Judge Dennis Davis
Leon Levy: South African Activist
Summary
An intimate interview with Leon Levy about his life and legacy, from his presidency of the South African Congress of Trade Unions and his time as secretary of the South African Peace Council to his role during the Treason Trial (1956–1961), as well as his overall impact as an activist.
Judge Dennis Davis
Dennis Davis is a judge of the High Court of South Africa and judge president of the Competition Appeals Court of South Africa. He has held professorial appointments at the University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand, as well as numerous visiting appointments at Cambridge, Harvard, New York University, and others. He has authored eleven books, including Lawfare: Judging Politics in South Africa.
Leon Levy
Born in 1929, Leon Levy was part of a small group of progressive trade unionists who, in the 1950s, pushed for the formation of the first non-racial trade union federation in South Africa. These aspirations were realized in 1955 with the launch of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), where Levy was elected president and remained in that position for nine years. In 1956, along with many others, including Nelson Mandela, Leon was charged with high treason. The trial continued until 1961 when the accused were eventually acquitted. Leon was one of a large group of activists arrested after the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1960, he shared a prison van with fellow activist Helen Joseph (the only two white people who served on the Treason Trial for the full four periods of almost five years from 1956–1961). After serving a period in solitary confinement, he returned to trade union work but was forced to go into exile in the UK in 1963 after his arrest under the 90-day detention law. On his return to South Africa, after democracy dawned, he joined the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in 1999 and served as a senior full-time commissioner until 2019.
No, I didn’t question whether I should be there or not. I think that my ideals and my thoughts and my efforts were proven every day to me why I should be doing what I was was doing. The injustices were there and it was necessary for young people of my age and there were quite a lot of them. And I was detained in solitary confinement a great deal several times. I served on the treason trial for five years. I worked during the times we were on bail and were allowed out to go to do my trade union work. I did an awful lot of work there. And eventually I was the first person to be detained under the 90-day law, which was, as we said, you could be there till eternity. You didn’t have to have, there was no trial, there was nothing. You could just be left there to rot.
Well, I really would like to see Jews come back into politics, come into the trade union movement, and they have so much that they can offer. Yes, there was Eli Weinberg, there was Ray Alexander, Izzy Wolfson, Julia Wilson, Baylor Page, Katie Kagan. These are names which will always be with us. And their contribution to building a trade union movement was excellent. The legacy they left us are in huge archives in each of the unions.