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If you read our latest issue of Freedom’s Champion, then you might have read about Temba Nolutshungu, who is a director of the Free Market Foundation in South Africa. An early opponent of South Africa’s Apartheid government—which denied the basic rights of black South Africans—Temba was detained more than once for his opposition to the government. He was tortured and starved nearly to death.
Like so many of his contemporaries, Temba used to align with the ideas of the far left.
In Temba’s own words: “When I was young, I embraced the socialist, communist, and anarchist paradigm. We had an Apartheid system in this country that controlled black life—all aspects of it. Because the government was so repressive, and it condemned socialism, therefore socialism must be good. That was the thinking at that time".
Yet as a young man, Temba couldn’t explain why people in communist countries would give anything to escape to capitalist countries. Then he discovered a book you may know called The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and that changed everything. Soon after, he read Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose and embraced classical liberalism. Temba joined the Free Market Foundation, which finally gave him the tools necessary to oppose Apartheid and work toward a South Africa dedicated to the rights of all individuals, regardless of race or color.
“It gave a context to my efforts to dismantle the Apartheid system,” Temba said. “Here was something I believed in—a cause I believed in—that I knew if implemented, things would be all right for everybody else and that this country would thrive, really thrive, if it adopted free-market-oriented policies".
After democracy was finally established in South Africa, Temba took a bold chance and approached Nelson Mandela with the ideas that had changed his life. He delivered a book that had been gifted to the Free Market Foundation from Milton Friedman himself, and hand-delivered it to one of Mandela’s bodyguards. Temba believes Nelson Mandela read the book, because in time, Mandela publicly reversed his views on nationalization and government control of the economy, starting to speak in favor of the free market’s power to improve the well-being of South Africans.
Recognizing the challenges faced by the new South Africa, Free Market Foundation got to work fixing the problems caused by Apartheid. For 78 years, black South Africans had been denied property rights, and were unable to own and develop the land on which their families had built homes generations ago.
That’s why in 2010, Free Market Foundation’s Khaya Lam project, or “My Home”, came to be, which helped to restore property to its rightful owners through formal land titling. In February of this year, Free Market Foundation celebrated the 10,000th title issued.
Temba is too modest to tell my colleagues, but when they were recently in South Africa for the Africa Liberty Forum, a young guy who worked at the event told us that he’d been taught about Temba and his work in school. I don’t think I can tell you everything I’d like to in one sitting, but at very least, I think you can see that Temba is a living historical figure who has achieved a lot for the cause of freedom in South Africa.
Now, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t also encourage you to join Atlas Network and Temba at Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner later this year. I’m proud to share that Temba Nolutshungu’s contributions will be honored when we award him with the Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award in New York City this November. I can’t wait to hear more about his amazing experiences and what he has done to bring liberty to his home country. It’s the chance to meet the greatest people you’ve never heard of, or at least, never met.
Like I told you in my last email, I believe those of us in the United States often take our freedoms for granted. If you are anything like me, Temba’s story is a reminder to appreciate the freedoms we have and that nothing worth having has ever come easy. I look forward to hearing from Temba in person, and I hope his story gives you an idea of how valuable the Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award is to us.
I love going to the beach or a cookout as much as anyone else, but because of my time here at Atlas Network, I don’t think I’ll ever see Labor Day quite the same way. Our partners are working for the most important things in the world, and you know they didn’t take Monday off. I hope you can join us in November to celebrate their work with us.
xoxo
Kam
P.S. If you would like to sign up for Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner, you can do so here: atlasnetwork.org/events
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