Professor Johan Fourie is an economist by trade – a numbers man. But this would be only half of the story. What truly motivates him is the art of storytelling. A graduate of the humble school newspaper and a seasoned columnist, Fourie seeks to tell the story of South Africa through economic history. Sifting through digital piles of historic records on the Cape Colony in the 18th and early 19th century, he finds the evidence to piece together the truth.
A graduate of the humble school newspaper and a seasoned columnist, Professor Johan Fourie seeks to tell the story of South Africa through economic history. PHOTO: Aurelia Mouton
Then to now, but briefly
Professor Johan Fourie, born and raised in Paarl, the heart of the Boland, has always had a love for history and storytelling. He recounts that he had intended to become a journalist and spent much of his time at Paarl Gymnasium writing for the school newspaper. He found himself, however, in a first-year economics class in 2001 at Stellenbosch University (SU) and has not really looked back.
“I knew then already that it wouldn’t be journalism. […] I wanted to do something policy-related and something that would make some money at least,” he half-jokes. He completed his master’s degree at (SU) and went on to pursue a PhD in economic history at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. He believes that history has the ability to tell stories that are much more convincing than theories or data will ever be.
South Africa, and the Cape region specifically, has a wealth of historical data that had been spared the fate of war or a destructive natural disaster. Tax documents, inventory lists, child mortality records, property deeds from the 18th and early 19th century…these are the numbers he paints by to tell the story of the Cape Colony.
“You still work with data and have to do analyses, but now you can use it to craft a narrative,” he explains.
“People understand stories and we have a deep-seated need for stories. If you look at the origin of any civilization, that is what you’ll find: stories. Nobody had theories or data. We teach children by telling stories, like folktales and songs. It has always been the way we share information.”
His father was a teacher and he reckons that it must have had some influence on him as a part of him has always been drawn to presenting classes.
“It might seem a bit pretentious to say, but I have always wanted to teach people and help them understand, to make difficult concepts easier and convey it. Stories are part of that,” he adds.
“People understand stories and we have a deep-seated need for stories. If you look at the origin of any civilization that is what you’ll find; stories. Nobody had theories or data. We teach children by telling stories, like folktales and songs. It has always been the way we share information,” says Professor Johan Fourie. PHOTO: Aurelia Mouton
Numbers don’t lie
“I think there are misconceptions about what the truth really is. So, the first thing I think we have to do is test whether our understanding of the past is actually correct,” Fourie says.
He uses the historical example of the Afrikaner history.
“There exists within the Afrikaner historiography, the Afrikaner nationalist historiography – this idea that the Afrikaners were poor during the 18th and early 19th century, and that they were exploited by the English and sort of pulled themselves up by their bootstraps… this kind of volk-saves-itself ideology of the 20th century,” he says.
He poses the question: Was this actually the case? Using the numbers of the time that are available now through archives, and that he himself and students under his supervision process and analyse, he confidently says it was not necessarily the whole truth.
“They were actually significantly wealthy, especially compared to other countries in the world at that time,” he says. “So that narrative completely falls flat.”
He adds that it is not to say that there were not poor people, and that the Afrikaners did not experience suffering, but rather that there is a more whole truth than the one many choose to stick to. He also contends that a contemporaneous liberal English perception that the Afrikaners were poor and had become barbarous Europeans in Africa, which then led to the racist policies of 20th century apartheid South Africa, was simply not the truth.
That is just one broad example, but one that most South Africans have the context to understand. His next question is then: What do we do with the truth?
“That is how economic history helps people argue for policy matters of today. It helps us think about the right stories to tell and which stories to tell. Not just to say, ‘here are the facts’, but also to serve as reasons for the things we want to see happen today and in future,” he says.
Asking the right questions to tell the right story
Professor Johan Fourie is a lover of stories, and he finds all kinds of ways to tell them. He does not shy away from trying his hand at different mediums, like podcasting. PHOTO: Aurelia Mouton
Fourie is a lover of stories, and he finds all kinds of ways to tell them. He does not shy away from trying his hand at different mediums. He is the renowned author of Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom, has a self-titled blog that attracts thousands of readers, publishes in multiple news publications weekly, and is even launching a podcast and putting together a graphic novel as director for the Laboratory for the Economics of Africa’s Past (LEAP).
“His ability to make academic principles and writings accessible to the public – through books, art, talks, and even graphic novels – demonstrates his commitment to bridging the gap between academia and the broader community,” says Prof Sophia du Plessis, chair of the department of economics at SU.
She says that Fourie is not only a popular lecturer amongst the students, but with the staff as he “inspires critical thinking among his colleagues”.
“I don’t really see any of this as work, because I love what I do,” says Fourie. “Honestly, the only part of my job that I typically don’t enjoy is grading! […] 95% of what I do, I love. I am excited when I have “free time”, because I can write, and I love that.”
“He is profoundly creative in how he thinks about economics and the questions we must ask. He asks the right questions and that is what distinguishes him as a historian,” comments Jan-Hendrik Pretorius, an economic history PhD candidate under the supervision of Fourie.
Pretorius adds that Fourie’s contribution to the historiography of the Cape Colony and South African economic history is “immeasurable”.
“His goal of giving voice to the people of the Cape Colony whose voices were historically ignored […] speaks not only for his character, but the character of his work.”