Cedric Mayson

Cedric Mayson
Born	Cedric Radcliffe Mayson (1927-07-16)16 July 1927 East End, London, England
Died	23 May 2015(2015-05-23) (aged 87) Nelspruit, South Africa
Citizenship	British South African
Occupations	Methodist minister, theologian, anti-apartheid activist, editor and author
Organization(s)	Methodist Church of Southern Africa Christian Institute of Southern Africa South African Council of Churches African National Congress
Known for	Editing Pro Veritate, Christian opposition to apartheid and clandestine assistance to anti-apartheid activists
Children	8

Cedric Radcliffe Mayson (16 July 1927 – 23 May 2015) was a British-born South African Methodist minister, theologian, author and anti-apartheid activist. After moving to South Africa in 1953, he served Methodist congregations in Natal, the Transkei and the Transvaal for approximately twenty years. His experience in both black and white congregations contributed to his rejection of apartheid and increasing involvement in Christian opposition to the South African government.

Mayson joined the staff of the Christian Institute of Southern Africa in the 1970s and became editor of its journal, Pro Veritate. Under his editorship the journal adopted an increasingly explicit opposition to racism, state repression and the theological defence of apartheid. When the government outlawed the Christian Institute in October 1977, Mayson was placed under a five-year banning order along with Beyers Naudé, Theo Kotze, Brian Brown and other Institute figures.

Mayson subsequently became involved in clandestine support for the African National Congress (ANC). He used light aircraft to help activists leave South Africa for Botswana and participated in an unsuccessful plan to fly Steve Biko to Gaborone for discussions with ANC leaders. He was arrested in November 1981, detained for fifteen months and charged with high treason and offences under security legislation. After a judge excluded a confession obtained during his detention and granted him bail, Mayson left South Africa through Lesotho in 1983 and entered exile in Britain.

In exile he worked through the ANC's religious structures and helped develop relationships between the liberation movement and Christian churches in Britain and Europe. After receiving indemnity in 1991, he returned to South Africa and worked with the South African Council of Churches and the ANC's Commission for Religious Affairs. His books included A Certain Sound: The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa and Why Africa Matters.

Early life and education

Cedric Radcliffe Mayson was born in the East End of London on 16 July 1927. He grew up during the Second World War and later recalled the destruction of houses in his neighbourhood during the Blitz.

Mayson trained in architecture and worked briefly as an architect before preparing for the Methodist ministry. He married his first wife, Jean, in England in 1949. He later stated that contemporary Methodist regulations in Britain created difficulties for married candidates seeking ordination, and he consequently pursued his ministry in Southern Africa.

In 1953 Mayson moved to South Africa as a Methodist minister and later became a South African citizen.

Methodist ministry

Mayson served Methodist congregations in Natal, the Transkei and the Transvaal. His appointments included ministry in two predominantly black congregations and three predominantly white congregations.

His experiences in racially segregated communities increasingly brought him into conflict with apartheid and with white congregants who expected churches to avoid political criticism. Mayson preached against racial injustice and the social consequences of apartheid, and according to a later obituary, each of the white congregations in which he served eventually asked him to leave because of the political views he expressed from the pulpit.

Mayson came to regard apartheid not merely as an objectionable political policy but as a fundamental contradiction of Christianity. He argued that churches could not preach reconciliation while accepting racial domination and compulsory segregation in their own institutions and society.

He remained in Methodist circuit ministry until 1974, although he had already begun working with the Christian Institute during the preceding year.

Christian Institute and Pro Veritate

Mayson joined the staff of the Christian Institute in 1973 and began working for it full-time after leaving parish ministry in 1974. The Institute was an ecumenical organisation founded under the leadership of New Testament scholar Albert Geyser and directed by Beyers Naudé. It promoted Christian unity across racial and denominational divisions, challenged apartheid theology and supported community and theological programmes.

Mayson worked alongside Naudé, Theo Kotze, Brian Brown, Peter Randall and other Christian Institute staff. In 1975 he became editor of the Institute's monthly journal, Pro Veritate. The journal published theological commentary, reports on racial legislation and political detention, discussions of economic inequality and material documenting torture and other abuses by the security forces.

Under Mayson's editorship, Pro Veritate moved beyond cautious appeals for interracial dialogue and adopted a more confrontational criticism of apartheid and the churches that supported it. The July 1977 issue identified Mayson as editor and described the need for a Christian “counter-culture” opposed to the values and institutions of apartheid society.

