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When South Africa announced in 2003 that it would compete to build the world’s largest radio telescope, the multibillion-dollar Square Kilometre Array, the international community was sceptical. Could an African nation pull off such a project? They had not counted on radio astronomer and political activist Bernie Fanaroff, who tells Anil Ananthaswamy how his team positioned South Africa at the front of the race to build the telescope.

Why is the Square Kilometre Array so important to cosmology?

It will be a couple of orders of magnitude more sensitive than existing radio telescopes. It will enable cosmologists to map throughout the history of the universe. Neutral hydrogen is the basic building block of the universe. As the universe cooled down from the big bang, neutral hydrogen formed first. Then as the first stars formed they began to re-ionise it, so the universe was filled with pockets of ionised hydrogen and a faint web of neutral hydrogen. The hope is that by surveying a billion galaxies, the SKA will allow us to see how structures have developed over the history of the universe.

You left South Africa to study astronomy, so what made you return after completing your PhD at Cambridge in 1974?

Originally I hadn’t wanted to, but I started feeling guilty about having left. The University of the Witwatersrand agreed to employ me. What I really wanted to do was find a way of becoming involved in politics. I didn’t tell the university that at the time. From the 1920s my parents had been active in the trade union movement and for years they ran night schools. This was really why I came back. I met some people who were working in Durban to establish trade unions of black workers, which were not recognised by the state or employers. In 1973 they started organising the unions, mainly in the textile and metal industries. They wanted to open branches in Johannesburg, so I started working with them.

You ended up in politics full-time. How did that happen?

On 16 June 1976, the who were rebelling against being taught in Afrikaans started in Soweto. It quickly spread to other areas and became very bloody. Towards the end of the year, all the organisers of trade unions of black workers were banned from taking part in political activity. I went to the university and said, “Can I have two years’ unpaid leave to go and organise the unions?” They said, “No, that’s not a legitimate use of your skills.” So at the end of 1976 I resigned from the university.

What was it like for black South Africans at the time?

African workers had no effective rights. If the foreman didn’t like your face, he could fire you. All the urban areas were designated as white areas; Africans were only allowed to be there if they had jobs. When we started organising the unions there was a lot of resistance from the employers and the security police. But organising the workers meant they started to stand together during disputes. It gradually began to take hold.

Did you get into trouble?

The security police came to fetch me soon after I started working in the union office in Johannesburg at the beginning of 1977. They took me to the police headquarters in a building called John Vorster Square. They had their own special lift in the garage that went straight up to the ninth floor, and as they were taking me up the policeman said: “You know, people fall out of the windows on the ninth floor.” When I got up there they brought out a thick file. They said: “We have been watching you.” I knew they were lying, because throughout my university career I had been very careful not to get involved in politics. I knew that it was either a file on my parents, or they were just trying to intimidate me.

How did the unions help bring down the apartheid-era government?

From 1980, the employers started to recognise us. The unions grew fast and became a major force for political change. We started to organise big stay-aways from work. Stay-aways and strikes were a major contributor to making the country ungovernable, which was a major contributor to the [ruling] National Party recognising they had to negotiate.

What did you do after apartheid ended in the 1990s?

I was appointed deputy director-general in Nelson Mandela’s Office of the President and head of the Office of the Reconstruction and Development Programme. After two years, I went to run the National Crime Prevention Strategy, trying to understand what drives violence and what predisposes young people to be at risk of becoming criminals. When a new minister of safety and security was appointed after the 1999 election, they wanted to make me a divisional commissioner in the police. But I don’t take orders well, and I would look ridiculous in a police uniform, so I stayed on as the minister’s adviser for a year and a half and then left the government completely.

Now you have come full circle, managing South Africa’s bid to host the world’s largest radio telescope. How did that happen?

The director-general of the Department of Science and Technology and the president of the National Research Foundation phoned me in December 2002 and asked if I would manage the bid for the SKA. We had to move fast, because all the other bidders had been working on it for years.

What was the response of international astronomers to the South African bid?

I don’t think they took us seriously at first. Maybe I’m being unfair to them, but I think that was pretty much their view. There were all kinds of prejudices about lack of skills and lack of infrastructure and so on. I think they were all surprised when we turned in our first proposal in May 2003. Over time, we have developed excellent collaborations with the other countries active in the SKA effort. I think generally it has become well accepted that South Africa is a serious bidder.

Why is the SKA so important to South Africa?

South Africa’s involvement has already led to the creation of a group of young people with good skills and knowledge of technologies that are going to be important in the next 10 to 20 years. I am interested in creating a critical mass of young people with such skills, so you have enough people to spark off each other to really start to drive new industries.

Are you optimistic?

Yes. It is a bit like trying to win the rugby World Cup. It is about the country uniting around something and driving it in a way that more developed economies find difficult because their processes tend to be set in stone. In South Africa, because it is a newer democracy, it is easier to make things happen, and people feel they can make things happen.

“South Africa is a new democracy. We can make things happen”