The Star, Johannesburg, Sept 14, 2001 (AFP) - South Africans living and working in downtown New York gave accounts Friday of narrow escapes after the attacks on the United States, but officials said no South African death toll could yet be given.... Witnesses to the tragedy included Alex Boraine, former co-chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), set up in 1996 to deal with apartheid atrocities. Boraine, who now heads the International Centre for Transitional Justice based on the 33rd floor of a building opposite the WTC, told the The Star he left the building and was about 500 metres (yards) away when the first tower of the WTC collapsed. "We were running for our lives with this huge cloud pouring down between the buildings like lava, black and white smoke, cement, dust, smothering everything," he said.
Alex Boraine relates that harrowing experience again in his A Life in Transition. So I consciously decided this year, for Holy Week, to read Dr Boraine's autobiography. Not only did the title seem theologically appropriate for Good Friday and Easter but the title was also so personally relevant. I was in transition too.
I wasn't disappointed. Dr Boraine covers familiar territory that resonated with me. Others will too, especially those who like Dr Boraine, responded to a call of God. His early boyhood and "humble beginnings" struck more than just a chord within me. As someone interested in family stories and histories his childhood experiences and influences more than fascinated me. Of course those who have experienced a call to the Methodist ministry in particular will identify with his sometimes humorous account of candidating, of probation, serving congregations with familiar names and attitudes, and the unforgettable formative years of academic training and social life at Rhodes University. It will appeal to many a minister. Many will relate to his progressive realisation that things were not right in South Africa. How naïve we were in our evangelical zeal. Some will know what it meant to be under Security Police (BOSS) surveillance and to be loved and sometimes vilified by the very people and leaders one was called to serve and shepherd. Many older South Africans will recognise familiar names and places. Once I supplied at Klerksdorp Methodist where the Rev Boraine was previously a probationer minister and still remembered. Today I worship at Durban North Methodist from where the Rev Boraine left to study at Oxford. He left his mark on many a congregation and through his work in the Youth Department impacted the lives of countless young people.
Dr Boraine recounts his election in 1971 to the highest office in the Methodist Church to become President of the Methodist Conference. For me that was also providential. Thereafter, seconded to industry, he became increasingly involved in opposition politics and was elected to Parliament. After a visit by a delegation from the Church to clarify his position as a minister, he writes: "I received a letter informing me that I was no longer 'a minister in good standing'. Frankly, it didn't worry me, because I didn't feel I needed to be an ordained minister, or use the title of 'reverend' in order to do the work that I felt was important and urgent." However, one senses his deep disappointment. One ponders what if it had been different?
The rest is history...the name Alex Boraine will remain forever imprinted in the dramatic story of transition in South Africa. His contribution nationally toward a peaceful transformation to democracy in South Africa as politician, negotiator, and facilitator especially as Deputy Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission together with the Chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was historic. And internationally too, as the Founding President of the esteemed International Centre for Transitional Justice. This honest testimony of a young man once called by God to be an "agent of change" will challenge all people in transition not least of all the Church he once headed.
I have no close personal connections with Alex Boraine other than that it was on the 1st November 1971 that Dr Alex Boraine, the then President of the Methodist Conference, wrote me confirming that he had designated me in 1972 to go to South West Africa (now Namibia) as a "Presidentially Appointed Candidate". "I do hope that this will be a very exciting and creative year for you," he wrote. My very first appointment and acceptance into the Methodist Church of Southern Africa came from the Rev Dr Alex Boraine. The following year, 1973, the Methodist Conference accepted me as a Probationer Minister and moved us back from Walvis Bay to Bedfordview. It was the 50th Anniversary of the Bedfordview Methodist Church. The Bedfordview Leaders invited Dr Boraine to be our guest "50th Anniversary Preacher". That was the first and only time we met.
Reading Dr Boraine's autobiography, I am challenged by two somewhat disturbing thoughts:
First, in the context of the Good Friday events, I ask myself, where was justice and fundamental human rights exercised in the trial of Jesus, two thousand years ago? Was there transitional justice? One could say Easter Sunday speaks to that!
Second, acutely aware that the broader South African Church is grappling within itself with its own basic rights issues... equity issues; parity of stipends and pensions issues; gender issues; sexual orientation issues; just deployment issues; inter-faith relationship issues; refugee issues; etc.... I wonder, is there not a crying, desperate need for transitional justice and transformation within the Church too if there is ever ultimately going to be healing for our Land?
Past President of the Methodist Conference, Dr Alex Boraine, continues to challenge the conscience of both Church and Nation. It did me this Holy Week!
I heartily commend A Life in Transition!
For more on "Transitional Justice" see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_justice
©Colin G Garvie
HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za
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