Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and working against oppression

Transformational Leadership with Dr. Julian Sonn (Part I)

• VISIONS, Inc. • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Join us for another VISIONS elder story as we sit down with Dr. Julian Sonn, who has been with VISIONS, quite literally, since its inception. This is another in our series of elder story podcasts that we’re doing in honor of our 40th anniversary, which we'll be celebrating in Boston on September 27, 2024. 

Dr. Sonn is a psychologist and academic, and also worked extensively the VISIONS model while in exile in the US before returning to South Africa in the 1990s as Apartheid was ending. He talks about his early life and the experiences that shaped his outlook, and his trajectory from living in a pretty mixed town pre-Apartheid to experiencing displacement and the impacts of segregation, and how he ended up in the United States as a political exile, which is when he met VISIONS founders Valerie Batts and John Capitman.

Dr. Sonn has spent the last 30 years in South Africa, consulting and in university positions working on transformative leadership, which we talk about that more in the next episode. 

Will we see you in Boston in September 2024 for VISIONS 40th Anniversary Celebration? Learn more here!

Interested in learning more about our approach and model? VISIONS offers a pay-what-you-can (free if you want!) introduction to our Guidelines for Effective Cross Cultural Dialogue on the last Wednesday of every month. All are welcome. Learn more and register here!

Some terms:
Afrikaans - a language spoken in South Africa with influences from  indigenous Khoisan peoples, enslaved African and Asian people, and the descendants of European (Dutch, German, and French) colonists in the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope.
Boers/Afrikaaners -Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Dutch, German, or Huguenot settlers in contemporary South Africa.
Karoo - large, semiarid desert region of the Eastern, Western, and Northern Cape provinces in South Africa.
Broederbond - a secret society open to Calvinist white males that were a driving force behind implementing apartheid in South Africa; see Wikipedia.
Bantustans aka "homelands" - ostensibly independent territories to which black South Africans were displaced as part of Apartheid polic

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About us
Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and liberation is a production of VISIONS, Inc, a non-profit that offers effective tools that help individuals and organizations communicate and forge connections across differences that drive collective success.

Since 1984, we’ve offered research-based, time-tested approaches to cross-cultural learning that invite participants to engage in equity and inclusion work, starting at the personal and interpersonal levels and expanding to include changes toward institutional and cultural levels.

VISIONS offers actionable approaches that empower people to identify actions, explore their motivations, and effectively move through complex situations with respect and humanity for others and their differences.

Any opinions and views expressed by the speakers are their own and do not reflect the positions of VISIONS, Inc.

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Music credit: Tim Hall @tv_hall

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Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a podcast about transformative change, equity and working against oppression. I'm Leena Akhtar, director of Programs with Visions Inc. Welcome, hello from Cape Town, south Africa. I'm super excited to introduce you all to Visions elder Dr Julian Sonn, who's been with Visions quite literally since its inception. This is another in our series of Elder Story podcasts that we're doing in honor of our 40th anniversary. We'll be celebrating in Boston on September 27, 2024. More details about that at the end of this episode.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

I had the pleasure of staying with Julian and his wonderful partner Zahn in their house in beautiful Betty's Bay, which is about an hour and a half outside of Cape Town on the coast. Julian is a psychologist and academic and also worked extensively with the Visions model while in exile in the US before returning to South Africa in the 1990s as apartheid was ending. In this episode we talk about Julian's early life and the experiences that shaped his outlook his trajectory from living in a pretty mixed town pre-apartheid to experiencing the displacement and impacts of segregation under the apartheid regime, and how he ended up in the United States as a political exile, which is when he met Vision's founders, valerie Batts and John Kappetman, around the time that they founded the organization. Julian has the distinction, among many, many other things, of being Visions' first intern. He spent the last 30 years back in South Africa consulting and in university positions, working on transformative leadership, and we talk about that in the next episode. There are a few terms that folks who are not familiar with the South African context may not know, and I've put explanations to some of those down in the show notes.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Hi everybody, I'm very excited to introduce you to Dr Julian Sun, who is pivotal to Vision's early history. In fact, he was Visions' first intern. As I understand it, julian is from South Africa. Among other things, he was part of Visions' very early story, living in the 1980s close to Valerie Batts and John Capitman, and has a long history here in South Africa as an academic and activist, or academic activist on issues here, including bringing the Visions model here over the past several decades. Julian, hi, it's really lovely to be here at your beautiful home in Betty's Bay. In your living room, as I look out your window, I see the ocean and then in the other direction, I see the beautiful Kohlberg Mountains. So you live in this astonishingly beautiful place. For people who aren't familiar with who you are, will you introduce yourself briefly?

