He wanted to be a boxer, but could never gain the weight needed to make the flyweight division. He wanted to be a singer, but realized that his Sinatra-like warbling only sounded good in the shower. He wanted to be a lawyer, but didn’t like the courses once he reached the university level. So naturally, Cecil Abrahams became a teacher.

Abrahams, a visiting university professor since 2004, strives to use his past to educate generations of the future. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Abrahams grew up in a time and place that was heavily subjected to the apartheid rule, a system he’s fought against for most of his life. Above his desk in his tiny Huntington Hall office hangs a photograph of himself with former South African President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both partners in his struggle against oppression. It’s a symbol of where Abrahams has been and what he hopes to impart on those whose lives he touches.

‘Africa gets a very poor picture; some of it’s true, because there’s a real mess in Africa, but there’s also some good stuff,’ he said, his low, calm voice never once wavering. ‘I mean, no place or no person can be entirely bad; there must be good things. So I think what I am trying to do is also to tell students, ‘This is a little more than just what you see on TV.”

Abrahams’ life is a portrait of racial diversity. His paternal grandparents moved from India to South Africa in the late 19th century to work on the sugar plantations. His father later relocated to Johannesburg, where he met Abrahams’ mother, who was a mixture of European, German and Jewish descent. In the eyes of the South African government, this mixed race was seen as a higher class than the African blacks, and slightly higher than Indian people, so when it came time for Abrahams to begin his schooling, he was put into the mixed-race school as opposed to the Indian one.

While the racial divide was clear inside the classroom, it was abundantly more so in Abrahams’ day-to-day life. At the age of 14, he coached a soccer team of younger boys, who were restricted to play on a sandy, gravely field – directly across the fence from the smooth, green grass limited to use by the white children. On a few occasions, the boys would jump the fence to practice on this sacred ground, but one day, the police arrived to round them up.

‘They didn’t catch the bigger ones, but they caught a few of the little ones, and I felt that being the coach, and being 14, and they were probably 10 or 11, I should also go and protect them,’ he said. ‘And so that was our first sort of run-in.’

It may have been one of the first times Abrahams was arrested, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. In fact, he’s not even sure how many times he’s been jailed.

‘We’re applying for permanent residency in the U.S., and we’re kind of wondering if the CIA is going to bring out his file,’ said Alexei Abrahams, Cecil’s youngest son and a sophomore economics major. ‘It must be considerably thick.’

As a member of the African National Congress of South Africa, Abrahams hasn’t always been a popular man in African history. Rather than going to jail like Mandela, he chose to go into exile in order to complete his doctoral studies at the University of Alberta. He stayed in Canada for nearly two decades, teaching at the University of New Brunswick and Bishop’s University in Quebec, meeting his wife and starting a family – three sons and one daughter. But he was not allowed back into South Africa, not even to attend his own parents’ funerals. It was only at the end of apartheid in 1995, when Mandela issued an SOS call to those who were out of the country, that Abrahams was allowed to return to his native home. He then became the president of the University of the Western Cape in Bellville, South Africa.

Part of Apartheid’s end hinged on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where citizens who felt they had been victimized could come forward and have their voices heard. It was at this time that Abrahams learned he had nearly been assassinated on a trip to Botswana, but his potential killers had abstained, fearing international repercussions. The man who was assigned to get rid of Abrahams visited him at his office, and then fell to his knees, begging for forgiveness. Although Abrahams was previously unaware of how close he came to death, he takes the experience with a grain of salt.

‘You always knew there was some danger, because even though your protests were peaceful, those who opposed us never saw it that way; they saw us as dangerous,’ he said.

During his six years at the University of the Western Cape, Abrahams faced one of the most challenging academic situations imaginable – trying to reverse the many awful years of segregation and discrimination under apartheid. A large number of students had gone to extremely poor schools and were ill-prepared for a university education. There were also monetary and behavioral problems to be dealt with, so six years was impressive, considering that most people in Abrahams’ position only stayed in their jobs for two or three years, he said, chuckling.

‘They struggled with language, they struggled with finances, they struggled with many things, and so you had to find ways to keep them going and also to ensure that they’re going to get the necessary competencies so that they can actually participate in their proper university education,’ Abrahams said.

During this time, Cecil Abrahams’ ability to be a parent was incapacitated by the enormity of his work, Alexei Abrahams said. He was 9 years old, and says it was an absence that he didn’t realize until years later when other children talked about their fathers. It’s certainly not something he holds against his father, who encouraged Alexei to apply to Syracuse University, and took a position teaching in the English department at almost the same time, moving the family from its previous home in St. Louis.

But Abrahams’ first contact with Syracuse University came five or six years ago, when he met Howard Johnson, then-executive vice provost for academic affairs, who was at a conference at the University of the Western Cape. Johnson was involved in trying to set up programs between SU and other universities, and was struck by Abrahams’ clear vision and fascinating mind. He recommended Abrahams to Deborah Freund, vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost, who put the idea of bringing Abrahams to campus in motion.

‘For him to be able to survive and maintain his intellectual lust and thirst to continue to learn in such a difficult situation … that’s what one can take away from interacting with him,’ said Johnson, who is now provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of North Texas.

