In 2001, Vuyiseka Dubula-Majola thought she was no longer the master of her own fate. However, this academic, activist and feminist remembered her resilience, rose above adversity and chose to reclaim her life. She spoke to MatieMedia about her journey, the roots of her activism and the source of her hope.
The year is 2004 and feminist Vuyiseka Dubula-Majola has decided to cut her hair. This is no ordinary trim. With each shedding, she is releasing herself from the hold her adversities have over her. The smooth surface area increases on her head, making space for rays of light to reflect on her scalp. Vuyiseka is archiving the reclamation of her power through this symbolic act of shaving her head.
This self-identified phoenix says she sought to rise above the dark cloud which loomed over her life, to become “something really powerful and beautiful”. She wanted to become the light that young Vuyiseka, in the pastoral town of eDutywa, had envisioned future Vuyiseka would be.
Three years have passed since she received what she thought to be a death sentence. Three years have passed and she is still here. The act of reclamation is one Vuyiseka has spent much of her life practising. However, this time, she is choosing to memorialise this particular watershed moment; the moment she began taking antiretrovirals (ARVs).
Activist by day, student by night
In 2001, Vuyiseka went for an HIV test and her results came back as HIV+. At just 22, she thought that this would be the end of the road for her. “It took me four years to realise that here is another moment for me to rise,” she says.
2004 was the year of overcoming for Vuyiseka. After commencing ARV treatment, she enrolled for an undergraduate degree at the University of South Africa (UNISA). With no money or bursary to fund her studies, she had to find a way to pay for her education. “I had no money to register but when I found a small volunteering job, I started paying for my own fees,” she says.
For Vuyiseka, going back to university was part of redefining herself and becoming somebody, and not just a “nobody” as people tend to “expect from people who are poor”.
Today, she is reaping the rewards of that personal investment. Vuyiseka is currently the director of the Africa Centre for HIV/AIDS Management at Stellenbosch University. Before assuming this role, she completed both a postgraduate diploma and master’s degree at the Centre for HIV/AIDS Management.
Vuyiseka, who says she is drawn to academia and finds value in educating herself, is currently busy with a PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal through the Centre for Civil Society.
All this, however, was no easy feat. Because she had to fund her own studies, Vuyiseka has been juggling numerous balls at once since 2004. “I have always studied and worked full time – if you call activism work,” she says.
She has been determined to address inequality from a young age, and because of this, she says it was highly unlikely that she would focus solely on her academic pursuits. “Since the beginning. I have been an activist or worker by day and student by night. This has been my life,” says Vuyiseka.
When the seed was planted
Vuyiseka vehemently rejects the act of distancing oneself from injustice. You hear it in the vibrato of her voice and in the swing of her arm – as though she is pushing the act away. The physical manifestation of her abhorrence makes it palpable. Perhaps this also explains her extensive involvement in activism, which formally began when she joined the Treatment Action Campaign in 2001. She worked her way up, culminating in her role as the secretary-general.
“Inequalities have been glaring from a very early age for me,” she says. She attributes her commitment to creating “a safe environment and build a society that is better than the one in which [she] grew up” to her awareness of these inequalities.
“You know, growing up poor [and] black in the former Transkei – which was a Bantustan – you do see that there is definitely something wrong in the way in which you grow up compared to other kids,” Vuyiseka says.
As a feminist, Vuyiseka recalls how silenced she felt by the patriarchal system while she was growing up. “Something that was very obvious to me [was] that we were treated differently [as] boys and girls,” she says. She remembers the way women were treated in her community, the way her own mother was treated as well as the presence of domestic violence in her home.
In hindsight, she also realises the violence that the migrant labour system inflicted on her father, turning him into “a monster and stranger”. “I did not relate to him as a father, [he was] more like a stranger; a monster in a way because that is not the father anyone would have imagined,” says Vuyiseka.
A defining moment in her youth, one which she felt was a moment of freedom, was when she planned to run away from home (eDutywa) at age 18. “This was a sign of rebellion; leaving an abusive and toxic environment to go and live with my mother in Cape Town, in defiance of my father,” Vuyiseka says. Though she did not put a name to it at the time, in such moments, she realised her agency which is one of the roots of her activism.
These moments were part of the once avid runner’s most crucial relay race, laying the foundation for 2004’s momentous lap.
Changed lives trump awards and praise
Vuyiseka does not find affirmation in accolades. “I find my comfort when I change someone’s life. That for me is the biggest award,” she says.
Upon hearing this, many would marvel at her selflessness, but Vuyiseka admits that she is not everyone’s cup of tea. “I am a feminist; I am an angry black woman,” says an undeterred Vuyiseka. Speaking at TedxEuston in 2014, she says: “I am angry, but I am using my anger positively. I am using it to change my conditions.”
Despite the passion and vigour with which Vuyiseka fights, she does experience burnout at times. “I do not know of any activist who has not [been burnt out]. I am currently burnt out,” she says.
Vuyiseka says activists tend to take on too much. “[This is] not because of our own failure to acknowledge that it is too much,” says Vuyiseka. Instead, she says it is societal pressures and feeling like you are not doing enough. “There is constant pressure and injustices seem to increase, rather than us eliminating them,” she says.
As someone who lives with anxiety, Vuyiseka identifies burnout as a trigger and possible accelerant of mental health challenges. This is why she encourages the acknowledgement of “self-care [as] a political act”.
“It is okay to acknowledge that [self-care] is not a crime because we are not superhuman beings.” She stresses that this is most important for women to realise because the patriarchal world order may suggest otherwise.
“You know, it is not easy to never give up or give in to the patriarchal system. For me, I rely on what we have won in the past and that gives me hope that we will win this one too.”
