By Andries Nel

On Tuesday April 23 a helicopter crash in Mpumalanga claimed four lives, including that of Lance Cooper.

Cooper was better known in the business world as the former CEO of York Timbers, a giant in the timber industry, and one of the youngest CEOs of a JSE-listed company. At the time of his death, he was owner of Sunrise Timbers.

But there is an aspect of Cooper’s life that fewer people know about. Cooper was one of the outstanding leaders in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the University of Pretoria (Tukkies) during the late 1980s.

SDS was formed in 1987 by progressive students who were prevented from establishing a branch of the National Union of South African Students (Nusas) at the university – because, the authorities said, it had “kommunistiese konnotasies” (communist connotations).

SDS activists worked on campus in alliance with the South African National Student’s Congress to organise university students against apartheid, but also participated in the broader struggle through the United Democratic Front (UDF), the End Conscription Campaign, the South African Youth Congress and other organisations.

Cooper was a product of Pretoria Boys High School, one of the elite government schools in Pretoria. He was one of the young women and men who rejected the injustices of apartheid and were seeking alternatives.

Cooper came from a very privileged background. His stepfather, Solly Tucker, owned York Timbers.

Many remember Cooper as “The Revolutionary in the Rolls”. He would drive his stepfather’s golden Rolls-Royce to what were meant to be clandestine meetings. Ironically, perhaps because the Rolls was so ridiculously conspicuous, it proved to be a very effective tool to move around without being stopped by the police.

But Cooper understood that he needed to use the advantages that his background brought, not to enhance his own privilege, but to serve others. He was known for his commitment, integrity and hard work, but also as a decent human being who conducted his personal relationships in accordance with the values he was struggling for in broader society.

Tukkies was a conservative campus in the 1980s. It was not unusual to find rightwing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging members sporting guns on their hips, handing out pamphlets.

Cooper joined SDS in 1989. He had come to Tukkies to study law. Soon after joining SDS, he was part of SDS’s own small contribution to the ‘Release Mandela Campaign’.

The theme of the 1989 rag procession was ‘Waar’s Daai Man?’ (Where’s that man?), a nod to the phrase ‘BA Manvang’ (BA man catching) – supposedly the not-so-intellectual objective of female students pursuing that course of study.

SDS joined the Rag procession with posters of Nelson Mandela’s silhouette, demanding to know: “Waar’s daai man?”

Needless to say, it as was not the students who paraded with floats depicting Archbishop Desmond Tutu as the devil who were banned and called to the vice-chancellor’s office. But this did not stop SDS.

SDS was a small organisation, but thanks to its magazine, Skryfskiet, it had a big voice. Cooper was entrusted with the important responsibility of editing it. Skryskiet gave students information, perspectives and analyses that they would not get in the official student newspaper, Die Perdeby, or the government and commercial media of the time.

Cooper was at the forefront of the campaign to mobilise progressive and ‘verligte’ (moderate) students to defend the basic rights of freedom of speech and association – ‘Gee Jou Hand vir Vryheid van Spraak’ (Give your Hand for Freedom of Speech) was the rallying cry.

Despite the fact that Cooper was a serious-minded, committed and absolutely responsible person, he somehow always managed to be at the centre of outrageous fun.

Cooper understood the power of fun to organise and mobilise students in the cause of a very serious struggle. Many a student was conscientised in a Mamelodi shebeen, the first time they set foot in a township and related to black people as equals.

The slogan of the UDF was, ‘UDF Unites, Apartheid Divides!’

This was true also for Cooper and his wife Lizelle du Toit. A young English-speaking man of Hungarian descent and a young boeremeisie predikantsdogter (Afrikaner girl and preacher’s daughter) united in the struggle against apartheid.

One of Cooper’s comrades posted on Facebook: “We have said it before but it’s sad that the record of that time lives mostly in the memories of those who were there. The stories deserve retelling because they speak of unself-conscious idealism.”

This “unself-conscious idealism” exemplified the life of Cooper. Hopefully this obituary starts to tell the story.

Cooper is survived by his wife Lizelle, son Tom and daughter Nicole, mother Marika, father John and sister Genevieve.

Hamba Kahle Lance Cooper!

* Nel is Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development