It is difficult to put words to a person’s memory, to attempt to paint a picture of some of the many facets that made up their person. I was able to witness the life of Justine Lucas as a friend and flatmate in South Africa where we were both doing our fieldwork research, and for a short time on returning to London. She has left me with hundreds of images and impressions of someone who was an ambitious colleague and generous friend.
Facing the world with a great sense of style and glamour, Justine presented herself as confident and focused in all she did. Her disarming smile betrayed a sharp intellect and ambition to be a successful anthropologist, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Her strength of character shone through in a strong sense of loyalty to what had become her adopted country, and a determination to help contribute to a better future for the people of South Africa. In fact, she had even adopted a Gauteng accent, which left people convinced that it was the country of her birth. She surrounded herself with friends and ‘comrades’ from her old stomping ground in Yeoville, Johannesburg.
She was never one to miss an opportunity to discuss the political issues of the day, to argue her opinion on a matter, and sometimes, more disconcertingly, to quiz you in depth on your own thoughts. Many a time I found myself pinned to my seat, being gently interrogated into verifying my position or accounting for a statement. Visitors to her sadly frequent stays in hospital became used to reading up the latest news reports so as to fill her in on what was going on in the world. She had an unlimited thirst for information. As a young anthropologist Justine’s research had included investigating issues surrounding community and housing in Alexandra township at a time when the political situation in South Africa was particularly volatile. For her doctorate, her work looked at community development projects in Kosi Bay, an area she thought the most beautiful in South Africa. For those of us who regretted not choosing the beaches in Hawaii as a site in which to spend our fieldwork, she would grin and show off her tan and tell us about the ablution facilities, which included a ‘long-drop’ with a view of the sea! Her work encompassed the tourist development projects and politics surrounding an area that had formed the research site of a former political activist and anthropologist, David Webster, assassinated by one of the apartheid government’s trained killers. Her research was dedicated to understanding the area and the manner in which the communities there had managed to achieve some kind of sustainable development.
Nothing frustrated Justine more than an apparent lack of political conviction or apathy, and the continuing injustices that she saw in the world around her. Having been a political activist in South Africa’s political struggle for democracy, she continued to believe in everyone’s ability to achieve given the right circumstances and opportunities. She gave generously to people who she believed could benefit from her ability to help them. A trust fund has consequently been set up in her name for the educational development of students from her research area. (Anyone wishing to make a donation to the fund should contact the Anthropology Department at SOAS for further details.)
Apart from being an ambitious academic, Justine maintained a wonderful sense of fun and adventure. She loved to host a good party with good food and conversation. Often despairing at my lack of enthusiasm for cooking, she would disappear into the kitchen and conjure up wonderful dishes in an instant. Everything she did, she did with complete conviction, which included shopping for clothes and collecting books to be read at a later date.
Our time together as flatmates turned out to be an adventure too. One day we returned to the flat only to find that all our furniture had disappeared with her thwarted partner. With a little manoeuvring, the patio furniture was brought indoors, covered with colourful cloths and mattresses borrowed from friends. Within the space of four months, we endured two burglaries, a car breakdown and write-off, and moved our steadily dwindling possessions three times. She joked that the first presentation she would make on returning to SOAS would be on car maintenance and the delays it caused to the progress of fieldwork. Through all of this, she lived with the threat of her disease returning, but somehow managed to live life to the full in spite of it.
Justine’s life has left its mark on everyone who had any contact with her. You could not help but be impressed by her personal drive to achieve in all that she did. Unfortunately her life ended tragically early, leaving many of us wondering what she might have achieved had she been given the chance. She has been, and will continue to be greatly missed, both as a talented anthropologist and as a friend.
It has been ten months since Justine’s death, and the summer ahead is connotative for me of the memories of the last summer. Hence when attempting to write something which would reflect my remembrances for a friend, I find it difficult to pinpoint my memories. This is because her absent presence is palpable to me in so many minutiae of daily life, whether I am making cheese-on-toast, playing Scrabble, watching Madge succumb to cancer in the recent series of Neighbours, listening to Joanna Armatrading on the radio, watching a Spike Lee movie, or reading about South Africa – her voice, her company, memories of our times spent together comes flooding back to me zillion moments in a day. Most of the postgraduate students in the anthropology department might not have known her very well, as her struggle against cancer started the moment she started her PhD programme at SOAS and hence her presence in the department was not as optimum as she might have wished. I got to know Justine at a time when she was very unwell. Even then one would run out of steam in trying to keep up with her mind and her passion for doing things. It isn’t hard to imagine that her days without the disease must have been full of indomitable energy and activity!
I shared a house with Justine for one-and-a-half years from January 1999 to June 2000, but realised only sometime ago that our friendship extended far beyond that period. Having newly arrived in London in 1996, I first became acquainted with her during the first year of my PhD when we were both living in the SOAS students’ residence. She was the only classmate who was living in the residence, and we consequently spent quite a lot of time chatting in each other’s kitchens over mugs of coffee. She had already been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing both radiotherapy and chemotherapy. What was uppermost in her mind at the time was finishing her treatment so that she could prepare for fieldwork in South Africa. In fact, those who knew her remember her as being one of the most confident and intelligent of our classmates at a time when most of us were still trying to find our feet. In the fall of 1997 we all dispersed to our respective fieldwork locations but kept in touch. Her emails never ceased to be animated whether she was writing about her experiences in Kosi Bay, the sand fleas making nests under her toenails, her car breakdowns, her house being burgled, or her frequent visits to hospital in the middle of her fieldwork.
