By Mphumzi Mdekazi
In a time when South Africa's light seemed too dim, Brian O'Connell shone bright as a beacon of hope. As a teacher and leader, he shone with a passion that inspired a generation.
With words that built and uplifted, he brought smiles to the hearts of all students, especially the poor, who saw in him a true champion, and symbol of exceptional leadership.
He succeeded Prof Cecil Abrahams who once critically bemoaned the fact that; Apartheid stratified everything — whether it was education, jobs, sports or social issues — everything was divided according to racial lines, for us to forget so easily.
Within a short space of time on his arrival, Prof O’ Connell facilitated the visit of former President Bill Clinton of the United States of America at UWC. He effectively did that with ease.
His sharp focus, commitment and conviction towards development was unwavering, and he led with intellectual strength and humility.
He was a real role model who never misled, always guiding us with integrity and honesty.
As history tells us; Who can forget the cricket match where he refused a mistakenly awarded point, and facing disciplinary action for his unwavering commitment to fairness? Because he wouldn’t take a point that didn’t belong to him.
Prof O'Connell shaped our future with hope, propelling us to maintain curiosity with good intentions, and faithfulness.
His legacy lives on in our hearts, and personal encounters. In a trip with him to the University of Zambia, as a young student remains entrenched in my memory, when I was doing my honours degree at the time.
Recalling how I thought he had “thrown me under the bus”, in the presence of Professor Robert Serpell, who was the Vice Chancellor at University of Zambia (UNZA), to speak publicly as an inexperienced public speaker in a conference to articulate the dynamics of HIV/AIDs discourse in South Africa, unprepared, I eventually conformed.
When I enquired about his last minute decision, he told me he wanted to see how do “I react under pressure”, he went further to tell me that “he wanted to extract my full potential and that could only happen if I was under pressure”.
He was of course correct as a teacher because he was never disappointed after all.
There, I learned that functioning under pressure reflects one's true character and potential, and it is in such situations that we see the measure of a man.
This is congruent with a quote by Martin Luther King Jr: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy“.
As he'd say: "Remember me, not to forget me when you reach your kingdom, but to put me together again, to be who I was meant to be when I reach my destiny."
His words still echo, reminding us to stay true to ourselves and our convictions.
From those who spoke at his funeral, out of their testimonies; I recognised Prof O’ Connell’s deep connection with God and his respect for life. One of the speakers told the audience at Holly Cross Catholic Church that Prof was once a Sunday school teacher, who was always punctual.
This kept me thinking for a minute. Here was an intellectual giant and a humble total human being, who knew and understood that The God Almighty is Alpha and Omega.
Unlike other larger than life scholars such as Descartes and Spinoza who would experiment as far as to believe that there was something beyond God, Prof O’ Connell understood and accepted the limits.
This actually brings me to the 17th century’s philosophical landscape, where a great schism had taken root - a divide between the realm of thought and the realm of matter.
René Descartes, the founding father of modern philosophy, had cast mind and body as two entirely separate and distinct substances. The immaterial mind, the seat of reason and consciousness, was set apart from the mechanistic, corporeal substance of physical reality.
Yet into this dualistic paradigm stepped Baruch Spinoza, a lens grinder by trade but a metaphysical revolutionary by inclination. Spinoza's penetrating rationality could not abide such an artificial bifurcation of existence.
To his perspicacious mind, Descartes' philosophical cleavage between mind and matter represented a flawed imposition of human categories onto the seamless unity of Nature.
With an austere elegance, Spinoza systematically dismantled the dualistic paradigm that had taken root.
He refused to relegate the dimensions of thought and extension to separate, hermetically sealed realms.
Rather, Spinoza envisioned an integrated, monistic ontology - a singular substance expressing itself through the parallel attributes of mind and matter.
This rejection of the Cartesian dissection of reality set the stage for Spinoza's most profound and controversial insights.
By perceiving mind and matter as simply two sides of the same metaphysical coin, he obliterated the philosophical foundations upholding conceptions of a transcendent, purely spiritual deity detached from the physical world.
From this monistic point of departure, Spinoza would construct an immanent, naturalistic conception of the divine that sent shockwaves throughout Western philosophy and theology.
God, in Spinoza's vision, was not a supernatural mind presiding over a separate corporeal dominion, but rather the infinite Substance composing and expressing itself as the totality of Nature's harmonious system.
A new philosophical universe, healed of its dualistic rift, was about to be born.
With his usual simplicity and profound respect to his God, Prof O’ Connell’s parallel juxtaposition and logic to those other philosophers, anything with God was handled with superior care, as such, his was:
“Sanctifying Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence,”
~1 Peter 3:15.
True to his actual character, In a world where courage is often lacking, Prof O'Connell stood tall, embodying the spirit of faithful, ethical leadership and respect everything that is created by his God.
He wouldn’t experiment in this context, but oblige with the Almighty’s commandments; (a mistakenly awarded cricket point comes as a classical example on the content of his actual character), as a simple honest human being, not a politician.
“Yini ukubhubha kwalomfo ngexesha lokunqaba kwamadoda, ekhona ke phofu"
We actually lament his departure at a time when there is a scarcity of real men (leaders), when in fact there are.
Farewell, dear teacher, leader, and mentor.
Your impact will forever be etched in our hearts.
Let me poetically summate my thoughts and tribute about how I understood you spiritually, and as a student in the following manner:
“We will remember you
ere you reach your destination,
We know your heart yearns:
Put me together so I can be whole again ere I get to your Kingdom,
Let me again be the light of hope that shaped our future,
Put me together again to lead with humility,
Put me together for the hungry generation forgets,
Put me together again for the heart yearns,
Put me together again for I am not ready yet”.
The departure of Prof O’ Connell coincides with the outcry made in 1963 by Walter Sisulu on Radio Freedom, just before his arrest, when he said and I quote;
“Never has the country, and our people needed leadership as they do now, in the hour of crisis”.
* Mphumzi Mdekazi is a former UWC student and an Acting CEO at the Sisulu Foundation for Social Justice.
** The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of IOL or Independent Media.