Mayson also addressed anti-apartheid organisations and church groups outside South Africa. In April 1977 he and South African Baptist minister John Lamula spoke at a conference organised by the Durham Anti-Apartheid Group on the role of the churches, sanctions, violence and Christian responsibility.

Detention and banning

Mayson was briefly detained by the security police in December 1976 while on his honeymoon with his second wife, Penelope, who was also known as Thandi.

On 19 October 1977 the government outlawed the Christian Institute and Pro Veritate during the suppression commonly known as Black Wednesday. Numerous Black Consciousness organisations were banned on the same day. Mayson and other senior Christian Institute figures received personal banning orders restricting their movements, public activities, association with other people and ability to be quoted or published.

The banning of the Institute ended Mayson's formal role as editor, but it did not end his opposition to apartheid.

Clandestine anti-apartheid activity

Mayson was an experienced private pilot. He had learned to fly light aircraft through members of his congregations and subsequently used borrowed aircraft to assist political activists seeking to leave South Africa.

According to the Sunday Times, he flew activists from Grand Central Airport and Lanseria to improvised landing areas in Botswana. By the time of his arrest in 1981 he had reportedly assisted approximately twenty activists, including future ANC official and national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.

Mayson also participated in a plan to transport Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko secretly to Gaborone. The proposed journey was intended to enable Biko to meet ANC leaders, including Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki, and explore cooperation between the Black Consciousness Movement and the ANC. Increased police surveillance made the flight impossible, and Biko was arrested before the proposed meeting could occur.

Mayson was part of an underground ANC network that included Selebi and Beyers Naudé and communicated with Mbeki outside South Africa. He helped discuss the re-establishment of ANC structures inside the country and distributed recorded speeches by Tambo. According to a later account, he duplicated smuggled cassette recordings and delivered them to homes in Soweto while disguised as a commercial delivery rider.

These activities represented a marked development in Mayson's political position. He had moved from public Christian protest and institutional reform towards direct assistance to an outlawed liberation movement.

Arrest and treason proceedings

Mayson was arrested in November 1981 during a major security-police operation against activists connected through trade unions, churches, political organisations and underground networks.

He was held at The Fort in Johannesburg for approximately fifteen months before his trial began. The state charged him principally with high treason, together with alternative offences under the Terrorism Act and other security legislation. The allegations included assisting people to leave South Africa to undertake ANC activities, participating in discussions about internal ANC structures, considering possible sabotage targets and distributing a recorded speech by Oliver Tambo.

During the proceedings Mayson testified that interrogators had forced him to remain naked and standing for two days and that a police officer had assaulted him. Judge P. J. van der Walt ruled that Mayson's statement to the police had not been made freely and voluntarily and excluded it from evidence.

The prosecution received a postponement, while Mayson was unexpectedly released on bail of R1,000. Before the case resumed in 1983, he crossed the border into Lesotho on foot and travelled to Britain. Mayson later said that he had left partly to prevent Naudé from being compelled to testify for the prosecution. Naudé was then subject to a banning order and could have been imprisoned had he refused to give evidence.

The South African History Archive subsequently recorded a joint oral-history interview with Cedric and Penelope Mayson on 14 January 2003 as part of its 1981 Detainees Oral History Project.

Exile in Britain

In Britain Mayson joined the ANC's religious committee and worked to connect the liberation movement with churches, clergy and ecumenical organisations in Britain and continental Europe. He arranged meetings and conferences involving South African church leaders and encouraged Christian organisations to support sanctions and political negotiations with the ANC.

Mayson also participated in the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. Archival records describe him addressing church audiences, anti-apartheid conferences and campaigns concerning political prisoners and detention in South Africa.

His 1984 book, A Certain Sound, brought together theological reflection and an account of the South African struggle. It examined the movement from racial reform to structural liberation, the relationship between reconciliation and resistance, Christian responses to state violence and the role of black political consciousness.

Mayson argued that reconciliation could not mean preserving oppressive relationships or demanding political passivity from those subjected to injustice. Christian reconciliation required the transformation of the economic and political structures that produced domination.

Return to South Africa

Mayson received indemnity in 1991 and returned to South Africa by 1992. He joined the Faith and Mission department of the South African Council of Churches, working during the transition from apartheid to democratic government.

He later served in the ANC's religious structures and became convener of its Commission for Religious Affairs. Based at Luthuli House, he worked to maintain dialogue between the ANC, religious communities and ecumenical organisations. He remained associated with the ANC's national office until approximately 2010.