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Yeah, thank you. You know this is a wonderful opportunity for me to have this conversation with you and I feel blessed to live where I am and I really feel blessed with a lot of opportunities I've had in my life and for the work I've been doing. I was born in the Eastern Cape in a place called Niveris, new Rest, and New Rest was very much an African village but it was called a colored location. My parents were teachers there, my father was the principal of the little school and my mother was also a teacher and I felt a lot of who I became was really formed in that loving, humane community. And I often say that part of the country is called the border and it's literally, I thought, the border between the more Europeanized, colonized part of South Africa and the more indigenous African part of South Africa. I also felt that living in Iberis also felt like living on a border, so that the border between the predominantly more indigenous African, what we called old location, and then the town, which was really a very English colonial town. When I grew up there, when I was about eight, we moved into town, quite high up into town, but I maintained my connections with New Rest because a lot of the people who raised me were still living there Also at that time. That was before severe segregation was introduced. So a town like Queenstown had a lot of African, indian and people from the colored communities living in town and it felt very normal and very natural. So I think I was fortunate in that sense too that I have a vision of how South Africa was before apartheid and segregation really removed all the indigenous people from the towns and the cities.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Interesting, when I was about 12, we moved to Cape Town. I attended a Catholic school for a year. Couldn't speak English so well, so it was hell. The nun thought I was the dumbest child in class because I didn't know what one multiply two was, because I didn't know what multiply meant. Fortunately, I passed that year and then could go to a school that I felt more comfortably in, where there were more kids from the city but also kids from the country, and many of them were Afrikaans speaking and English speaking. So my parents come from a Karoo where they speak a very pure Afrikaans. So that was another advantage. I always had a strong, strong language and I think it was easier to pick up English subsequently.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So, for people who might not have the context, can you say a little bit about what colored means, as you're using it in the South African context?

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Yeah, from the earliest days, like from the first time that the Europeans came to South Africa. Soon after that they started importing people and enslaved them in South Africa. So from the earliest days those of us who had usually European fathers and either indigenous African mothers or people who were enslaved mothers, because the slave lodges at that time were sort of used as brothels. So there was a lot of children that were born from those unions, and also the people who were living in the Cape at that time were San people and Koi people. The San people also are comfortable being called Bushmen now, and the Koi people were called Hottentots but later were called Koi people. So my mother's people were Koi people, they were Nama people. Like Namakwalant is a part of South Africa and the people who live there traditionally, like for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years, were Nama people, and those are my mother's people.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

And then my father also comes from the northern part of the country, from an area called the Karoo, and his father's mother's people were again Gooni-speaking people, what we also called Xhosa people, but in both their cases there was a German-Jewish father who usually didn't stick around. But both my mother got the name Klein and we got the name Son from that connection, and so all the people who were like us were in about 1860, they started creating locations and called those locations. They called us and they called those locations colored people. So we're a very heterogeneous people and very diverse, because the people who were brought to be enslaved were from all the Dutch colonies, like Sumatra, borneo, java, and then a lot also from Angola, mozambique and other parts of Africa. So we're a very diverse group of people and anybody who by appearance is not indigenous African or European are referred to as colored people.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

And those were then the communities that I grew up in and went to school in, and those communities developed a strong culture. So I also identify strongly with the cultures that were created there. So when I introduce myself I usually say I'm indigenous African, with San and Hoi heritage and with Xhosa heritage and also with German Jewish heritage, and I grew up in the colored communities and I enjoyed that and I really enjoy that culture. I still do.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So what age were you when the segregation started in force in South Africa?

