Tshenuwani Farisani

Tshenuwani Simon Farisani (born 30 August 1948) is a South African politician, theologian, and Lutheran minister. During apartheid, he was one of the country's most prominent black clergymen and preached anti-apartheid liberation theology from his diocese in Venda and Transvaal. He founded the Black Evangelic Youth Organisation with Cyril Ramaphosa in the early 1970s and was also active in the Black Consciousness movement, especially as president of the Black People's Convention from 1973 to 1975. He was arrested on four occasions, according to Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, and he testified abroad about the torture he was subjected to by the apartheid police.

Tshenuwani Farisani
Member of the National Assembly
In office 2009–2010
President	Jacob Zuma
Speaker of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature
In office April 2004–April 2009
Premier	Sello Moloto Cassel Mathale
Preceded by	Robert Malavi
Succeeded by	Rudolph Phala
Member of the Limpopo Executive Council
In office July 1997–April 2004
Premier	Ngoako Ramatlhodi
President of the Black People's Convention
In office 1973–1975
Preceded by	Winnie Kgware
Succeeded by	Hlaku Kenneth Rachidi
Personal details
Born	(1948-08-30) 30 August 1948 (age 75) Northern Transvaal, Union of South Africa
Political party	African National Congress
Other political affiliations	South African Communist Party
Occupation	Politician Lutheran minister theologian anti-apartheid activist

After the end of apartheid, Farisani represented the African National Congress in the Limpopo Provincial Legislature and National Assembly. He was a Member of the Executive Council in the Limpopo provincial government under the inaugural Premier of Limpopo, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, from 1997 to 2004, and from 2004 to 2009 he was Speaker of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature.

Early life and career

Tshenuwani Simon Farisani was born on 30 August 1948^[1] in the region of the Transvaal province that became Limpopo.^[2][3] His father was a farmer and traditional healer and during apartheid his family was forcibly resettled several times.^[2][4] Farisani was a "brilliant" student and enrolled in theological college to prepare for ordainment as a minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church.^[5] He subscribed to a radical political interpretation of Christianity, aligned with the black or liberation theology that was ascendant in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.^[6] In particular, Farisani argued strongly that apartheid was not God-given but was a manmade atrocity and that Lutheranism should not be a conservative political force but a force for the liberation of the oppressed.^[7][5] In 1972, he was expelled from the Lutheran Theological College at Umphumulo in Natal for rebelling against its conservative teachings.^[5]

By then, Farisani was a prominent activist in the burgeoning Black Consciousness movement and frequently travelled the country conducting a mixture of political mobilisation and Christian evangelism.^[5] He had met a teenaged Cyril Ramaphosa, later a prominent trade unionist and a post-apartheid President of South Africa, while acting as a guest speaker at the debating society of Ramaphosa's boarding school, Mpaphuli High School in the bantustan of Venda.^[2][5] Together, Ramaphosa and Farisani had established the Black Evangelic Youth Organisation (BEYO), chaired by Ramaphosa and deputy chaired by Farisani. In the early 1970s, student members of BEYO conducted evangelical tours of rural villages in the region around Sibasa, and the organisation expanded in size and scope, becoming the Bold Evangelic Youth Organisation (once it began admitting whites) and then the Bold Evangelic Christian Association (once it began admitting adults).^[5] According to Ramaphosa's biographer Anthony Butler, Farisani became an important mentor to Ramaphosa and a major influence on his political thought.^[5]

In addition, Farisani succeeded Winnie Kgware as president of the Black Consciousness-aligned Black People's Convention (BPC) from 1973 to 1975.^[7][8] He resigned from the BPC in 1975 when he was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa.^[9] In the 1980s, he became a dean and deputy bishop in the church's northern diocese, which included the Venda bantustan and some areas of neighbouring Transvaal.^[9][10][11] According to the Washington Post and Africa Report, he was considered a frontrunner to succeed Beyers Naudé as secretary general of the South African Council of Churches.^[4][10]

