"
2000's
The only way forward is to dismantle the current political structures
"... A whole new regime. As we said in the old days we will destroy this apartheid and bring it down brick by brick. I don't believe anything can be salvaged, that any of the NEC or the Top 6 or even whatever structures that are prominent can go back. It should be a whole house broken down and destroyed. Build a new house, that is what I think, with new leadership. It doesn't matter who that leadership is, it doesn't have to be ANC people, it doesn't have to. It can be anybody who has got the values. What we are now looking for, what I am personally saying, is the person with the right frame of mind: frame of mind to have the right kind of values or the ethics. What are they? They are a number of things: integrity, honesty… And please, if this report is not accepted in the recommendations that we are making, don't ever call me again, to be part of anything. Because I’m asking you,” he was sitting the with his top 5, and I said, “Let me ask you, when you as leadership look at people to appoint to top positions, what is it in them, what is it in them that you that they deserve this position?” And he looked at me, and I said “Is it that you see that this man can verbalise? Do you see that this man can interrogate a document? Can this man - what kind of skills does he have? Is he up to date with the different preambles in the constitution of the ANC? Or the constitution of the country ? What is it that you look for? How do you know him?” David was taken aback and I asked, ”Do you know this person to have integrity? To be an honest person?”.
10
3
1950's-60's
How fear comes after activism
"... Together, because we would go in the night, at a certain hour of the night, out of comrade Kathy’s flat, ’cause most of the time his place was the central meeting point. If you leave Colbot House in Market Street you will cross Market Street and go just around the corner, into West Street and go down the steps of this building, the basement that I’m talking of. So we would all congregate as young people, young men, and women, with our buckets of paint and our brushes, not being scared, knowing what we were going to do was dangerous jobs. You know danger, scaredness, and fear never ended, and in our head, when you are going to do a dangerous job, you don't give yourself time to think; “Am I going to be arrested? What’s gonna happen?”, and all of that. Your whole psyche is geared to what you are going to do; fear comes afterward perhaps when the police pounce on you..."
1955-1956
A narrow escape, thanks to a guardian angel
"... I found myself a place in this girls’ hostel and they were very strict. And I was always the one who was in problems because of my work, meetings, sleeping out, ‘cause sometimes you see I don't have money to go home, we never got paid. So as I came from the girls’ hostel this morning, not knowing that there was a swoop - meaning that the plane stopped and knew then where to go and they had prepared for months and months who was going to be arrested and so on - so I walked up West Street to come to the head quarters, and this one… comes walking to me. I’m approaching and he's approaching me and when he got to me he's saying: “Please, don't go there.” So I say “Why? Go where?”. He says: “To your office, that office where you work.” So I said, “Why?” And he said: “Because there’s trouble. They arrested a lot of people, and they have been here three times waiting for you because they say they wanted people who are working here.” So he says, “Please don't go there”. So I turned on my heel and went away. I went back to the hostel..."
4
1990's-2000's
It is more than just a uniform
"... I’ve been battling with the Women's League because of the way they wear their uniform… “Why is it that you can’t offer just half a day of looking like this? Why is it that you must overdo it by wearing all of those fancy things which are wrong, which is not part of the blouse. Can’t you sacrifice, just for that half a day or that whole day just looking like this?” And then of course the hat, I did talk about the hat. The hats too. They prefer to use this uniform with the big hat, and we never used to have a big hat during our time, we used to have a little cloche, which is in fashion again nowadays. Very much in fashion today, and it's very popular. Or a beret. But not a doek and not a big hat or a hat with many trimmings. That is out. So that is how I left them. I slowly saw - I see slowly, slowly that some of them putting their blouses back into their skirts, because even that day they were saying, “Oh no, no, Aunty Sophie, this is too much. My stomach.” And then I say, “Look in your pack. Mama, there, in the pictures there, they also had big stomachs. They didn’t care about their stomachs.” The value of the blouse, the respect of the uniform is what it was about. The value in a uniform ..."
7
2000's
Women's issues are at the bottom of the pile
"... Our women in the rural area don't know anything about gender and themselves and how they should be treated, they think it’s part of their lives. So the Women's League are not assisting, are not helping the Gender Commission… And I know that the Gender Commission is the worst paid, their budget of all the chapter 21s are the smallest,... they are treated differently, not differently but they are always at the bottom of the queue. Even when they are called to parliament, they must wait the last out of all the chapter 9s ..."
11
Full Interview
Servant Leaders must never sweep things under the carpet
"I was never a favourite of anybody in exile because I always insisted don't let’s put things under the carpet. I was always the wild one that speaks truth to power. Why are you telling us to say what you want us to say? Why must we sweep things under the carpet? Why can’t we say things the way they are, what is happening?” All my life I've been coming with that policy ... So my contention is that sweeping things under the carpet, it can't stay there forever, it eventually finds its way out. And it has a greater impact… So rather talk about it, open up about it, get people together, and see a way how we can mend it but if we keep sweeping, like we've been doing over the years, or over the centuries, over the decades, this is the result."
Daniel in conversation with
Sophia de Bruyn
3
AND
This is a call to service with compassion