Special Hearings — Health Sector Hearings — 1997-06-18

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you Professor Nicholas.  I will ask you a few questions as you have indicated that you will like to engage in a debate with the Commission.  I know it's difficult for me to be asking you these questions knowing your struggles especially within your project Psychology and Apartheid, but the first question which I would like to ask you is, can you describe the underlying ethos of the policy of the Psychological Association of South Africa, especially at its founding in 1948, SAPA?

UNKNOWN: The first one.  There was no explicit reference made to race in the founding of the first organisation because it seems that it was just assumed that Whites should be the only people who would qualify as psychologists. This did, however, not stop them from not admitting Blacks who applied to this organisation even though their constitution didn't prevent this.  They then engaged in a debate for about two to three years.  I had a conversation with a woman, Ms Naidoo, who was the first one to apply and she experienced this as extremely humiliating and you would also think about any Black person who would then be thinking of trying to study this field, what this kind of debate would have contributed to their desire to even continue to study as psychologists.

MS MKHIZE: Well I was asking you these questions because while we were preparing for these hearings I received a statement from my colleague next to me, Dr Ramashala, who said she was refused admission as a psychologist within this professional organisation. So I asked her to write that in detail. Basically she was saying the university which had trained her,  Wits, didn't really make an issue out of that and ultimately she left the country.
 My second question for you is that I want you to describe a meeting between three Stellenbosch psychology professors and the Prime Minister Dr Verwoerd concerning how strongly they felt about keeping Blacks out of SAPA and that the Group Areas Act could be used to ensure this.  If you can just expand on that.

UNKNOWN: Okay, what occurred at this meeting was that there was a reluctance on the part of Dr Verwoerd to in fact extend this legislation and he felt that there were more natural means of excluding Blacks than would be served by expanding this legislation, which as you would know, really was quite wide already. What he did do then though was to try to force all professional associations to keep their proceedings separate by race on the pain of having whatever subsidies they might gain from the government be kept back should they not do this.
 Most of the professions did not adhere to this and the State then backed down on that and allowed professions to some degree to manage their own affairs in this regard. So Dr Verwoerd did not see to the request at that time to extend that legislation. 
 But to your previous comments I just would like to add that during this period the person who was regarded as the exemplar of psychology and the doyen of South African psychologists was somebody called Dr Vischeville(?) who still is a major icon today in South African psychology and he was really the main person responsible for keeping out Blacks initially.  And the curious fact about South African psychology is that the progressive or those who were regarded as progressive White psychologists probably did as much as the rightwing ones to keep Blacks out of the profession.  So he was one of the main activists trying to keep people out and who Ms Naidoo reported to me was the main actor in her humiliation, trying to qualify to be in this Association.
 One should also remember that to the rightwing psychologist it seemed pretty obvious that this was really a White society because their main honourary member was Dr Verwoerd himself who obviously resigned after they admitted the first Black psychologist after these years of debates and votes on the matter.

MS GOBODA-MADIKIZELA: You know, I would like to know from  you as to how much does their mandate of the your new organisation focus on racism?  The reason why I'm asking that it's mainly because really what we deal within our databases like the techniques of this profession in particular, you know, psychological assessments and some of the strategies that were used in getting information out of people like torture, as given by the example which is cited by you from Dr Saths-Cooper, were based on the theories of psychology, so I see now there's a new name.  Basically my question is, what is the thrust of your new organisation?

UNKNOWN: I think that the new organisation is still struggling with the realities of a New South Africa.  There are some efforts, there is a committee that deals with equity and redress but I'll really have to be frank and say that I believe that within the organisation the majority of membership could still be regarded as conservative.  I think that this would be reflected in the content of what we teach in psychology and that there is really far too little focus on the larger social problems that we need to address, the problems of racism and the problems of oppression.  And I think the slowness of change is really facilitated by the lack of visibility and scrutiny and that this Commission is really nationally one of the main instruments of visibility in the country, and to me personally has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams, but I think also possibly beyond the wildest nightmares of many other people.  And I hope that even when this Commission ends that some ways would be found to continue this visibility.
 So I'm saying that I think this organisation is struggling with these issues, that I think many people might be feeling that they are doing enough but that a lot more pressure needs to be placed on the organisation to be accountable and to redress the ills of the past.

MS GOBODA-MADIKIZELA: Thank you very much Professor Nicholas. I'm sure other colleagues would like to ask a few more questions.  Thank you.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Thank you Chairperson and thank you Lionel.  It's delightful to see you here having been involved in this transformation of the organisation that has got so much history.
 Lionel you mentioned the issue, the theory of Black intellectual inferiority.  Now this theory is perpetuated not only in this country but in many other countries such as the United States and in Europe as well. It's kind of generic in psychology.  There were institutions that assisted this notion of Black intellectual inferiority. What were the organisations or parastatal institutions and organisations that assisted in perpetuating this theory in South Africa?