Detention

Because of his anti-apartheid activism, Farisani attracted the attention of Venda police forces and the Security Branch of the South African Police.^[12] Between 1977 and 1987, he was detained without trial on four separate occasions.^[13][14] On the first occasion in March 1977, he was arrested and detained for two days in Howick, Natal on suspicion of fomenting the 1976 Soweto Uprising and helping activists flee the country into exile.^[15] He said that police officers tortured him, including by dangling him from a third-floor window and suspending him from a pole.^[9] He was detained again later in 1977 and held into 1978.^[9]

His third detention began in November 1981, when he and nineteen others (including three other clergymen) were arrested in connection with the bombing of a Sibasa police station in October of that year.^[7] Farisani was held until June 1982 and subjected to further torture.^[9][16] Tshifhiwa Muofhe, a friend of Farisani who had been arrested with him, died in detention;^[16] an inquest in July 1982 determined that he had been tortured to death by policemen.^[7] The case attracted the attention of Amnesty International, which launched an international letter-writing campaign that helped secure Farisani's release.^[9][17]

Upon his release, Farisani sued the Venda government for damages, claiming that he had suffered two heart attacks as a result of his torture, and the government paid him R6,500 (about $5,000) in a pre-trial settlement.^[9][16] He was released without charge and always denied involvement in the 1981 bombing, saying that he was at a church meeting in Johannesburg at the time of the attack.^[7][9] In 1986, at the request of Amnesty International, he travelled to Europe and the United States to testify about his torture, telling several audiences, including an American congressional subcommittee, that he had been beaten unconscious and given electric shocks by the Venda security police.^[10][13][16]

Farisani was arrested by the apartheid police for a final time on 22 November 1986, shortly after returning from his international trip.^[16][17] His detention attracted international attention; Amnesty International designated him a "prisoner of conscience" and sent a representative to Venda to work for his release.^[13] On 1 January 1987, he began a hunger strike in his cell,^[13] which he maintained until his release on 20 January.^[4][10] In February, the apartheid government declared him a "prohibited immigrant", a designation which effectively confined him to the Venda bantustan, obliging him to apply for a visa if he wished to cross into white South Africa.^[10] Later in 1987, he travelled to the United States for treatment at the Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis,^[14][17] and he subsequently went into exile abroad.^[18] In 1996, he testified about his experience in detention at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.^[2][19]

Post-apartheid career

In South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, Farisani was elected to represent the African National Congress (ANC) in the new National Assembly.^[20] In July 1997, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, in his capacity as Premier of Limpopo (then known as Northern Province), appointed Farisani as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Agriculture in the Limpopo provincial government.^[21] During this period, Farisani was also a member of the ANC Provincial Executive Committee in Limpopo; in 1998, he was elected as provincial treasurer (under Ramatlhodi as provincial chairperson) and served in that position until the committee's dissolution in 2001.^[22][23] In June 1999, following the 1999 general election, Ramatlhodi reshuffled his executive and appointed Farisani MEC for Transport and Public Roads.^[24][18] He retained that portfolio until 2004,^[25] when, following the 2004 general election, he was appointed Speaker of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature.^[18]

He left the provincial Speaker position after the 2009 general election,^[26] in which he was elected to return to the National Assembly.^[27] He also became chairperson of the assembly's Portfolio Committee on Arts and Culture.^[28][29] However, he resigned his seat in late 2010.^[27] He denied rumours that he had been pushed out to free up the seat for a younger ANC politician, saying that he had resigned voluntarily to devote more time to his ministerial duties.^[29] He remained an active preacher in Limpopo^[29][30] and was also an active member of the South African Communist Party (SACP); he was SACP regional treasurer in the Vhembe region as of 2019.^[31]

Personal life

He is married to Regina Farisani.^[13][3]

Honours

In September 2022, the Dr Tshenuwani Farisani Development Foundation was launched in Farisani's honour in Thohoyandou, Limpopo.^[3] In November of that year, he received an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Venda.^[32]

Selected publications

• Farisani, Tshenuwani Simon (1987). Diary from a South African Prison. Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-2062-2.
• Farisani, Tshenuwani Simon (1990). In Transit: Between the Image of God and the Image of Man. W.B. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-0438-9.

