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Profile


Frank Chikane

Growing up in a typical African Township, Frank Chikane became politicized at an early age. As a young high school student in the early 1970s, Chikane became a member and leader of the South African Students' Organisation (SASO). When SASO was banned along with other national organizations by the apartheid regime in 1977, he together with many other young people shifted their attention to the development of grassroots community based organizations. Through these civic associations, community groups, programmes, etc. it was believed communities would be able to withstand the kind of state repression that rendered the national organizational structures unworkable. Many of these formations would later became the constituent members of the formidable national organization, the United Democratic Front (UDF). Rev. Chikane was both a founding member and a Vice President of the UDF (1983 - 1985). He was also the Deputy President of the Soweto Civic Association (SCA) from '83-'85.

During the latter part of the 1980s, the Rev. Chikane became a founding member of the Soweto People's Delegation (SPD), which engaged in the first local government negotiations to create a just local government system, a common tax base between black and white areas, as well as secure the free transfer of rented stock in the townships to those who had lived there for more than twenty years. The SPD process gave birth to the Central Witwatersrand Metropolitan Chamber which has been used as a model for the current non-racial local authorities.

Rev. Chikane was detained without trial many times, including in January 1977, between June 1977 and January 1978, in November 1980 and between November 1981 and July 1982 and was severely tortured by the apartheid security forces. In February 1985, he was arrested along with other national leaders of the UDF and the Trade Union Movement and charged with High Treason, He was released on bail in May 1985 and placed under conditions amounting to house-arrest. Though charges were withdrawn in December 1985, he remained a target of the apartheid security forces and continued to be harassed. In 1989, he was severely poisoned when the security forces impregnated his clothing with a highly toxic but secret organophosphate chemical. By sheer co-incidence he was on a trip in a foreign country and within range of a medical university which had specialized knowledge of the obscure symptoms of these unusual chemical poisonings, and he was able to recover.

Rev. Chikane was a Teacher at Naledi High School (1975); Secretary and Assistant to the Director: Christ for All Nations, Pastor R. Bonnke (1975 - 1976); Technical Research Assistant, Nuclear Physics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand: (1976 - 1979); Director of Kagiso Self-Help Project (1980 - 1981); Research Officer, Co-ordinator, Director / General Secretary of the Institute of Contextual Theology (ICT) : (1981 - 1987); General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC): (1987 - 1994); and Senior Research Officer at the University of Cape Town in 1995.

Rev. Chikane was appointed as a member of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) which managed the first non-racial democratic elections in 1994, ushering in the new democratic South Africa. He served as Special Adviser to the then Deputy President T M Mbeki (1995 - 1996) and then Director-General in the Office of the Deputy President T M Mbeki (1996 - 1999). Since 1999, Rev. Chikane has been Director-General in The Presidency. He has been a member of the Councils of the University of the North and the Witwatersrand and has served as a Director in a number of companies and institutions.

Rev. Frank Chikane has been a Pastor of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM) since 1976, a denomination of the Christian Church. Although he was suspended for his vigorous opposition to apartheid by the Church, he later played a leading role in uniting the racially divided Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa. He is now Chair of its International Council (AFM International), an Honorary member of the National Leadership Forum of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa and a co-pastor at the Naledi Assembly of the AFM of South Africa.

Besides his pastoral training, the Reverend holds two Masters degrees in Theology (University of Natal, 1992) and in Public Administration (J F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1995).

He has an autobiography entitled: No Life of My Own. He collaborated in the production and publication of the Kairos Document and The Road to Damascus. He participated in editing The Road to Rustenberg: The Church Looking Forward to a new South Africa. He has written and published a number of articles in different Journals, as well as opinion pieces in a number of newspapers and magazines. His journal articles are: "Doing Theology in Situation of Conflict", in Charles Villa-Vicencio, and John de Grunchy, (eds) Resistance and Hope: South African Essays in Honour of Beyers Naude, Cape Town, David Phillips Publishers, 1985.

Prophetic Witnessing", Mark Hestnes, et al, (eds) The Relevance of Evangelism in South Africa Today, Johannesburg, SACC, 1986

"Children in Turmoil: The Effects of the Unrest on Township Children" Sandra Burman & Pamela Reynolds (eds.), Growing up in a Divided Society: The Context of Childhood in South Africa, Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1986

"Beyond the Debate", in Charles Villa-Vicencio (ed.), Theology and Violence, Johannesburg, Skotaville Publishers, 1987

"EATWOT and Third World Theologies: An Evaluation of the Past and Present", in K C Abraham (ed.), Third World Theologies: Commonalities and Divergences: Papers and Reflections from the Second General Assembly of EATWOR, OAXTEPEC, MEXICO, December 1986, Maryknoll, Orbis, 1990

 

     
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