We both came back from fieldwork in January 1999 and decided to share a house together. We moved into a lovely flat in east London (a converted synagogue), from the fourth floor of which, on one hand we had rear-view seats to a soccer field where we could watch British-Bangladeshi youths playing football. On other hand we could hear the moos, brays, and grunts of animals and roosters from a nearby farm in the midst of E1! However, within a week of moving into the house it was detected that the disease had spread and she had to go through another bout of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. She spent the next seven months in and out of hospital. Loads of complications further exacerbated her health, but she never lost her sense of humour and we ended up giving different names to the various medical paraphernalia that became her constant companions. She was unable to work on her thesis during this period, but she amazed me with her indomitable energy for life and her intellectual acumen. She would often come into my room while I was trying to transcribe interviews and ask me what the interview was about, what questions I was asking, and talking to her about my research often cleared up many of the muddled thoughts in my head. She was a great and willing sounding board who immensely engaged with my work even at a time when she couldn’t work on her own thesis. We talked to each other late into the night about what we were reading, watched lots of movies, both good and bad, got hooked on Ally McBeal, and laughed together while watching Goodness Gracious Me. To cap it all she was also a great cook – and a willing one too– which suited me fine, particularly considering that my own cooking abilities didn’t live up to the South Asian stereotype! Overall her passion for life would often make me forget that she was fighting this terrible disease.
After her chemotherapy and radiotherapy was completed in August 1999 we decided to move into a house in Highbury, which we shared with a fellow PhD student, Tomoko, and my partner Greg. Justine was filled with enormous energy and, knowing that she was racing against time, she looked forward to getting stuck into her thesis. We sat down to lovely meals together, and long engaging conversations about African politics, her ANC days, arguments about movies, and everything else under the sun was deliberated upon while sitting around the kitchen table. We went shopping, made pancakes in the middle of the night, debated over Jon Snow and Jeremy Paxman and as usual, watched lots of television. However notwithstanding these pleasant diversions she took to her thesis with enormous gusto, often working through the night to finish drafts of some of her chapters. It was amazing to watch, and it was so good to see her that way. Drafts of chapters from our respective theses circulated the house, and we thought it was an ideal PhD house! Justine was someone who was probing in her conversations, had an inquisitive mind, and was opinionated. While these characteristics could occasionally be misconstrued, I found it extremely helpful to talk to her about anything that was on my mind, whether personal or academic. She was always there to talk despite whatever she was going through herself. She was always there for others.
Having said that, things were also quite rough sometimes and we did have arguments and disagreements, and I don’t think she would have appreciated being patronised just because she was unwell. I also sometimes forgot what she was going through because she was so full of life and energy. In spite of the disagreements, we would soon be knocking on each other’s door asking the other whether we would like to have a cup of tea. And there were lots of cups of tea – from herbal, jasmine, and spice, to Earl Gray and Assam – which always came in handy to soothe our ruffled feathers!
Justine was a born hostess. In the last four months, whenever I and Greg went to visit her in the hospice where she had been moved, she would enquire as to what we would like to eat or drink. Even in her last few months her creativity found its way through pictures she drew as part of art therapy. She was a very caring, generous person, and having stayed with her and becoming her friend I feel fortunate to have known her, to have been with her, to have learnt so much from her. Her presence today would have made many things very different. However, since that is not to be, I can only cling to memories of all the good times that her presence ensured. Often unconsciously I find myself saying ‘yebo’, which is a Zulu way of saying yes. Yebo, she lives on in her friendship with me, she lives on among different people in different ways whose lives she touched.
The loss of a friend is inexpressible. Justine tried to live her life to the full and also suggested ways for others to live. I would like to stop by quoting a passage that she read out to me on a warm summer’s afternoon in August 1999, at a time when we were talking about each other’s hopes and dreams. One wonders what might have been going on in her mind when she read this passage. The accompanying photograph was taken that same afternoon. I found this passage among her books (some of which she had left to me), and was reminded of that afternoon in August 1999. By quoting this passage, I hope to share the spirit of Justine with those who are reading this. To my mind, the passage fully embodies the fiercely independent, politically conscious, committed, opinionated, autonomous, brave, and generous individual that Justine was. Above all she was a friend.
The quotation is from Ben Okri’s A Way of Being Free from the section ‘Amongst the Silent Stones’ (the underlined sections in the passage was as underlined in the book by Justine):
"We are on the threshold of a new era. The great responsibilities of our age rest not only with the big nation powers of modern world but also with a host of small nations, those whose ancient dreams are on the verge of extinction. The responsibilities of the unvalued, the unheard, the silent are greater than ever. And the weight of this responsibility rests on one thing: We are essentially struggling for the humanity of the world. We are struggling to liberate the world into a greater destiny. We are struggling for world balance and justice. The unheard have always seen themselves as strangers in a world of juggernauts. We have accepted the world’s definition of us. The world is neutral: it is we who give things value. We could change the value we place on ourselves. We should always remember that it takes a certain genius for if we do not place the highest value on ourselves we cannot achieve the highest good in the world.
And whether we like it or not what happens in the world is our responsibility as well. The world is a battleground of mythologies and dreams. Those who allow their house to fall into chaos and disarray deserve to have the silences of forgotten histories wash over them. As the thunderous roll of world powers gets larger, more silences are created. Those who have lived with nature, those who have suffered the erosion of unexplored paths of history, cannot afford to be silent, to be cowardly and to think only of themselves.
The new theory of chaos asserts that the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can start, can herald momentous storms. The same may be true of history. The dying star of a nation, the silent death of a language, the eclipse of a way of seeing, the definite cry of a silenced people could herald something more momentous than a storm for human history.
It is not the size of the voice that is important: it is the power, the truth and the beauty of the dream."