Dr. Julian Sonn:

segregation started in force in South Africa.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I was six years old in 1948 when the National Party won the elections, and it was a surprise win. Before that it was the United Party of people like General Smuts, who were much more English-oriented and much more liberal in their political outlook and much more liberal in their political outlook. So from 1948, these laws that we now call apartheid, which are actually fascist laws, were starting to be introduced and they were really biting, or they really had an effect on us in the early 50s and throughout the 50s. So we were kicked out of our house as a result of the Group Areas Act in Claremont, a lovely part of Cape Town, when I was already in my early 20s. So apartheid started happening.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

When I was in my teens In Queenstown, the English had something they called colour bar, sort of an expectation that you must know your place but if you regarded to be proper, you could live anywhere and pretty much be accepted pretty much be accepted. So they practiced the form of segregation, but it was nothing as severe as what we call the Boere the Afrikaners they call themselves introduced after 1948 when they came to power.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So you were saying when you were a teenager in Cape Town, so you were there, your schooling was in Cape Town.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Yeah, I went to a school, athlon I, where you had the largest concentration of colored people in Cape Town, and our school system, fortunately, was always strong because they had a law at that time called the Reservation Act, that people from the black communities could pretty much only become teachers, preachers if you were very bright, medical doctors. A few became lawyers. But the advantage of that was that our schools were very good because you had a lot of competent people who were teachers in the school. So I attended a school called Athloni and most of the teachers were graduates and committed and dedicated and that was a huge advantage for me and other people from my community, for me and other people from my community.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So then high school, and then this is a part of your life that I don't know very much about. So what was your trajectory after that? And then, how did you end up in the States? I know that it was a period of a lot happening in South Africa, and I'm not sure if my understanding is correct, but I think you fled to the States for a little while, if I'm not wrong.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I qualified as a teacher. In fact, five of us literally had to repeat our degrees because they were using these people that I call the Boere, who were in control at that time created the separate universities for the different ethnic groups to actually provide jobs for themselves. So five of us were about to graduate, were told that we'll have to repeat our degrees and I think it was to slow down the process of us taking the jobs of these people, because they're ostensibly those who sort of regard it as our university. So, in any case, I could teach during that time. So I teach at high school.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I taught Afrikaans for three years and during that time my parents were always involved with an organization called Morori Armament, and Morori Armament was started by a Quaker who believed that individuals who change can change the world, and what those individuals need to do is they need to live according to four moral standards Absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity and absolute love. Now, that was Maury Almond. So Maury Almond, given the political and social dynamics in South Africa, africa was actually a very powerful organization in our upbringing because it exposed us to a lot of people from around the world who'd come to South Africa, sometimes to live with us and also in South Africa. There were a lot of prominent people in the different communities who were part of Maori Almond. Different communities were part of Maury Almond and in 1965, I was invited to a youth conference at Mackinac Island in Michigan and at that international youth conference we created a show called Up With People, initially in 65, it was called Sing Out 65.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

And it became so prominent. We traveled around the States. We traveled through Japan, korea and twice through Europe Wow. And when we came back another cast was created and during that same year a third cast was created. It was such a lot of young people took an interest in our world, in Maury Almond but particularly, I think, in the show, and I was asked after the first year to be the principal of the high school because about 60 of the cast members were high school age. So I stayed with them, traveled around for three years.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Wait, so you stayed in the States.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Stayed in the States. We had a headquarters in New York, in LA, and we made two long playing records. Pat Boone was our emcee on one of them and Gregory Peck on the other and at that time was just the time of the Civil Rights Revolution and Watts was burning. So about a month after Watts Burns we performed in the high schools there and actually a lot of the kids from Watts joined the cast. So it was that time in the States we were seen as the clean-cut kids. Our songs were like up up with people. You meet them wherever you go. Another song was what color is God's skin? So we had very uplifting Christian songs, songs. So we were seen at the time of the hippies and time of that revolution in the States. Really we were seen as the clean-cut kids.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Bill Moyers called that generation the up-with-people generation, the 60s, which was quite powerful seeing that the 60s was such a dramatic time. In any case, I stayed with him from 65 to 68. Also exposed I heard Dr King speak, I heard Stokely Carmichael speak twice. So, without realizing it, I was also exposed to black power and black consciousness in Black is Beautiful and claimed more my Africanness. You know, when I got there I was much more thinking of myself more as a colored person. But during that time, you know, nobody saw me that way and I didn't see myself that way. So that was actually a very beneficial time for my consciousness raising. And when I came back in 68, I often spoke, and I often spoke that language of black consciousness that I'm proud to be black and I'm not non-European, I'm not colored, I'm black and I've been oppressed like all the other black people and that, you know, it is with movements, although I didn't know Steve Biko or Barney Pachana then, but they were that same generation of black consciousness leaders. And for a while, from 68 to 72, I often spoke at the University of Stellenbosch, at Cape Town, and we organized a big conference for leaders from the white community and the black community.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

