June CEO's Letter

It is hard to believe that it is already a year since I joined the Foundation. In this time, we have built a strong momentum in our work: we launched three new programme areas, have hosted thousands of people through the Truth to Power exhibition, and we are growing a respected public voice for justice. This work is the foundation for our next few years, in which we are aiming to focus our strategy on deepening societal healing.

While there is a lot of momentum and a positive feeling of building something that will sustain us into the future, the sudden passing of Eusebius McKaiser last week, causes us to pause as we are reminded of the fragility of life.

In Eusebius, we mourn the loss of an extraordinary voice for justice in our times. He created space in South Africa for the kind of deep conversations that we need to have to face up to ourselves, our histories, and to imagine our futures together. Amidst the global celebration of Pride, we are also witnessing the ongoing struggle for the right to love freely, as we confront the abhorrent anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda. Eusebius lived openly as a gay man, and fearlessly criticised the government’s silence on the Ugandan legislation. In a recent column for Times Live he wrote, “There may not be nearly as much international agreement that homophobia is wrong as there is growing agreement that racism and misogyny are, but it would take very little intellectual and political work to demonstrate that racism, misogyny and homophobia are morally equivalent."

This sentiment was one the Arch also shared: “I oppose such injustice [homophobia] with the same passion that I opposed apartheid. I would not worship a God who is homophobic.”

When the Arch passed away in December 2021, we lost his voice of profound moral courage. What are we to do when we lose people who have been lodestars for our societies? And how do we manage the particular pain of missing their voice in a time of crisis?

My sense is that the Arch would have been quite tickled by the idea that I have grouped the two of them together in this note. The Arch with his small frame, Eusebius with his barrel-chest; the Arch being, well, the Archbishop of the Anglican Church, and Eusebius one of the country’s most vocal atheists. And yet, there is something that profoundly unites their legacies: the way in which they affirmed the intrinsic value of all human beings, and their pursuit of a more just and healed society.

Both the Arch and Eusebius were dreamers. In his address to the UCT graduation in 1993, the Arch insisted:

[W]e should dream dreams and see visions about the new society we want to create together…Our society must be characterised by ubuntu when we recognise our fundamental interdependence and interconnectedness. Ours should be a caring and compassionate and a sharing society …where [people] count because they have been created in the image of God , and consequently, are of infinite worth, with a worth that is intrinsic.  Let us dream. Don't be got down by cynics who say, "That's too idealistic, that's too utopian.”

As we do this legacy work, I keep close to my heart the injunction to dream. To build a society that truly reflects the intrinsic worth of all people, together. Even as we mourn the loss of the great voices of our society, we must take up the challenge – each of us – to overcome the cynics and dream together a more beautiful, just, and healed world.

Janet Jobson