Neville Alexander:
No Need for the God Hypothesis

Neville Alexander is a person of discipline and near uncompromising principle. He regrets not having met Steve Biko, who had come to Cape Town specifically to speak with him about establishing a united front of organisations in exile. "He stood two metres away from my backdoor and I refused to meet him, as much as I would have liked to have done so." Biko in fact waited for three hours while Fikile Bam, a Robben Island friend, tried to facilitate the meeting, placing himself, Biko and Alexander at enormous risk.

Compelled to leave Cape Town without having accomplished his mission, Biko was arrested while driving back to King William's Town with Peter Jones. Detained, interrogated and tortured, he died in custody—killed, as many before him, by a security system committed to eliminating all dissent.

It was in many ways a natural thing for us to talk. Biko's Black Consciousness Movement was an organisation of militants, wrestling with many of the key issues of the time. On the international front it was grappling with the implications of black power, anti-Vietnam politics and student protests in Europe. On the national level it was the only legal black organisation confronting the ravages of apartheid, the Soweto student revolt and at the same time seeking to co-ordinate underground activity on a national level. . . We, a 'no-name brand of insurrectionists' in the Cape, were planning a revolution.

Alexander's group had sent word to Biko in King William's Town requesting that he deal with the divisions in the Black Consciousness Movement and certain organisational issues before their meeting could take place. Although there was some confusion whether Biko received the message, Alexander thought he was trying to force the meeting. "He seemed to think that his physical presence and the risk of having driven to Cape Town would force me to acquiesce. Our group had, however, decided that I should not meet Biko at that time, and I have always taken such disciplined decisions as binding. When I look back I realise that this is perhaps the folly of being too principled. . . I was so hard, I was so principled. I would have loved to have met Steve. I know from subsequent discussion with other people that we were, in many ways, kindred spirits. I am really sorry that the meeting never happened, but that is how it is. I acted in a principled manner, knowing that principled behaviour and self-sacrifice were the key to our survival in a time of terrifying repression. I had not been mandated to see him and could not get a mandate in time." Alexander thinks for a while before continuing: "I have always been a disciplined person, ever since I was a child. At times perhaps too much so."

Discipline and Religion

Born in Cradock on 22 October 1936, he was the first of six children born to Dimbiti Bisho Alexander, a primary-school teacher, and David James Alexander, a carpenter. From his mother he learned religion and from his father discipline.

It was in the rural Eastern Cape that I also learned, and to a significant extent absorbed, the ingrained racism which characterises South Africa. I was strongly anti-white, having learned from an early age that whites are oppressors. "Keep whites at a distance, always maintaining your dignity and independence," my father told me. On the other hand, I soon learned to work closely with Xhosa-speaking people. Despite the racism which from time to time emerged between the Xhosa-speaking and coloured rural people, there was a very close relationship between us in the community of which I was a part. My mother in particular taught me to respect everyone, especially Xhosa-speaking people, calling them Oom (Uncle), Aunty and so on. Having learned to speak Xhosa as a child I lost a great deal of it in later years. When I went to the Island I again learned some of the language.

A gentle woman, his mother was the daughter of a slave who was captured in Ethiopia and released by a British patrol in Algoa Bay in the 1880s. His grandmother grew up on the Bethelsdorp Mission, marrying one of the missionaries, a Rev Scheepers, who was a member of the African Peoples' Organisation. "Her piety was passed on to my mother who, in turn, implanted a sense of biblical values in me which I still uphold. The Dominican nuns of the Holy Rosary Convent, a school that I attended after completing standard two in Steytlerville, completed my Christian upbringing." Here, under the strict discipline of German-speaking nuns, many of the norms, habits and practices of his life began to take shape. "Somehow I did not see the nuns as white. They were different from any whites I had ever met. They were almost saintly in the service they rendered us. They were dedicated people, becoming formative role models in my life." Speaking with great affection, he remembers particularly Sister Veronata. "She instilled in me a fondness of German, she was so methodical and inspiring. . . I met her again a year or two back. 'Oh, you were the boy who could recite Barabara Frietchie (a poem on the American Civil War) so well!' Her entire life was dedicated to her pupils."

The nuns taught me to enjoy reading, to discover what a beautiful thing it is to express oneself in writing and to appreciate poetry. They taught me German, how to think logically and how to live a disciplined life. They introduced me to logic, philosophy and theology. I read Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas and from an early age engaged in complex metaphysical debates; learning how to question, pry and investigate all propositions and proposals.

