Corporation
of New York
Vol. 2/No. 4
Spring 2004
The History of South Africa: A Twice-Told Tale
Alternative Pathways to College
Centers of Education in Russia: The Case for CASEs
An Interview with Marta Tienda
Also in this issue:
Two Schools Collaborate and Students Succeed
Past Issues:
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By Ambika Kapur
The painter, photographer and historian Omar Badsha was born in 1945 in Durban to an Indian family that had immigrated to South Africa. He was very active in the antiapartheid movement, bringing him several jail sentences and publication bans. His works are heavily influenced by these experiences as well as by other political and social issues. In 1987 he founded the “Center of Documentary Photography” at Cape Town University. At present he lives with his family in Pretoria, working on several art exhibition and Internet projects. His paintings and photographs are shown in all South Africa’s major public collections, as well as in galleries and institutions abroad.
Badsha is the recipient of a number of awards for painting and photography. He was awarded the Sir Basil Schonland Award, Arts South Africa Today 1965, The Sir Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Award, Arts South Africa Today 1969, The Natal Society Of Arts-Annual award 1968, and “Images Of Africa" First Prize at the African Arts Festival in Denmark, 1993. In 1995, he was a recipient of a grant from the Danish Government to document life in that country and the exhibition was opened by the Danish foreign minister and vice president of South Africa at that time, Thabo Mbeki. He traveled to India in 1996 at the request of the Indian government and started a project to document life in his grandparents ancestral village in Gujarat.
Badsha is interviewed here by Ambika Kapur, Coordinator of Public Affairs and Media Relations, Carnegie Corporation.
KAPUR: You describe yourself as a self-taught photographer. Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got interested in photography.
BADSHA: I was born in Durban to a Gujarati Muslim family. My grandparents had emigrated to South Africa from India in the late 1890’s. The liberation movement was gaining momentum in the 1960s while I was still in high school and I got involved in political activism at that time.
In the early 1970’s, I got involved with a group of activists who were instrumental in reviving the progressive trade union movement. We helped establish the Trade Union Advisory and Coordinating Council (TUACC), which was the forerunner of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). I also helped unionize chemical workers and served as the first secretary of the Chemical Workers Industrial Union in 1974.
During this time, I felt it was necessary to document the historic moments that were unfolding before us. So I decided to take photographs which could be kept as a record of the liberation struggle and bridge the gap between what was officially being documented and what was the reality at that time.
KAPUR: Can you tell me a little bit more about your early activism and your involvement in South Africa's liberation struggle as a cultural and political activist and trade union leader?
BADSHA: I was very politically aware at an early age. It seemed natural because I belonged to a community which was under threat of removal by the apartheid government. But the turning point came with the shooting at Sharpeville. I was a first year student in high school at that time and became active in the Durban Students Union. I was assistant secretary of the Union when the Rivonia trial took place and we were forced to take our student activity underground.
I was very active in setting up underground study groups, but also managed to work openly in the arts and other community groups. At this time, I also began working with textile and garment workers and got involved in the revival of the Natal Indian Congress in the late 1960s.
In part, as a result of my activities, from 1964 to December 1989, I was not allowed to travel outside South Africa. I was arrested and detained on a number of occasions. I was constantly harassed and unable to hold a job for a long period of time because the police would come and intimidate my employers.
In 1972, I began working with the student wages commission and the general factory workers benefit fund. I organized workers and demonstrated for better wages. The 1973 workers’ strikes changed the face of South Africa and there was a revitalization of trade unions. I played an active role in the revival of trade unions for textile and metal workers and established the Chemical Workers Industrial Union. Throughout this period, I continued to be a part of the underground groups affiliated with the African National Congress (ANC).
In 1976, I shifted my focus from the trade union movement and began working with a growing number of community-based groups. For the next 18 years, till 1994, I was active in the liberation struggle in Natal. For a while, I had moved with my family to the Western Cape, where I was one of the founding members and chairperson of the Cultural Workers Congress, an affiliate of the United Democratic Front (UDF). After the unbanning of the ANC, I served the party in a number of capacities and was a head of the ANC Western Cape Department of Arts & Culture. During the 1994 election, I was the convener of the Mass Democratic Movement and served on the political committee of the ANC Western Cape Election campaign.
After the 1994 elections, I remained active in cultural structures in the Western cape. I established The Ekapa Arts Trust there. Then in 1997, I moved to Pretoria and worked as a photographer full-time. And most recently, in 1999, I established SAHO, South Africa History Online, a nonprofit organization with the aim to popularize South African History. (www.sahistory.org.za)
KAPUR: So when would you say you became a professional photographer?
BADSHA: In 1976, when I started working with community groups, I also began working as a full-time photographer. I felt it was necessary to document and showcase the struggles that community and other liberation groups were going through. So when I moved to Cape Town in 1987 with my family, I established the Center of Documentary Photography at the University of Cape Town. As chairperson of the Cultural Workers Congress, I got more involved in the arts in South Africa. Soon after, I started exhibiting my photographs, and in 1979, I published “Letter to Farzanah,” my first book of photographs, which commemorated the International Year of the Child. It was, however, banned in South Africa.