Johnson said SU will benefit greatly from Abrahams’ presence, and that Abrahams will benefit greatly from Syracuse as well – it’s a wonderful match for both. He added that some people may lose sight of Abrahams’ grounding in the humanities after learning about his history in Africa, but it’s his literary background that caught the attention of SU’s scholars.

Eleven such students sat around wooden tables in Hall of Languages 107 on Tuesday afternoon, discussing Tsitsi Dangarembga’s ‘Nervous Conditions’ in Abrahams’ Survey of African Writing class. The class began slowly; Abrahams’ soothing voice nearly causing several students to drift off to sleep. But the discussion only became more heated as it ensued, and Abrahams’ deep-seated passion burst through as he touted the value of self-awareness, and warned against the negative aspects of education – snobbishness, class-consciousness and a lack of empathy.

‘I keep telling you this, but this is your best four years to watch yourself grow,’ he told his students.

‘I’ve taken one or two classes dealing with African literature, and this is the best,’ said Joy Ajayi, a senior political science major. Ajayi, whose parents are from Nigeria, said on the first or second day of class, Abrahams hinted at her last name and ethnicity, sharing his own background and experience. She appreciates the fact that Abrahams has actually gone through the struggle he’s teaching, which makes him very unique among her professors.

‘He has us engaged into what the characters are actually facing,’ she said.

Jadeeva Smith, a senior psychology and music industry major, said she enjoys Abrahams’ class because even though she’s black, it doesn’t mean she necessarily knows about a lot of different aspects of African culture. Abrahams seems to think in a different way from most people, she said, whether it’s because he’s from a different place, or just because he’s an individual who tries to think outside the box.

‘He’s one of the few professors who challenges your ideas and the ideas that have been embedded in us,’ Smith said.

Abrahams credits his mother as the person who really challenged him to continue with his education, which she told him would provide him the passport to go to other places. But she also kept his head out of the clouds, reminding him that she had seen the sun before he did.

‘My parents struggled hard to make sure we all got some education, to my brothers who ended up as teachers, my sisters finished school, but we all pursued our education,’ he said.

Abrahams has created his own unique family environment in Syracuse. Alexei lives in Watson Hall and says he rarely sees his father on campus, but the Abrahamses make a point of gathering with two of Alexei’s classmates from Kirkwood High School in St. Louis for dinner and conversation at least once a semester.

Nicki Calfee, a sophomore musical theater major who frequents these meals, describes Abrahams as extremely warm and friendly, and said his family has been open to her 24 hours a day since arriving at SU. Abrahams is rarely without a chuckle or a story to tell, and Calfee says he never seems to put anything down in any way.

‘He’s been very kind to me and Katie, making us feel at home when we’re so far away from our homes,’ Calfee said.

Calfee said one of her favorite stories Abrahams has told describes his empathy toward a dead homeless man outside a hotel, a man Abrahams had seen alive the previous night. It’s these stories that make Abrahams notorious among those who know him best – sometimes ridiculous, sometimes poignant, always entertaining.

Alexei’s favorite of these tales involved his father’s arrest while protesting South Africa’s exclusion of black African athletes at the Montreal Olympics. Cecil Abrahams was wearing large, dark sunglasses, and instead of arresting him for protesting, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police assumed he was Carlos the Jackal, a known terrorist. After spending several hours in jail, Cecil was ushered out by a very apologetic RCMP.

‘It’s kind of hard to believe he was a fire-breathing dragon back in the day,’ Alexei Abrahams said.

Since coming to Syracuse, Abrahams says he’s been impressed by the large percentage of international students, which gives everyone a greater opportunity to learn from each other. However, he still sees the racial divides – walk into any dining hall, and you’ll see students with similar cultural backgrounds sticking together. This isn’t entirely dissimilar from his experience in Africa; in fact, he sees Americans in many ways as being more conscious of diversity.

‘The danger we have is that diversity is clearly important; it’s important that we all know what’s going on, not only in the U.S., but generally,’ he said, ‘and I think that sometimes, we all excuse ourselves by using the word diversity when we’re not really getting to know what we mean, truly mean, by it.’

He’s been to Jamaica, Australia, India, Europe, Africa and all over North America, but for now, Abrahams will stay in Syracuse. He said he’ll need to decide one day whether he wants to return to South Africa to live permanently. Alexei Abrahams said while his father is very discouraged by how slowly change is coming to South Africa, it’s still his country, adding that his father will probably retire there someday – if he does ever, in fact, retire. Upon returning to South Africa from exile, Abrahams went to find his little house in Johannesburg. It was still there, with bulldozed areas standing all around it. He’s thinking about building a grade school for disadvantaged children there someday, and inviting qualified teachers from the United States to come share some international practices to help the children grow.

While Alexi Abrahams says he wishes he could have grown up in one place, gotten to know it well and become attached to it, he appreciates the wide cultural experience he’s been afforded by his father’s lifestyle. And while Cecil Abrahams has many gifts to share, one stands above all the rest – his humanity.

‘He’s a man who’s seen the worst that mankind has to offer, but he’s also offered the best,’ Alexei Abrahams said.

Published on November 17, 2005 at 12:00 pm