They also introduced me to the lives of the saints. St Martin De Porres of Peru and Teresa the Little Flower of Spain (St Teresa of Lisieux) became lasting influences on my life. St Martin offered his life to be sold to raise money for the poor and St Teresa dedicated herself to ensure that in her 'little way', she would serve the ordinary people—the poor and the exploited. I came to believe that to be a Christian was to work to ensure that the poor would inherit the earth. This was the religious ethos that I imbibed from a very young age. The prophetic teaching on justice was implanted in me and I understood Jesus to be a friend of the poor. I was taught that religion had to do with loving one's neighbour. Today I am an atheist, but I still believe that is what religion is all about. Its great positive contribution to society is to teach people to love and respect one another.

Neville Alexander's father was a dominant influence in his life. "He was a disciplinarian. The discipline and rhythm of life with which I still live must in many ways be attributed to him. He taught me to be strong, to organise my life and to work hard." Having lost a leg through serving in the armed forces during the war, he later lost his other leg. "I remember the only occasion on which he was able to visit me in prison. 'You're in this now,' he said, 'be obedient but do not lose your dignity.' The discipline which my father had taught me as a child in some ways taught me to be a model prisoner!" Alexander has an abiding appreciation for his father who, having been educated only to standard three, was only semi-literate. He could read only with difficulty, but became a master carpenter, deciphering a building plan with great skill. "My father's life taught me a great deal about the lower-class coloured people who hit their heads against the wall in trying to cope with life," he observes. "My father's natural and acquired skills and his self-discipline were intermingled with a hedonistic will to enjoy life. He revelled in such pleasures as dancing, celebrating, drinking and so on. Then, as the pressures of life mounted up, his frustration increased and he indulged more and more in drink. It was his way of seeking relief and coping with what life threw at him." Reflecting on this experience, Alexander observes:

Life treated him badly, he was physically disabled—a major blow for an active and creative person. Apartheid was systematically being imposed on coloured people, reducing them to the social, economic and political status that African people were already experiencing. It was simply too much for him and his frustration increased.

In this situation I began to understand a lot about coloured

militancy and progressivism—the dialectic of it. Lower middle-class people aspired not to be white, but to the standards which white people enjoyed. Deprived by apartheid of the possibility of attaining these standards, some capitulated and internalised their oppression. Others became increasingly militant.

When I think about this process, I realise why people like myself developed the values and sense of determination that we have. Although obviously driven by different ideological considerations and social aspirations, we are facing the same social frustrations that people like my father faced. In brief, we are driven to create a social system within which there is maximum social and economic egalitarianism; ensuring that the marginalisation and exclusion of the poor never happens again.

In many ways Alexander is a blend of the values that drove his mother and father. Her religion taught him to care for the underdog. His father's drive and discipline, together with his defeated hopes, gave him a sense of determination. "My mother was gentle and kind. My father was passionate and at times quite obstinate. I like to think I am a balance of the two!" He smiles: "I have the capacity for balance. I also have the capacity for passion and drive. Put this together with the values and skills I was taught by the Dominican sisters and it is clear that I am to a significant extent a product of my early Cradock experiences."

When Alexander left school he wanted, like many educated coloured and African students, to become a medical doctor. "My problem was that the nuns had taught me German instead of Mathematics! That closed the door of any medical faculty to me. So I decided to become a priest instead. The nuns had taught me to go to mass every morning, and I thought I could become some kind of modern day Martin De Porres." His parents, both being Methodists, would have nothing of it and decided he should be confirmed in the Methodist Church. "I refused and became nothing!" In this situation he left for the University of Cape Town (UCT) where he registered for a BA, majoring in History and German. "I did so as a deeply religious person, quite convinced that anything like socialism or communism, in so far as I knew anything about it, was the anti-Christ. At this level, I was the victim of the worst kind of religious bigotry. My encounter with the secular environment of the university would, however, shortly terminate my religious belief. I had fallen among rationalist thieves! It would also enable me to give expression to my deepest ethical values in a new 'religionless' manner."

Cape Town

Neville Alexander's move to Cape Town was the beginning of a radically new phase of his existence. He began to discover a whole range of new intellectual and political ingredients in life:

At first I fought like hell against these new ideas, but within six months I was a religious doubter or an agnostic. I was also becoming a socialist. . .

