Sunday NYT Book Review: Mac Maharaj Biography “A Striking Success”

Faculty member and South African anti-apartheid hero Mac Maharaj’s recently released biography Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa by Padraig O’Malley has garnered considerable praise and national coverage. The Sunday, June 10, issue of the New York Times Book Review declared the biography “a striking success.”

Shades of Difference chronicles Maharaj’s life as an African National Congress (ANC) freedom fighter. Young Maharaj began working for the movement out of college, employed as an editor of a newspaper during the day and using the press at night to churn leaflets. At just 29 years old Maharaj was detained for his political activities and brutally tortured for months. He was sentenced to 12 years on the notorious Robben Island.

A Long Walk to Freedom.

It was on Robben Island where Maharaj’s iron will and integrity captured the attention of ANC leader Nelson Mandela, who was only cells away. Mandela reflects “From the beginning I could see that Mac…was tough, would give backchat to the warders, was too quick with the barbed remark, too argumentative… too intelligent for his own good.” Mandela concludes, “In truth, he reminded me a bit of my younger self…”

So confident of Maharaj’s courage and ingenuity, Mandela drafted his autobiography to coincide with Maharaj’s release. “As Mandela drafted the pages, he gave them to me. My job was to transcribe it and prepare it for concealment,” Maharaj remembers.

Mandela writes, “When the story is told of how the manuscript of my autobiography was smuggled off the island, something is usually lost in the telling, namely, what the consequences would have been for Mac if the manuscript had been discovered…Mac undertook the task willingly, knowing full well that if he was caught, he would be charged and find himself back on Robben Island.”

Released from prison in 1976, Maharaj carried an indestructible resolve and a miniaturized, undetected manuscript of A Long Walk to Freedom.

Operation Vula: Leading an Organized Resistance.

Maharaj would design Operation Vula, an innovative military offensive that drastically altered the landscape and effectiveness of ANC operations. Centered around a stalwart communications operation, Vula connected the people’s movements on the ground in South Africa with senior leaders in Zambia and provided a secure line for ANC leaders in the cells of Robben Island to communicate with leaders in Zambia and others, like Maharaj, who were leading the underground resistance in South Africa.

Negotiating Democracy.

Maharaj was one of a few key leaders in negotiations between the ANC and the National Party in 1993. Mandela: “He had that rare ability to contextualize an issue, not only in terms of its immediate fixed framework but also in terms of an evolving long-term framework...” The outcome: a bill of rights, an interim constitution, and a five-year government of national unity.

When Mandela became the first democratically elected President of South Africa in 1994, he appointed Maharaj Minister of Transport. Both Mandela and Maharaj retired from office in 1999.

Life after Politics.

Maharaj served as editorial consultant for the recently released biography Mandela: The Authorized Portrait and co-edited, with Mandela, Reflections in Prison: Voices from the South African Liberation Struggle. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and makes regular and worldwide media appearances. He teaches at Bennington College as part of the College's Democracy Project.

To access the full New York Times review click here.

To listen to his most recent National Public Radio appearance on Open Source, click here.

To access his abbreviated biography and course listings, click here.