Mayson was also involved in interfaith initiatives, including the World Conference on Religion and Peace. He promoted engagement between Christianity, African religious traditions, Islam and other faiths and argued that spiritual and political transformation could not be separated.

Although closely associated with the ANC, Mayson later became critical of corruption, personal enrichment and struggles for power within the governing party. His criticism reflected his longstanding view that religious commitment required scrutiny of political power rather than permanent loyalty to any government or organisation.

Theology and writings

Mayson's theology developed through his experience of segregated ministry, church opposition to apartheid, the Black Consciousness movement, imprisonment and cooperation with the ANC. His work combined elements of Christian socialism, liberation theology, ecumenism and African spirituality.

He rejected the idea that Christianity should be confined to personal morality or private religious belief. In his view, Christian faith necessarily addressed racial domination, poverty, political repression, gender inequality, environmental destruction and unequal control of economic resources.

His early anti-apartheid position emphasised reconciliation and interracial Christian fellowship. By the 1970s and 1980s he had become more critical of what he regarded as superficial reconciliation that did not alter relations of power. A Certain Sound reflected this movement from reform to structural transformation.

Mayson also argued for a broader understanding of religion in African public life. He questioned the identification of Christianity with European culture and emphasised the contribution of African concepts of community and interdependence, including ubuntu.

In 2004 he published “A New Re-Formation: Religion, the State and Gender” in the feminist journal Agenda. The article considered changes in the relationship among religious institutions, political authority and gender relations.

He later co-edited a collection on secular spirituality and published Why Africa Matters in 2010. The latter considered African history, liberation, ecological responsibility, political life and spirituality and argued against representations of Africa principally as a continent of crisis and deficiency.

Personal life and death

Mayson was married twice. His second wife, Penelope Mayson, was also known as Thandi and shared aspects of his political activity and detention experience. He had eight children; one son, Jeremy, died before him.

Mayson died in Nelspruit on 23 May 2015 following an illness. He was 87. He was survived by Penelope and seven children.

The ANC described him after his death as a minister whose life had been dedicated to his faith and to the struggle of the South African people.

Legacy

Mayson occupied an unusual position within the history of Christian opposition to apartheid. He combined parish ministry, theological journalism and ecumenical activism with clandestine operational support for the liberation movement.

As editor of Pro Veritate, he helped transform the Christian Institute's journal into an increasingly direct challenge to apartheid, state repression and churches that sought neutrality in the face of racial injustice. His participation in underground ANC activity also demonstrated the movement of some white Christian activists beyond public protest towards direct cooperation with the banned liberation movements.

His planned role in transporting Steve Biko to meet ANC leaders has subsequently been interpreted as an indication of the tentative efforts being made during the 1970s to establish contact between the ANC and the Black Consciousness Movement.

Mayson's oral testimony and papers form part of the archival record of political detention and Christian resistance to apartheid. His published work continued to address the relationship among religion, liberation, African identity and political accountability after the establishment of democratic government.

Selected publications

• (1984). A Certain Sound: The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa. London: Epworth Press. ISBN 978-0-7162-0402-2.
• (1985). A Certain Sound: The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. ISBN 978-0-88344-210-4.
• (2004). “A New Re-Formation: Religion, the State and Gender.” Agenda. 18 (61): 53–59. JSTOR 4066600.
• (2006). With C. W. du Toit, ed. Secular Spirituality as a Contextual Critique of Religion. Pretoria: Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa.
• (2010). Why Africa Matters. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. ISBN 978-1-57075-869-0.

See also

• Beyers Naudé
• Christian Institute of Southern Africa
• Pro Veritate
• Steve Biko
• Black Consciousness Movement
• South African Council of Churches
• Kairos Document

Further reading

• De Gruchy, John W., and Steve de Gruchy (2005). The Church Struggle in South Africa. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
• Gerhart, Gail M., and Thomas G. Karis (1977). From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882–1990. Volume 5. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.
• Mayson, Cedric (1984). A Certain Sound: The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa. London: Epworth Press.
• Walshe, Peter (1983). Church versus State in South Africa: The Case of the Christian Institute. London: C. Hurst.

External links

• Cedric Radcliffe Mayson at South African History Online
• 1981 Detainees Oral History Project inventory, South African History Archive
• July 1977 issue of Pro Veritate, South African History Online
• Faith organisations and the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Anti-Apartheid Movement Archives