In retrospect it all makes sense to me. I became a radical socialist because I was a radical and very sincere Christian. Rationally I could no longer explain the existence nor the moral necessity for God. At the same time I believed more firmly than ever before in the fundamental ethical values of the Christian faith. I today still believe that there is a sibling relationship between the Judeo-Christian ethic and socialism in the sense that both draw on the same aboriginal ethic, although Judaism and Christianity of course both predate Marxism. Antecedents aside, both give expression to an ethic of 'love thy neighbour'. This is a relationship which religious and secular socialists need to explore and build on.

Quick to point out that it took time for him to accept the inherent link between the two, Alexander insists that his own early exposure to a socially aware Christianity has always enabled him to understand the importance of religion among the masses. "At no time in my life have I been a militant atheist."

Asked to speak about the journey that took him out of the Church, Alexander insists: "It was through debate and agonising questions. I have never taken kindly to people who try to impose their views on me." He tells how his journey beyond religion began when he came into contact with atheists in the Teachers' League of South Africa, an affiliate of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM). "They posed questions and lived moral lives without the religious metaphysics that I thought was an inherent part of moral living." His visits home during university holidays at the same time kept him in touch with the religion of his youth. "These were rigorous and often tense visits. I had grown up at the feet of Rev James Calata in Cradock. The ANC and the activities of the Anglican Church were, under Calata's ministry, more or less one and the same thing. In participating in a procession you were never too sure whether you were joining the Church or the ANC. When I returned home I was again drawn into this milieu. As time went by Rev Calata, other ANC people in Cradock and I got into long and, at times, uncomfortable debates. We

were beginning to differ ideologically, but at no time did it occur to us that we could not work together. There was enough common ground to convince all of us that we were essentially on the same side. Calata had a way of including people rather than excluding them." (Calata was General Secretary of the ANC from 1936–49.)

Alexander became more deeply involved in the various structures of NEUM:

It was here that my anti-whitism was knocked out of me. I met some incredible white people and came to realise that while in South African racism and economic exploitation were intertwined, this was not a synthesis which could not be undone. I was forced to grapple seriously with the works of Marx and Trotsky, with class analysis and the basis of socialist economics. The emphasis was placed on theory, intellectualism and eurocentricism, and I was being forced to read widely. If you did not know Hegel, Marx, Shakespeare, the poets and English literature you were simply left out of things. My present political ideology and interest were at the same time beginning to take shape; while the Christian ethic which I had imbibed as a child in Cradock was transformed into a socialist project. It was in many ways the most natural and obvious development that could happen. I had always been taught to think of other people first. That is why it was so easy for me to become a socialist.

UCT was another decisive factor in Alexander's life. It reinforced the intellectualism of the Unity Movement. "My education there was narrow, even myopic and certainly within the liberal paradigm. For all practical purposes Africa did not exist as far as my curriculum was concerned, neither did the world of the Communist Bloc, except to be dismissed. My encounter with the latter took place outside the classroom and my knowledge of African history and thought had ironically to wait until I was in prison. Such education as I did receive was nevertheless sound. It equipped me well for my years in Germany which lay ahead. My German professors were in their own slightly arrogant manner amazed at the learning which I had acquired before meeting them!"

Germany

Having completed his MA in German Literature at UCT, he won an Alexander Humboldt Stiftung scholarship to Tübingen University where he remained from October 1958 to July 1961. "I was a committed Marxist by then, although not a rigorous or uncompro-

mising Marxist. I was also not a militant atheist; in fact I have always objected to the approach of those who try to mobilise people by attacking their religion. I, at the same time, had firm views about values, ethics and religion." Having been told by his Unity Movement friends to be open to the various intellectual and political ideas which he encountered, he sought to do just that. "Germany was a hot bed of anti-French, pro-Algerian protests and I became friends with a number of Algerian students. In many ways they were like us. I also made friends with several Cuban students." He joined the Socialist Democratic Students' Union which was involved in the organisation of European student revolts in the 1960s. He met Trotsky's wife in Paris shortly before she died and became influenced by Trotskian thought, which made him very critical of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and more particularly of Stalinist ideas that prevailed among many communists. He recognised the successes of the Communist Revolution and believed it to be correct to defend the Soviet Union against the propaganda of the West. He, at the same time, had no illusions about what was going on in the Soviet Union.

