Why we will miss Eusebius McKaiser

Alate autumn day in Johannesburg. Crisp morning, sunny afternoon. The sort of day that would ordinarily see Eusebius McKaiser sitting at a coffee shop, book in hand, ready to meet a novelist or an academic or a journalist.

Ready to question, to listen, to argue, to laugh. Or perhaps he’d be venturing out with his partner, Nduduzo Nyanda, to a trendy restaurant — inevitably after a weights or boxing session at the gym.

People knew these things about McKaiser’s life because he documented his daily rounds on social media, sharing photos and snippets of conversation with his many followers. This was partly to be exemplary, to show that a gay coloured kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Makhanda could conquer the world with intelligence and application. But he also did it to promote the work of others, to celebrate their achievements and to encourage critical engagement with their ideas.

McKaiser thus shaped a unique identity as a public intellectual. Come for the smiling selfies, stay for the discourse on moral philosophy; come for the jibes about SA popular culture, stay for the keen analysis of the country’s socioeconomic complexities.

It was precisely this balance of levity and seriousness that McKaiser developed as a radio talk show host and later perfected as a podcaster. He modelled the fusion of the highbrow and the lowbrow — or rather, he demonstrated that this was a false binary. In so doing, he made more and more people feel included in reasoned discussion about the society they live in. He enjoined them to be honest, to share their vulnerability, without resorting to insult or falling back on unapologetic ignorance and bigotry.

Above all, McKaiser encouraged people to read. He made bookishness sexy and aspirational. In his own writing, in long and short forms, he experimented with genre, style and register with varying degrees of success. Yet always, no matter the subject matter or the medium, the voice was the same: by turns funny, angry, kind, compassionate, cool, but always lucid, rational, incisive.

Until, suddenly, his voice was gone.

On that sunny Tuesday afternoon, my phone started pinging. As I tried to make sense of the incomprehensible messages I was receiving — how could he be dead? — the sky turned grey. Eusebius would doubtless have chided an author employing the pathetic fallacy in such a moment; still, it was hard not to feel that the rain was a dramatic, tearful gesture from the city of Johannesburg itself. Johussleburg, as he loved to call his adopted home.

He remained, nonetheless, a son of the Eastern Cape. Those of us who knew him as a skinny undergraduate student at Rhodes University cherished our knowledge of this younger Eusebius as we watched his star ascend. We recalled his brilliance as a competitive debater. We delighted in facetiously taking him to task in his absence. And when he was present? One of the great privileges of my life was watching Eusebius McKaiser trade comradely blows with the best minds of his generation.

If his old friends loved to complain jokingly about Eusebius’ prominence in the SA media landscape, we loved especially to hear others complain earnestly about him. We knew that he was making them uncomfortable, exposing their prejudices, inviting them to open their minds. “Why does he have such a chip on his shoulder?” our white compatriots of a certain age and political inclination would demand. Another common gripe: “I don’t mind his sexual orientation, I just wish he wouldn’t be so in-your-face about it.”

This was the power of McKaiser employing his persona, his personal narrative, to challenge the received wisdom of heteronormative, patriarchal, white-centred world views. He got up the noses of the DA’s old guard. But he also spoke truth to the ANC’s power. His politics were nuanced. He saw himself as a “liberal egalitarian”; he was culturally “coloured” but politically “black”. He was fond of saying: “We can walk and chew gum at the same time” ,a useful analogy for dismissing oversimplification and whataboutery.

Now Eusebius has left us to

HE SHAPED A UNIQUE IDENTITY AS A PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL. COME FOR THE SELFIES, STAY FOR THE DISCOURSE ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY

walk without him. We are bereft. He was always good at grieving, at paying tribute to friends and loved ones who had passed. Devastated and confused though we may be, we have no choice but to follow his lead.