And it was as if the government didn't quite know what to do with us. One of the things I did at university was to push to have a black rector appointed and succeeded in that. And because these universities, these separate universities, were created ostensibly for the different ethnic groups, the government felt we were on the same wavelength. We said, if this is our university, let us then run the university. But by about 72, they saw the children in high schools having a different attitude Because, without realizing it, we were empowered and we were empowering the children we affected in the high schools and from then on they started acting against us. So the South African student organization was the organization that Sliviko started.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

That was banned and he was banned, which meant he could only stay in a certain area and he had to report to the police. And also at that time my father was on the council of the university. The police started telling my father they will have to act against me because I was speaking out against the situation at the university, the disparities in salaries, for example. In salaries, for example. And when the same policeman visited my father the second time, he didn't tell me the first time, but the second time he told me you know, this is serious. You have to decide whether you're willing to go to jail or whether you're going to look for other options. So I immediately applied for bursaries and got this Fulbright scholarship they call it the travel grant and was placed at New York University. Couldn't get a passport, but I got the bursary and two days before I left I approached someone that I got to know, a professor at UCT who at that point was in parliament, a guy called Van Zyl Slobber, and told him I needed a passport and the next day I had a passport. So I got the passport the Wednesday and my flight was that Thursday evening Wow. And then I went to New York, was interested in racism. At that time at New York University they said you know that's past tense, this was 73. But there was a lot of focus on attitude theory and all ports prejudice, the nature of prejudice. So then I went to New York University and studied, did a master's, got accepted into the PhD program in social psychology and also got a teaching assistantship in social psychology and spent the next three years at NYU.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I also met Mary at that time and instead of studying for my comps, I joined her in Maryland and started running distances and that was sort of a wonderful time. But I moved away from my studies and joined her in the Midwest where she was at Notre Dame and got a job there and started that period of my life. We stayed there for three years. I worked as the coordinator of a substance abuse unit and then we came to Richmond where we met Val and John. Where we met Val and John, but that time in the Midwest was also significant for me. I experienced the Midwest as very open. You know I literally I was on the radio there, I worked in the hospital. I worked in the prison system at Indiana State Prison and often spoke about substance abuse. So it was also education for me about substance abuse and also I thought that would be an area that when I come back there'll be a demand for those services. That was also in the time of the states where the mental health system was very well entrenched in most communities and provided good jobs and good exposure. Yeah, so just in 1980, we came to Richmond.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Mary got a position at Virginia Commonwealth University. She was deputy director of the counseling center. She was deputy director of the counseling center and then she interviewed Val and came out very excited. She said she thinks Val is going to accept the position. She's an African-American woman married to a white man and they've got a two-year-old son. We had a two-year-old son then, and so that's when I met Val. In fact, val shared the office with Mary initially and eventually opened her own office and that's where Visions was born. So Richmond was great too, because I could go back to school and also do a full-time job also in the area of substance abuse.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I was clinical director of a program called Rubicon and the drug treatment program used a therapeutic model. Now the therapeutic model is based on Alcoholic Anonymous and Alcoholic Economists. Was created by two guys. One of them was Moral Rearmament. So it's the same concept of living the four absolute standards and remaking your life by living those values. So that therapeutic community I felt very comfortable with.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Now what they did with AA, instead of four absolute standards, they cut out that absolute. They felt that was a bit excessive. It was basically impossible to be absolutely loving and absolutely unselfish and made it 12 steps. But it was the same concept and in MRA you also. We also had the thing of you fight for other people, like when I meet you, I'll encourage you to consider living this lifestyle and help you do it. We also had a practice of you have guidance every morning. We sort of think God speaks to you because you live this quality of life. So a lot of that particular culture is the culture that informed the therapeutic community. So I was very comfortable and I think we did good work at Rubicon and I also did my dissertation based on the data that we accumulated there and John was my supervisor.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Interesting Okay.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

And that was also very pleasant. Yeah, he was such a great supervisor.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

I can imagine.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

We met every Thursday he goes over what I've done, made a few corrections. Next Thursday we go over that. So we just they called it the tortoise method Just move forward, you know, day by day, and after we've met we'll go for a walk. So that's then how I, you know, became close to John and Val, and Val and I would run and John and Mary would walk, and of course, Michael and Jason were the same age.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Yeah.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Well and that was a wonderful thing about Richmond too that Michael was born. Then I was already 40, 42. Yeah, so I was going through that middle-age crisis thinking is this my life? I thought I would have children. So when Mary became pregnant, I was, you know, delighted. Yeah, so that was Richmond. And then I did a practicum with Val at Visions. When Visions started and when Visions had their first meeting, the starting meeting, I made the curry. So after the meeting I brought the curry Amazing. So I was very much there at the beginning.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

At the inception. At the inception, that I didn't realize. That's amazing. What kind of curry did you make?