The SACP and many young people in South Africa refused to face up to the reality of what was happening in Eastern bloc countries. I did not know the depth of the brutalisation, but suspected that things were happening in the name of socialism that would one day return to haunt us. . . I spent more and more of my time involved in the Algerian movement, almost having myself thrown out of Germany for my activities. I was quite a character!

Alexander also became involved in the German Metal Workers' Union, which was seeking to organise Italian contract workers in an attempt to prevent them from undercutting wages. He was asked to write on Trade Unionism in Africa, which required him to research the topic widely. When he eventually returned to South Africa he was equipped to address many of the problems which were beginning to emerge among black workers. He had also experienced the reality of Sharpeville from outside of the country. Alexander remembers the deep sense of anger and foreboding fear which gripped him as he contemplated the implications of the massacre. "I was in a pub that night, drank heavily, got into an argument and ended up in a fight, attacking my opponents with a small pocket knife. Frustration can be self-defeating. It is also at the root of constructive counter-action." Within this context he began to consider seriously the feasibility of guerilla warfare and the possibility of initiating revolutionary movements in South Africa.

Returning Home

Returning home in 1961, with an exposure denied to most black South Africans, he was immediately seen by many as a natural and well-equipped leader. "I wasn't afraid to lead, but I never saw myself as a political leader and never have up to this day. I am simply someone who wants to make a contribution to the cultural fabric of the people. I am interested in politics only to the extent that politics can contribute to this process. Politics is not the thing for me, it is not my all-embracing concern. It is only part of a bigger concern; it is a means to the realisation of a vision. My major concern and vision is not power. It is freedom."

Alexander recognised, however, that power is a major step en route to freedom and he immediately submitted his ideas to NEUM, suggesting that they prepare themselves for guerilla warfare. The youth responded warmly, while the older people were sceptical of both his plans and his agenda. He was suspended from the movement and together with Kenneth and Tilly Abrahams and some others he formed the Yu Chi Chan Club (YCCC), which committed itself to research guerilla warfare. They subsequently formed the National Liberation Front (NLF) to bring together people committed to the violent overthrow of the state, irrespective of their political ideology.

Emphasising the importance of a military arm in political struggle waged in a non-democratic situation, Alexander makes a point of referring to the fact that some of the most influential SWAPO leaders were members of the Front and the Club. "As such," he says, "the club played a major role in getting SWAPO leaders to opt for a guerilla war—although this would probably be denied by many high-ranking SWAPO government ministers today."

Had APDUSA, (the African People's Democratic Union for Southern Africa; an off-shoot of NEUM), for example, become the mother body that SWAPO became for militant elements in Namibia, we could have had a very different situation in South Africa today. Umkhonto we Sizwe would probably still be the dominant military force among the liberation movements, but we may well have had an additional political current being promoted by armed struggle rooted among the people, especially in rural areas.

But because APDUSA refused to provide the necessary support, we were compelled to forge an organisation from scratch and that was a mistake. We now know that we should rather have entered

the ANC or even the PAC. But we were too prejudiced against these groups for that to happen.

People both in NEUM and elsewhere thought that those promoting guerilla activities were just a group of silly young intellectuals who did not really know what they were doing. "And to some extent they were right," says Alexander.

We were very inexperienced, very green. We had no mature or older people to caution us against certain excesses. We had no military tradition, no conspiracy tradition, no knowledge of secret work. We learned from scratch; literally from encyclopedias. We were an accident waiting to happen!

Some of us were arrested and went to prison. Some of our people went into exile, one or two were killed and our structures were destroyed. When I was released from prison I met up with a few old friends, but essentially we had to find a new political home. That's when I made contact with the Black Consciousness Movement.

"But that is going ahead of things," he notes. "Before Black Consciousness Movement came Robben Island." Neville Alexander is a systematic person. He thinks historically and tells his story with chronological and logical precision.

Robben Island

"For me the Island was a disaster in so far as I was obliged to stay there for ten years (1964–74). It was brutalising. Some of the prisoners were almost impossible to live with. The guards were in many instances uncouth, near-illiterate victims of a terrible system. On several occasions we complained to higher-ranking officials that every time they decided to change the prison personnel, we had to educate them all over again. Those negative things I try to forget. It was also an ennobling and enriching experience. It was empowering and most of us came out of it much better people. We were strengthened by the experience." Alexander speaks of the importance of personal relations forged between prisoners.

