a Matter of PrinCiPle

Mandela was summoned to Dr. Kerr’s office and threatened with expulsion if he insisted on resigning from the SRC. It was the first time that he was forced to make such a “consequential decision” and he consulted his friend and mentor, K.D. Matanzima, whom he “feared even more than (he) did Dr. Kerr”. K.D. felt that because it was “a matter of principle” he was “correct to resign, and should not capitulate”.

Naturally, because it was Mandela’s own future at stake, he did not quite share K.D’s superb confidence that the decision was the right one. he was concerned that he might be “sabotaging (his) academic career over an abstract moral principle that mattered very little... (he) did not want to throw away (his) career at Fort hare”. Nonetheless, “(he) had taken a stand, and... did not want to appear to be a fraud in the eyes of (his) fellow students”.

Mandela, in fact, did not make up his mind until his meeting with Dr. Kerr when to his own surprise he said that he could not “in good conscience serve on the SRC”. Equally surprisingly, Dr. Kerr proposed that he take the summer off and return to Fort hare the following year “provided (he) join the SRC”. Mandela knew it was “foolhardy” of him to leave Fort hare but “simply... could not compromise... the injustice rankled... he resented Dr. Kerr’s “absolute power over (his) fate” and felt “he should have (the) right to resign from the SRC if (he) wished”.

From a conversation with Richard Stengel, January 13, 1993