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I had a yellow. I still have the book. I had a yellow book that was written by a woman from India and I think I made a shroom curry.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Amazing.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Yeah, I just followed that recipe and it was so exciting for me to know I can make this great curry. I just followed the recipe Because curry was one of the things I missed in the States and sort of missed South Africa and curry, not thinking I'd be able to make it myself. Yeah, and then I did a workshop. I did a four-day workshop at that time.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Yeah.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

And it was very powerful because I never really looked on the fact that I dropped out of NYU. I had a difficult time living with myself with that awareness. So I was glad to go back to VCU and finish the PhD. But at that workshop I remember I spoke about that experience and I remember Val told me I didn't have support and I realized, yeah, I didn't have support.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I was older and I think the professors, particularly my advisor, thought I was doing so well that he didn't know I was doing well and I needed support, particularly with the dissertation. But so that was a powerful workshop and also it was the first time I could really understand how racism looks, also understood my own sexism, because it's an issue that we dealt with a lot in what we call the house, you know, in the treatment, in the drug treatment program. So I was sort of aware that it's an important issue but never looked at myself. And so that was a powerful workshop for me because I could understand the dynamics of both racism and sexism and could do some reflection on how I've had elements of both and also the level of internalized oppression. That was very much, I think, a factor in me not finishing a PhD at NYU.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Yeah, a factor in me not finishing a PhD at NYU. You know where I was a teaching assistant. I knew the material had a good relationship with the professors. There was really no reason for me not to finish it, that I really doubted my ability to actually become a doctor. You know that internalized depression was affecting my view of myself. So that was a powerful workshop and I knew, you know, when I get my degree I would like to get more experience in the work, but also that that would be a field I would like to work in. Yeah, Amazing.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So, what do you remember about that first meeting and visions early days, my sense was well.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Val and John came from San Francisco where they worked with Makus, a woman who started doing what they called multicultural work. She was like they always referred to as the child bride of Herbert Marcus, the noted sociologist, always referred to as the Marxist sociologist, and so Val and John particularly Val already had that experience and I think with the TA experience she then created this model and definitely when I did the practicum with her I think it was before Visions was officially launched we definitely spoke about TA theory and I was exposed to that. Then we moved to DC. I got an internship at St Elizabeth's Hospital, which was a clinical internship and was exposed to.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I think all the supervisors were psychoanalytically trained, with one exception. One African-American man was a social worker. When I chose him, all the others were sort of surprised. Why would I choose a social worker and particularly African-American social worker? We subsequently became great friends. An American social work. We subsequently became great friends, but I think what that? So seven of my supervisors were like psychoanalytically trained and their focus was on me. The advantage of that was it gave me a great opportunity to work on.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I remember telling one of the supervisors that I wanted to go back to South Africa and, of course, I was married at that time. I had a child, I was preparing, you know, to start a new career in the States, so I sort of surprised myself when I spoke about it and she ever nonchalantly said, julian, from the first time I met you, I had no doubt that you would go back to South Africa validation. But that was a good year for me because it was an opportunity, from different angles, to work on a lot of what I experienced growing up in South Africa and I think in a way also prepared me then for working with visions and being able to deal with these issues more comfortably. That I had enough time I mean, you know you never have enough time. I still think I'm dealing with those issues but that was a significant year for me and Mary was then director of the Counseling Center at American University, so that was also a good experience for her and brought us in contact with a lot of, you know, interesting people, most of them psychologists. And we remained you know, val and John and I and Mary, we remained very good friends. In fact, mary started consulting with visions before I did, but, yeah, so she consulted with them at Mahupani and I was working at the Institute with adolescent children for three years and then during that time I started working with visions.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Gosh, I can remember those early days, how nervous I felt, how uncertain I felt and how stiff it felt, just the tension in the rooms. People were so uptight about the topic and I really have a whole lot of respect for the visions model because we've never really had, you know, rebellion or difficulties. By the second day or the third day you could literally see people's comfort and willingness to deal with their issues. Yes, yeah, but yeah, yeah. So what was that? That was the late 80s, 87 I think I started. I stopped working at that at Riker and started sort of working with visions full time. Wow, okay, val and Angie and I came back to South Africa for the first time and we did a workshop at the University of Cape Town and a lot of those people the woman who was in that workshop is now the director of the diversity program at Wibatis Rant University oh, wow. And I could go through some of the people who attended that particular workshop, the significant positions they filled after that.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Amazing.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