There were people of such incredibly high calibre on the Island; people like Nelson (Mandela) and Walter (Sisulu). They set a fine example. . . It was quite remarkable that despite initial suspicions, periodic friction and occasional serious rows, people of such different political persuasions could actually get on so well—

even when confined to such small, unpleasant quarters. I learned here to disagree with people, while continuing to respect them. The experience was an example of true democracy and political pluralism. Robben Island was the seed bed in which we learned that we actually need one another. It is this realisation that must form the basis of a new nation.

Speaking of the education programme that was developed in prison, Alexander recalls: "We had some of the sharpest and keenest brains in the country together in a small place." Apart from obtaining an Honours degree in History while in prison, he read both widely and deeply. Hegel, Goethe, Schiller and Shakespeare, as well as the classical English novelists, were among the texts he read and re-read. "We taught one another what we knew, discovering each other's resourcefulness. We also learned how people with little or no formal education could not only themselves participate in education programmes but actually teach others a range of different insights and skills." Building on this experience, Alexander has engaged in research on the restructuring of the South African educational system. "The 'University of Robben Island' was one of the best universities in the country . . . it also showed me that you don't need professors."

Alexander's self-discipline and personal integrity emerged perhaps nowhere more clearly than in his refusal to attend church services while in prison. "I refused to attend not because of any objection to religion per se , but because I had personal objections to what I thought was opportunism. Too many prisoners simply attended the services as an outing. It gave them something to do. I would never have been prepared to do this. Maybe I am simply too puritanical, but I refused to pretend that I was worshipping God when I knew very well that I was not. When I look back on the position that I adopted I realise that I was probably being too harsh in my judgement of those who used the church as an excuse to get out of their cells. At the same time I expect of others only what I demand of myself—personal integrity."

Alexander is someone in whom other people are ready to confide. "I think it has to do with an ability to listen. I have no aspirations to be this kind of confidant and no pretensions about having any particular counselling skills. In fact I often find the willingness of people to confide in me a little irksome." He suggests that the ability to listen has to do with energy; simply taking the time and expending the energy carefully to follow the often complex and contradictory line of reasoning of someone. "Robben Island helped me to try to unravel

and understand the complexity of my own personality and life. This has, in turn, given me the capacity to involve myself in the labyrin-thine lives of others. I suppose I have the mental discipline to do so."

He recalls too the inter-personal relations. "To get to grips with oneself and to take other people seriously, necessarily involves relationships. Robben Island was a kind of hot house where things happened with intensity. Some deep personal relations were forged there, and some serious and deeply-based differences emerged. In that kind of situation it was necessary to learn to say: 'I am sorry' or to say,'I was wrong' without feeling humiliated. That is something one has to learn, it does not come naturally. It has to do with the Napoleonic thing: 'You can only command if you can obey'. Truth, honesty and integrity must be the measure of all debate and all relationships—against these we must judge ourselves in the same way that we expect others to be measured by them."

Speaking of the sensitivity which emerges between people who learn this kind of trust and honesty, Alexander relates his insights to physical human relationships. "It is a natural thing for people to want to be close to one another." He speaks of the taboos with which some people came into prison concerning not only homosexuality but any form of physical contact with a person of the same sex. "It was, however, completely natural that the kind of emotional and political intimacy which emerged among us on Robben Island would manifest itself in a person putting his hand on someone else's hand or around his shoulder." Seeing this to be the extension of the relationship which often exists between a father and a son or two close brothers, he suggests that under the pressure of their prison experience the prisoners often discovered things about themselves which they had not hitherto known. "Close human relations require the texture that comes from physical contact, without this necessarily acquiring homosexual overtones when it happens between people of the same sex." Relating this to gender relations, Alexander argues that conversely, males are often unable to relate to women without craving physical contact which is overtly sexual. Recognising that attitudes on gender, sexism and human relations are strongly influenced by experience he observes: "I was very lucky when I came out of prison because I met a few very confident, very knowledgeable and very progressive women, mostly classified 'white' (which is why they were confident etc), who were anti-sexist and real feminists in the positive sense of that term. In two or three years they got the last vestiges of sexism out of my life forever."

I could go on and on. The process of sorting out our relations with others, whether of the same or a different sex, is part of learning how to relate to people generally; it has to do with putting aside our prejudices and presuppositions, while learning to be neither opinionated and aggressive nor submissive and capitulating. It has to do with meeting one another as equal members of the human species; it has something to do with learning what it means to love one's neighbour.