References

1. "General Notice: Notice 1319 of 1999 – Electoral Commission: Representatives Elected to the Various Legislatures" (PDF). Government Gazette of South Africa. Vol. 408, no. 20203. Pretoria, South Africa: Government of South Africa. 11 June 1999. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
2. Hartley, Ray (2018). Cyril Ramaphosa: The Path to Power in South Africa. Oxford University Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN 978-1-78738-092-9.
3. "Foundation launched in honour of Dr Tshenuwani Farisani". Limpopo Mirror. 17 September 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
4. "Simon Tshenuwani Farisani: A 'Political Priest'". Africa Report. 32 (3). 1 May 1987.
5. Butler, Anthony (2011). Cyril Ramaphosa. Jacana. pp. 39–44. ISBN 978-1-4314-0184-0.
6. Buffel, O. A. (2010). "Black Theology and the Black Masses: The Need of an Organic Relationship Between Black Theology and the Black Masses". Scriptura: Journal for Biblical, Theological and Contextual Hermeneutics. 105: 470–480. doi:10.7833/105-0-166. ISSN 2305-445X.
7. "South Africa Lutheran Pastor Tortured for Antiracist Views". Christianity Today. 18 March 1983. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
8. "Black Peoples Convention – National Leadership". South African History Online. 19 September 2012. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
9. "Minister tells of his ordeals at hands of South African police". Christian Science Monitor. 3 July 1984. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
10. "S. Africa Confines Lutheran Cleric to Homeland". Washington Post. 25 February 1987. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
11. Curran, Charles E. (1991). "Two Nations Under God". Transition (54): 116–121. doi:10.2307/2934906. ISSN 0041-1191. JSTOR 2934906.
12. Kgatla, S.T. (2016). "Clergy's resistance to Venda Homeland's independence in the 1970s and 1980s". Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae (SHE). 42 (3). doi:10.17159/2412-4265/2016/1167.
13. "Pretoria Foe Said To Be Ailing". Washington Post. 20 January 1987. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
14. Stewart, Richard H. (22 August 1987). "Torturous Tales From South African Jails". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
15. "Victims: Farisani, Tshenuwani Simon". Truth Commission Special Report. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
16. "Fears Arise For Jailed Clergyman". Washington Post. 30 November 1986. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
17. Lewis, Anthony (16 August 1987). "Abroad At Home; Refusing To Talk". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
18. "Police probe death threats on Farisani". Sowetan. 30 November 2006. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
19. "Former Detainee Challenges His Tormentors to Testify to TRC". SAPA. 4 October 1996. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
20. South Africa: Campaign and Election Report April 26–29, 1994. International Republican Institute. 1994. Retrieved 13 April 2023 – via Yumpu.
21. "Northern Province executive reshuffled". The Mail & Guardian. 1 July 1997. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
22. . African National Congress. 27 October 1998. Archived from the original on 21 February 1999. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
23. Lodge, Tom (2003). "The ANC and the development of party politics in modern South Africa" (PDF). African Studies Centre Leiden. p. 19. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
24. "Ramatlhodi to keep seven of 10 MECs". Business Day. 23 June 1999. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
25. "MEC to be held accountable for road deaths". Zoutnet. 2 April 2004. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
26. "Limpopo's newly elected premier announces his Exco". South African Government News Agency. 6 May 2009. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
27. "T S Farisani". People's Assembly. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
28. "Address by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Ms Lulu Xingwana MP at the Budget Vote of the Department of Arts and Culture". South African Government. 19 June 2009. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
29. "Two MPs resign to make way for others". Sowetan. 15 November 2010. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
30. "Cleric collapses after church burns down". Sowetan. 12 October 2010. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
31. "VBS saga: Parliamentary committee hears about lack of action from municipalities". News24. 18 October 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
32. "Honorary doctorates for Dr Farisani and Prof Marwala". Zoutnet. 24 November 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2022.

External links

• T. S. Farisani at People's Assembly
• "Torture of a South African Pastor" (1984) by the Lutheran World Federation