Freedom Cry

Gregory Fortuin is best known to New Zealanders as the first diplomat for the new South Africa, appointed by Nelson Mandela, and later as the Race Relations Commissioner. But today I am speaking to Gregory in his new position as the national director for The Salvation Army’s Education & Employment (previously Employment Plus). This role brings together his background in finance and business structures, as well as a personal history dedicated to social justice.

The role hadn't even on his radar, reflects Gregory. But following a panel interview process, he was invited to meet with Secretary for Programme Lieut-Colonel Rod Carey, and they prayed together in his office. ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways,’ laughs Gregory as he settles into his new role.

‘Employment Plus sits under the mission of The Salvation Army to eradicate poverty, and doing that by teaching one person at a time,’ says Gregory. ‘Business and social justice can co-exist side by side; you can’t be sustainable unless your expenses are less than your revenue. So I want to bring my business background and use that for the transformation of young people.’

A ratbag kid

Although Gregory describes his younger self as ‘climbing the corporate ladder’, a passion for social justice was imprinted in him as he grew up on a farm in Paarl (whose main claim to fame is as the hometown of former South African rugby coach Peter De Villiers), near Capetown. Gregory is the middle child of three boys. When they were aged seven, six and four, their father died, leaving their 27-year-old mother a widow.

They moved to the farm where his father’s mother lived, sharing the land with eight other families. ‘My mum pushed two single beds together, and me, my brothers and my mum all slept together,’ says Gregory. ‘She went to work from seven in the morning till seven at night to provide for us. We were ratbag kids (but loveable ratbags, of course), so the neighbours often complained.’

But an old, illiterate man became like a second father to the boys. ‘He could not read or write but he was the salt of the earth. He would often sit us down and say, “In 20 years’ time you will be embarrassed about your actions today.” He always challenged us about taking responsibility for our actions.’ Gregory has many fond memories from the farm, growing up surrounded by other families, playing, getting in trouble, and learning from his mother’s ‘absolutely unshakeable faith’.

Later, all nine families living on the farm were ‘booted off the land with the stroke of an apartheid pen’ so that it could be occupied by white South African families.

Far-fetched and laughable …

‘Apartheid pervaded every sphere of our lives and it was so normal, it was like getting up and washing your face,’ remembers Gregory. ‘I grew up in a designated coloured area and went to a designated coloured school. We would walk to the railway station, and cross over the designated narrow bridge, while the whites had the wide bridge, and wait for the coloured train carriages. It would be far-fetched and laughable if it wasn’t just so tragically true.’

It begs the very obvious question: why abide with it? And Gregory’s answer is from one who has pondered an answer: ‘Power is never given; it is taken. When you have a system of political power, economic power and social power imposed upon you, you become powerless and in a state of control. When you’re kept in submissive positions for generations, it’s hard to rise above it and assume power that has been taken from you.’

Capitalist with a Conscience

But Gregory did rise above it. His burning ambition was to be a doctor. He made the extraordinary grades to apply to the ‘white’ University of Capetown, and got permission from the Ministry of Coloured Affairs to study medicine. But the handful of non-white quotas had been filled at the university, so he was declined. ‘To say I was bitter towards white people and their white education is an understatement. But that was when the wise old man who helped raise me said, “We live in a fallen world and bad stuff happens. How I responded would determine my future.” ’

So, without any qualifications, he decided to work hard and to study, as well as raising a family by this time. ‘It was a conscious decision,’ says Gregory, ‘you can accept your “terrible lot” in life, or you can dig deep and respond with powers you would be amazed you possess.’ He became one of the first coloured persons to work in the pensions department of a financial services company, forced to have his desk on the other side of a partition and use ‘coloured’ amenities on another floor.

For much of his life, Gregory unashamedly called himself a ‘capitalist with a conscience’. He didn’t fit the ‘activist’ stereotype among his largely-white business colleagues, but he was a ‘card-carrying member of the ANC’—a bold declaration of support for the African National Congress, which had been banned in 1960, and whose leader Nelson Mandela was in jail for treason.