Black Consciousness

Critical of certain aspects of black consciousness, Alexander insists that "the ideology and practices of black consciousness were among the most creative phenomena of the 1970s". It was quite natural that he should have sought to make contact with the proponents of this philosophy on being released from prison.

He still regards his essay "Black Consciousness: A Reactionary Tendency?" which he wrote while under house arrest in 1974, as the basis of his critique of black consciousness.^[1] Recognising that the Black Consciousness Movement was less dependent on US influences than he realised at the time, he says that today he would "emphasise much more the indigenous—especially Africanist and, paradoxically, Unity Movement—influences on the evolution of the ideology and the political practices of the Black Consciousness Movement." This having been said, it is important to note Alexander's criticism of black consciousness in America. He states: "Any cultural product that enhances humanity by weakening the perpetuation of the system which enables men to exploit others, is beautiful. Anything, whether black, blue or red, which does the opposite or tends to do so, is ugly." He regards black consciousness as being an important political tactic. His concern is, however, that to the extent that it comes under the control of the wrong people it can degenerate into simply another exercise in reform. "If the present crop of leaders is bought off by the powerful and all-pervasive oligarchy to become satellite 'capitalists' or apologists for these, the Black Consciousness Movement will become another conformist attempt: it will become a consumerist

[1] For a reprint of "Black Consciousness: A Reactionary Tendency?" and reassessment of this argument see, Neville Alexander, "Black Consciousness: A Reactionary Tendency?" in N. Barney Pityana, Mamphela Ramphele, Malusi Mpumlwana and Lindy Wilson, Bounds of Possibility: The Legacy of Steve Biko and Black Consciousness (Cape Town: David Philip, 1991) pp. 238–252. "The original is reproduced warts and all, including incidentally the male chauvinist language which I continued to use unproblematically at the time."—Alexander.

movement providing the ideological basis of firms catering for Afro-styles. It will give the appearance of militant opposition while in reality constituting a necessary and even a vital aspect of the Establishment."

Relating this problem to the South African situation he argues: "The Black Consciousness Movement correctly stresses the unity of the oppressed people of South Africa." He obviously recognises that the oppressed are for various historical reasons identifiable in the majority of cases by their colour. His concern is, however, that oppression be not only associated with the plethora of apartheid signs and institutions—a concern which is, of course, clearly shared by the proponents of black consciousness. His argument is that a critique of apartheid must necessarily go beyond colour. It must penetrate the socio-economic roots of the apartheid system. "It is not the 'white' man," he writes, "but the system that oppresses us." He at the same time shares the Black Consciousness Movement's rejection of white liberals, while suggesting it would be a mistake to believe that all liberals are white. Pointing to the close links that have emerged between liberals and the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, he believes that all such links should be severed if the Black Consciousness Movement is to become an independent movement and refuge for the oppressed. "In the long run," he suggests, "liberalism is a greater danger to the struggle of the oppressed than fascism."

Again, as if to ensure that no simple answers be allowed, he insists that the Black Consciousness Movement correctly upholds the dignity and inalienable rights of black people. It is quite wrong, however, when it promotes these rights on the basis of these people being black. "Blacks," he stresses, "have these rights because they are people, a link in a great chain of humanity. The oppressed have an historic mission not because they are black but precisely because they are oppressed and have, therefore, a vital interest in the restructuring of a society that is rotten to the core."

Commenting on recent developments in South African politics, both the 'compromise' options being considered for a post-apartheid society as well as the suspicion and violence that exist between various ethnic groups, he observes that his critique of black consciousness "has stood the test of time".

Firmly committed to the principled unity of the oppressed people, his plea back in 1974, addressed as it was to the 'militant youth' within

the Black Consciousness Movement, was for a critical reassessment of the central ideas of the movement in relation to the total history of struggle in South Africa, to ensure that it enter into meaningful debate with the rest of the tradition of struggle. This unity was high on the agenda of the abortive meeting between Alexander and Biko. So was the need for debate.

