South African Anti-Apartheid Hero, Mac Maharaj To Address Class of 2007

The legendary figure who smuggled Nelson Mandela’s biography out of prison; a central hero in the fight to end apartheid; democratic South Africa’s first cabinet minister of transport; and the subject of the newly released, internationally acclaimed biography Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa—Bennington College faculty member, Mac Maharaj will address Bennington’s graduating class of 2007, on Friday, June 1, 2007.

Nelson Mandela, in his forward to Shades of Difference writes, “Mac put the struggle for the freedom of South Africa above everything in his life….He never flinched from the consequences of the actions he took….Indeed, he regarded facing up to those consequences as a test of his integrity even though those consequences might have been painful, might have meant death as the measure of his own integrity.…There was no element of bravado to what he did. His concern was simple: to see that the struggle continued and triumphed. …All of us, including me, are indebted to him.”

In 1964, while working underground for the African National Congress (ANC), Maharaj was arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison on Robben Island. After escaping into exile in 1977, he was appointed secretary of the Internal Political and Reconstruction Department of the ANC. He served on the Revolutionary Council and National Executive Committee of the ANC and, after clandestinely reentering the country, was commander of Operation Vula from 1988 to 1990, running an underground program of armed resistance against the apartheid government. After Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Maharaj served as a lead negotiator for the ANC in talks with the National Party government and joint secretary of the Transitional Executive Council, overseeing South Africa's transition to democracy. Mandela appointed Maharaj minister of transport upon becoming president in 1994; Maharaj served in parliament until 1999.

Maharaj remains part of Mandela’s innermost circle of advisors and colleagues, serving as a co-editor of Mandela: The Authorized Portrait, which included essays from President Bill Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and is a member of the Nelson Mandela Foundation executive committee.

Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa written by Padraig O’Malley has already high praise and acclaim. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that “Maharaj is not only an uncommonly interesting man, but he was also a key player in one of the 20th century's most remarkable political processes: the transformation of South Africa from a racist pariah state into a truly pluralistic, multiracial democracy. Telling Maharaj's story shines a myriad of lights on undiscovered, even forgotten episodes and crises along the difficult road to that metamorphosis.”

Maharaj has been a faculty member at Bennington College since 2005. His courses have included: South Africa’s Road to Democracy, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, The Constitutional Court of South Africa, Negotiating Change in South Africa, From Nuremberg to the International Criminal Court, and Nelson Mandela: Choices and Consequences, among others.