Professor Gert ‘Jakes’ Johannes Gerwel

Gert Johannes “Jakes” Gerwel was born on 18 January 1946 in the town of Kommadagga in the district of Somerset East, Eastern Province (now Eastern Cape). He is the seventh of ten children of laborers on a sheep farm near Somerst East. While growing up on a sheep farm, Gerwel attended a church-based farm school, followed by secondary school at London Missionary Society Institution, and he eventually matriculated at Paterson High School in Port Elizabeth. Gerwel then attended the University of Western Cape (UWC), where he began his passionate foray into his studies of the Afrikaner language. He earned a reputation for brilliance,completing an honours degree in 1968. He was awarded a scholarship to study in Belgium, he completed a PHD in literature and philosophy at the Free University of Brussels in 1979.

He taught at Hewat Training College in CT before joining UWC, he was one of only two black UWC lectures at the time. In 1978, he was appointed UWC rector, a prolific author, Gerwel was eventually promoted to senior academic positions. In 1980, he was detained,he was one of the few UWC academics who openly supported student struggles for democracy. As UWC's chief administrative officer,Gerwel took on the mission of guiding the university away from the apartheid educational model. After the African National Congress's (ANC) 1994 election victory, Gerwel left academia to become President Nelson Mandela's chief of staff, secretary to the cabinet and special envoy. In1999, as Mandela's emissary, he successfully persuaded the Libyan government to surrender for trial the two suspects implicated in the Lockerbie plane crash which had killed 259 people in 1988. After leaving governmental service, Gerwel served on many commissions, boards of public and private corporations and non-governmental organizations.