After House Arrest

During his years as a banned person under house arrest, Alexander worked in a supermarket and as a book-keeper in a doctor's surgery. He also wrote a book entitled, One Azania, One Nation: The National Question in South Africa , published under the pseudonym, 'No Sizwe' in 1979. When his banning was lifted he researched Namibian history, again as a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He later lectured part-time at UCT and became the Cape Town Director of the South African Committee for Higher Education (SACHED). In 1983, sensing a shift in political developments, he helped launch the Cape Action League (CAL) and was instrumental in the formation of the National Forum. In 1986 he became Executive Secretary of the Health, Education and Welfare Society of South Africa (HEWSSA), a trust designed to mediate funding for various community-based organisations. He helped establish the National Language Project and published Language Policy and National Unity in South Africa/Azania in 1989. In April 1990 Alexander was elected head of a new political formation, the Workers Organisation for Socialist Action (WOSA), committed to promoting working-class interests. In 1991 he was appointed Director of the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa in the Faculty of Education at UCT.

No Need for the God Hypothesis

"My task and that of WOSA," says Alexander, "is to be the voice of the urban and rural poor." Concerned that the middle-class leadership that has emerged in the political structures of the oppressed will compromise to the point where the vast majority of the people will continue to be marginalised, his commitment is to ensure that the poor are afforded the opportunity to participate in the creation of their own future. He argues that while capitalism is presently being celebrated in global and local politics, the contradictions of capitalism will once again explode. The task of WOSA and similar organisations is to ensure that when this happens there is a sufficiently strong infrastructure for that moment to be seized.

Obviously we know that at certain critical times in history numbers count. We are realistic about our influence at present and have few utopian ideas as to what South Africa is likely to look like in the short- to medium-term future. We are at the same time ready to network with similarly minded groups in other political formations, recognising, as we do, that such groups exist in the ANC, the SACP, PAC, religious groups and elsewhere. We can do so, however, only on the basis of socialist principles which promote the interests of the working-class, the unemployed, the marginalised and the poor.

Despite the goodwill and noble intentions of others, it is this constituency alone that has the capacity to confront the present system because they alone have nothing to lose—except their chains. The material poverty of the poor puts them in a position where they have little or nothing with which to compromise. It is this that makes them the dynamic force for change that they are.

Alexander recognises that in a certain sense his life has done a full circle, while in another it has never changed—his priority is, as it was as a pupil at Holy Rosary Convent, the well-being of the poor. "The programme of WOSA," suggests Alexander, "is almost biblical in its simplicity because we genuinely say that the most urgent need in our country today is the need to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless and care for the sick. These are the things that really matter in life, it is part of the injunction to love one's neighbour." What has changed since his school days is that today Alexander insists he is an atheist.

My commitment, if you like, is to ensure that the kingdom of heaven occurs on earth. I am not even agnostic about the rest—I am not even prepared to say that if there is a heaven that will be great. There is no logical proof of the existence of God.

Yes, it is important to intellectually explore the frontiers of the quest to understand reality. As a literary person I certainly understand the power of the metaphor. I also recognise that the materialist paradigm is itself a metaphor. I further know that there is a dialectical relationship between body and mind, between matter and spirit. It is in fact wrong to ask which is primary because in saying that the mind is a function of matter, there is a sense in which we are saying that matter is a function of the mind. There is no way to get beyond a certain point of reasoning.

Almost as if annoyed with his own intellectualism at this point, Alexander quickly insists that the majority of people have a need for

religion to give life some kind of meaning and a mental construct by which to survive. "There are very few people, usually intellectuals, who can actually sublimate that need in other ways." Himself an intellectual, he observes: "I find myself agreeing with Pierre Laplace (the French astronomer and mathematician) who, when he was asked whether in contemplating the universe he was not compelled to allow for the existence of God, observed: 'Monsieur, I do not have the need for that hypothesis.' " Alexander's interest lies elsewhere. It is with the creation of a genuinely moral, decent and caring society, which allows for the fullest participation and sharing by all sectors of society. He speaks of the need for materialists and believers to find one another in social and ethical concerns rather than by engaging in endless doctrinal disputes. "There is a need," he insists, "to find the kind of meeting place that Palmiro Togliatti (the Italian communist of a half a century ago) was seeking for when he spoke of the need for an 'historic compromise' between the Christian Democratic Party and the Communist Party in post-Mussolini Italy. Socialists of different kinds need to find one another in order to keep the hope of the poor alive." Recognising that there is a working-class majority in most Church denominations, he insists that the identification of the institutional Church with capitalism is an unnecessary one. "It is also," he reminds us, "a distortion of the message of the historical Jesus."

 PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Mayibuye Centre, UWC