So we immediately knew that there's a huge need for the work we do and that the model is effective in getting people to talk honestly with each other and to self-reflect. I think for most of us at that time, you didn't speak about racism or sexism and in fact whenever the issue came up, it'll be sort of like a swear word. You'll accuse someone of being racist without being clear what it means. So it was a very loaded I mean obviously a very loaded concept and I felt in visions we have a good way of introducing it, that people could look at it. Introducing it that people could look at it. I think that thing that we also do, that we have a white person, talk about white racism and we talk about internalized oppression as a black person, I think that was also a useful lesson and an important way of doing it.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So this is a curiosity question now what were your conversations about adapting the model like? One of the things that I find most powerful about it is that it works with variables of oppression. Of course, we're race forward because of the context we're in, but what was that like your discussions about? We're going to bring this to another country.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

The first step for me was I came and spoke at a conference at a teacher's conference in 1990, and I spoke about being indigenous and how important that was for me. And it was mostly people yeah everybody at the conference were from the colored community and spoke how, by claiming my indigeneity, I connect with the San and the Koi and ancient Africa, ancient Egypt, and that that's been very powerful for me. Reading up on ancient Egypt and realizing I'm part of that heritage and realize that the colored construction or that imposed identity sort of have cut us off from our indigenous roots and what I regard as our strength, our indigenous roots and what I regard as our strength. So I spoke about that at the conference and I spoke about racism and internalized oppression and sexism and it was very well received. They encouraged me then to come back the next day and sort of field questions and engage. So I knew that the way we handle the concepts would be accepted here and with the result, those early days we pretty much followed the model. And what I really appreciated about Val and Angie and John, who then later joined us when we came here, they always took the position of asking. South Africans never assume that they knew, because South Africans up to today are very critical and suspicious of particularly US people, yes, but all Europeans who come here and tell us, and so I think the way, val, and the model, that was really striking and they would always be accepted by the group also, I think they would invariably allow me to play a lead role and yeah, so I think the model as such is still highly applicable and it's just the way you bring it 100% with respect for us.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Now I think what's tricky about South Africa? In many ways we are so similar, like, I think, those of us in the colored communities are very similar to African-Americans. We've had this. We have this primary African culture and we have this strong European culture as a secondary culture and we've been socialized in that culture sort of very thoroughly through the church, the schools and the environment, but there's a call of Africanness.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

But I think because of that similarity, it's easy to assume that we are similar. So, yes, there's a lot of similarities, a certain dislike of any type of arrogance, yeah, so as soon as you are perceived to act as if you know it, all people become very suspicious, if not angry, at you. So I think the model is totally applicable, but the way it is presented need to be different. It need to be done with a certain sensitivity to the differences and I think one of the differences is the severity of the oppression that we have experienced here and therefore also the level of internalized oppression and sort of internalized oppression also in that it was entirely functional to sometimes keep quiet, drop your eyes and not pick a fight that there was also a level of violence here. I think it was similar to the South in the olden days.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Yeah.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

So it was more recent here.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Survival behavior was more necessary more recently, right yeah?

Dr. Julian Sonn:

And if you didn't act that way, you would literally be killed or at least imprisoned.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So then here's a question for you. You left the States because you were in danger. So what was it that? And I know that, especially in the 80s, as the sun was setting on the apartheid regime, things got even more chaotic and violent. So what was it in 1990 that prompted you to come back and made you feel safe enough to come back?

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Well, you know, in 1990, Madiba was released from prison. The ANC was unbanned in February 1990. But prior to that Val and I were actually quite active in the anti-South Africa movement in the States and that act initially the anti-South African act was vetoed by Reagan, initially around 87 or so. But we then literally went to Congress, worked with senators and congressmen to have that passed.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Did you testify in front of Congress together? Not?