Gregory became part of the freedom struggle, coordinating support for people who had been detained in jail without a trial for attending political rallies. ‘Many of my friends were locked up without a trial’, he says simply.

He was chair of the parent/student boycott committee, with the slogan ‘liberation before education’, refusing to attend apartheid schools. And he was deputy-chair of a community foundation that built 17 inclusive preschools in the Cape area. ‘I totally refused to lie down to injustice—and that can be a difficult line in church, when you’re taught to be obedient to the authorities and obey the laws of the day.’

But he quotes the verse Jesus claimed as his own and that has become one of Gregory’s own mottos: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free’ (Luke 4:18). ‘If ever there was a mission for the church, it is that,’ sums up Gregory.

A new life

In 1986, Gregory was given the choice of redundancy, or moving to Melbourne as National Mutual’s corporate business manager. Although he jokes that it was only ‘redundancy or Melbourne’ that got him to Australia, it was his first taste of the freedom he had fought for. ‘I could buy a house anywhere, my kids could go to any school and we didn’t have to look for signs in buses, beaches or restaurants that said, “Coloured.” ’

In 1991, Gregory was transferred to New Zealand as the managing director of National Mutual Corporate Superannuation Services. He knew little about New Zealand other than the All Blacks, the Haka, and Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, who had called Mandela a ‘terrorist’.

But things were cascading toward change in South Africa. Mandela was freed from prison, and apartheid fell. Mandela became leader of the new South Africa, hailed as a hero around the world. His approach was ‘truth and reconciliation’, building a South Africa that belonged to all its citizens—white, black or coloured—through forgiveness of the past and through inclusiveness for all.

In 1995, Mandela made a visit to New Zealand, where Gregory met him for the first time. Deputy President Mbeki had already unsuccessfully tried to get Gregory to return to the homeland, so Mandela urged Gregory to be a ‘distant resource for South Africa’. He appointed him Honorary Consul-General for South Africa in New Zealand, a capacity Gregory served in for 11 years, advocating to government and flying the flag for freedom.

‘I was proud to represent a nation of inclusiveness and reconciliation,’ he says. ‘South Africa belongs to all its people, including the [white] settlers who have also made a contribution,’ says Gregory, with a remarkable attitude of grace.

One nation, many peoples

In 2001, while visiting the genocide sites of Rwanda, Gregory responded to the call to consider becoming the Race Relations Commissioner. For the next 18 months, he used his business background to merge the Race Relations Office and Human Rights Commission, while thoughtfully advocating for a nation of unity, within diversity.

He is a strong advocate for respecting Maori as our first nation people, but adds that ‘the two primary peoples with many complementary peoples must become one nation. We don’t have to be clones of each other, but we are inextricably linked.’

Gregory continues, ‘I absolutely treasure my European and African Heritage, but that only determines where I have come from—my whakapapa—but not where I am going; not my dreams and aspirations … My family is of the same ethnic heritage (all classified as Cape Coloured South African), but we are as diverse as they come. The fact that we all get on well has more to do with one simple value, mutual respect, rather than our roots.’

A passion for social justice has been woven into all areas of Gregory’s life. Amongst his other work, Gregory was the founding chair of the Youth Suicide Awareness Trust, something he started after a neighbour’s son took his own life. ‘That for me felt like the height of inadequacy, going to sympathise with the dad and knowing there was nothing I could ever do to make it right. But I wanted to do something.’

The role he has taken up with The Salvation Army for the next  12 months is the extension of a life dedicated to justice.

Gregory’s own personal journey came full circle in 2000, when he took his family back to his homeland to celebrate the new millennium. They visited the old farm, now converted into 12 houses occupied by white South Africans. His son asked him if he hated the people that had taken their land. ‘Of course, I’m saddened about the injustices that occurred,’ he replied. ‘But I will remain my own jailor unless I learn to forgive. I have the power to stop the cycle.’

By Ingrid Barratt

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