‘Life’s work’ of great Canadian diplomat Stephen Lewis has a new home in Hamilton
Stephen Lewis is a magnificent paradox.
The man, whose archives, it has just been announced, have come to McMaster University, has long been renowned for achievement and intellect. Yet he never completed a post-secondary program of study.
He's a doctor of laws (1979, from McMaster) who dropped out of law school, twice - University of Toronto, after three months, Osgoode Hall after three weeks," he tells me with a droll laugh of self-deprecation.
All his degrees - he has 42, including that doctorate from McMaster, his first - are honorary. I was a terrible student," he says, incongruously, the man who has learned and done so much and communicated it so well.
He's renowned for his elocution and yet he very rarely wrote a speech. Lewis would jot down notes to himself on scraps" of paper and somehow ad lib them into some of this country's most memorable and stirring oratory.
Now those scraps" make up a significant part of his collected" papers, letters and archives that McMaster University has acquired. The university announced Friday, June 4, that they'll be housing the Lewis archives, including parts of his father David Lewis's (once federal NDP leader) archive, in McMaster library's William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections.
The acquisition is considered a great coup.
But Stephen Lewis, head of the Ontario NDP in the 1970s and, after that, much beloved diplomat, UN ambassador, broadcaster, activist and humanitarian, says: It's actually more wonderful news for me. I don't know if I merit having my archives" in the company of those greats such as Vera Brittain (1893-1970), legendary nurse, socialist, pacifist and feminist.
When I think of that, it reduces me ...," and his voice breaks a little. Forgive me if I get emotional. I'm feeling vulnerable from time to time."
He's referring to the inoperable abdominal cancer which made news in April. I'm struggling," he says, but I'm still here. It hasn't got hold of me yet."
The coming together of the archives cheers him.
I'm as tickled as I can be," says Lewis, thrilled also that his records are alongside those of some of Hamilton's great unions, like CUPE and the steelworkers.
I'm palpitating with joy."
The journey of his archives to Hamilton began, he says, in 2018 when he received a lovely" letter from McMaster chief librarian Vivian Lewis (no relation). It was phrased in such a thoughtful way, it was irresistible."
He already had a history with McMaster - not just the 1979 honorary degree but in 2006 he returned as inaugural scholar-in-residence in the Faculty of Social Sciences. The terrible student," now a teacher.
Lewis submitted 120 boxes full of campaign materials, correspondence, position papers, photographs, speaking notes and recordings of speeches.
They've been worked on, organized, their potential brought forth to the point where they're almost unrecognizable to him.
I can't get over it. It's astonishing, the work that's been done. Once it's finished, I'd like to see them myself."
Chris Long, of McMaster University Library, has spent months on them. It is difficult to describe," he says, the thrill of being the first person to look upon the long documentary history of Mr. Lewis's extraordinary life and career." Long recalls hearing Lewis speak in Peterborough in 2006 and being entranced."
That life, that career, is, not to stretch a point or an overused word any further but, nothing short of legendary.
Instead of finishing university, Lewis plunged into the world of experience, activism and change, writing for the Socialist International magazine. He got invited to Africa for the World Assembly of Youth.
It was the early 1960s, he was in his early 20s, and what was supposed to be two weeks there turned into a stay of a year during which he taught in Ghana and Nigeria and drove across the continent.
I was imprisoned in Sudan," he recalls, for being a colonial infiltrator.' I was terrified. But on day four they offered me a Coca-Cola and I knew they were going to let me go."
He returned to Canada in 1963 at the request of Tommy Douglas to help in the formation of the NDP.
The experience of Africa never left him, and while Lewis seems in so many ways quintessentially Canadian, in other ways he has been formed by Africa.
After his career as an elected politician, which began at the age of 26 and culminated in his role as leader of the official opposition in Ontario in the 1970s, he worked as a broadcaster and then was appointed Canada's ambassador to the UN, by his ideological opposite, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
In that role he worked on such high profile issues as Ethiopian famine and South African apartheid, and, as always, distinguished himself as a firebrand for social justice.
Lewis also worked for UNICEF, was outspoken on the Rwandan genocide, served as the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and, perhaps most famously, is co-founder of the Stephen Lewis Foundation in Canada and AIDS-FREE World in the U.S.
Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jmahoney@thespec.com