THREE-SIXT-E | ALUMNI E-NEWSLETTER | ISSUE 11/DECEMBER 2014
Boesak – iconic leader of the ‘80s apartheid was a heresy and challenging Christians to oppose it on moral grounds. In 1983, Boesak became one of the patrons of the newly formed United Democratic Front (UDF), that, in the absence of the banned liberation movements, quickly became the leading anti-apartheid organisation in the country and the dominant ideological force among the student community at UWC. Boesak, along with other UWCassociated leaders (Dullah Omar, Cheryl Carolus, Trevor Manuel), became the face of the UDF in the Western Cape. Reflecting on UWC’s identity during the 1980s and its relevance today, Boesak said recently: “It was a place of new understanding and resistance. It was quite a unique moment in the history of the country captured in one place – at UWC. It was unique that the students could do what they did despite the unforgiving demands of the struggle. If in those days they could have that understanding, how much more now must the youth follow the examples from the 1980s? It was an extraordinary generation, but that was because South Africa is an extraordinary country,” he said.
RE ATU E F IAL SPEC
Alumnus Rev Dr Llewellyn McMaster (left) and Lynn Hendricks (right) of the Alumni Relations Office present Rev Dr Allan Boesak (centre) with his official UWC alumnus T-shirt.
‘Boesak! Boesak! Boesak!’ Many 1980s alumni remember chanting that name as its owner triumphally entered a packed community hall or meeting on campus. Blessed with captivating oratorical gifts honed at the pulpit, Rev Dr Allan Aubrey Boesak was instrumental in persuading many conservative ‘coloured’ students to embrace the UDF’s brand of nonracialism and to oppose apartheid. Born in Kakamas, Northern Cape in 1946, he was one of eight children. He was raised in Somerset West after his father, a schoolteacher, died. At fourteen, he became a sexton in the local Nederduitse Gereformeerde Sendingkerk (Dutch Reformed Mission Church). After graduating from Bellville Theological Seminary in 1967, he worked as a pastor in Paarl. Boesak was ordained at age 22. From 1970 to 1976, he studied at the Theological University at Kampen
in the Netherlands, gaining a PhD in theology in 1976. On his return to South Africa in 1976, Boesak began preaching liberation theology as student chaplain at UWC, Peninsula Technical College and Bellville Teacher Training College, and later at the DRMC congregation in Bellville South. Alumnus, Llewellyn MacMaster, was a theology student at the time and remembers Boesak’s huge role. “We had him as a student chaplain and when he preached almost every Sunday evening, it became a regular campus event. You wanted to be in chapel on a Sunday evening. So theologically and spiritually, it became an important element in student protests, in student solidarity, for forming students’ thought and reflection on these things.”
Boesak believes that those students had a clear consciousness of the role they were playing: “They had that abiding consciousness and felt a necessity for change. They fully realised that they had a personal role to fulfil.” “There was a belief that the change shouldn’t just affect this institution (UWC), but this institution should translate that movement towards change into the wider revolution of the country.”
‘80s alumnus Rev Dr Llewellyn McMaster and Rev Dr Allan Boesak chat about the upcoming ‘80s Alumni Reunion in September 2014.
Boesak’s standing was enhanced by his election as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) in 1982 and he began preaching that PAGE ELEVEN