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Congress but in the city council in Richmond we would speak and we spoke on a lot of campuses and at that time you know they had shacks built on campuses. The Free South Africa movement was very strong there, so all of that. And they were demonstrating at the embassy where Frankie later was the ambassador. So in a way that prepared me. I knew the Anderson site like when sanctions was imposed by the US Right and Frankie had enough contact here with influential whites like people like Prime Minister Évier de Cleyre came to his house during that time. So I knew things are changing here.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So you weren't as politically vulnerable as you were in the 70s.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

I didn't feel politically vulnerable at all. Okay, In fact, we went to a demonstration where we were picked up and went to prison for an afternoon. But when we got to the magistrate court, there were about five lawyers in Weinberg in Cape Town, but it was again my brother and I and some other people. I didn't feel the same type of fear that I felt, you know, in the early 70s when, I left Because things were changing.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Yeah, okay, and yeah no. I didn't feel that and in fact I often thought about it. Then I started traveling around, working all over the country, in the more conservative areas too, and it was quite remarkable very seldom that there were nasty incidents. People will sometimes we'll sign up at a hotel. You know, I worked with a woman, lizette Leroux, often, and she's an Afrikaans white woman. So they'll sometimes, when we sign up, say so where's Dr Son now?

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

Oh, no, and you're like I'm where's Dr Song now? Oh no, and you're like I'm Dr Song, Thank you.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Usually I will just tell her Lizette, you speak to your aunties, I'll go get the speech. But it seldom happened. It really seldom happened. So I think it is a remarkable thing about South Africa. I think something about South Africa that's helpful. The white people here, particularly the Afrikaans people, are very pragmatic. They saw things were changing, Wow, and they adjusted. Interesting Very soon early 90s white folks adjusted to the realities and I think that's making the whole transformation process relatively easy in South Africa. Interesting I think it's that Dutch influence. You know the Dutch are very pragmatic people, Very pragmatic. Interesting, I think it was that Dutch influence. You know the Dutch are very pragmatic people Very pragmatic, interesting.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

So I mean not all of them, because there certainly seem to be holdouts, oh yeah, and you have some great stories, and also my spouse has, I mean and by great stories I mean about your neighbors here in Betty's Bay, and my spouse also has stories about you know what conservative Afrikaans communities now are like? And I appreciate you saying that about transformation, and transformation is one of the words in the title of this podcast. Right, it's a podcast about transformative change, equity and working against oppression.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

Lately I have focused on talking about transformational leadership and what that means, and it's sort of interesting because I assume most South Africans who are now in leadership positions must also be comfortable stepping into transformational leadership roles. Comfortable stepping into transformational leadership roles, and I believe it's helpful to know what that means and how you must conduct yourself when you step into those roles. So a lot of my work at present is focused on developing the skills and the tools to be effective in those transformational leadership roles and, again, I think the Visions model lends itself very well to that. I also focus much more on leadership training, helping people to understand what does it mean to be a leader Now, does context influence your leadership role and the different styles of leadership and which styles of leadership are appropriate in which situations, and not get into not essentializing any particular leadership role.

Dr. Julian Sonn:

In the same way, we also help people not to essentialize any identity. We have multiple identities. Different identities bring different strengths In any case. So yeah, so the context is very much this transformational process that I feel delighted to be part of, and that's why I don't really think of retiring in the traditional sense, because I think this work is I experience it as fun and also so necessary, but it's very much in the context of these radical changes that I feel fortunate to be able to be part of.

Dr. Leena Akhtar:

As I mentioned before, this episode is part of a series of elder stories that we're doing in honor of Vision's 40th anniversary. We're celebrating in Boston at the end of September and we have a really exciting lineup of guests of honor, including Vernee Myers, gloria Steinem and the Reverend Dr William J Barber. If you're interested in attending or sponsoring, there's a link to event information down in the show notes. Now, if you're new to Visions and curious about the model and approach that we're talking about in this and other episodes, we do offer a pay-what-you-can-so-free-if-you-want workshop on the last Wednesday of every month called Guidelines for Effective Cross-Cultural Dialogue. The next one is on July 31st, 2024. It starts at 4 pm Eastern or 1 pm Pacific and it is 75 minutes long. Everybody is welcome. I warmly invite you to attend and to come check us out. Next up is part two of my conversation with Julian.