Ah But Your Land Is Beautiful

by Alan Paton

  – Yes, I remember it.

  – You were in the chair, were you not?

  Yes.

  – Your congress passed a resolution congratulating a person whom you called Chief Lutuli, on being elected national president of the African Congress.

  – Yes.

  – You knew, I suppose, that Lutuli was no longer a chief, that he had been deposed by the Minister of Native Affairs.

  – Yes.

  Then why did you congratulate him as Chief Lutuli?

  – Because many people call him that.

  – You mean many people of your kind, liberals, communists, Congress members, disaffected people, people with subversive views.

  – NUSAS does not hold subversive views. We hold strong views, very often anti-apartheid views, but we do not advocate what you call subversion, by which I suppose you mean the willingness to overthrow the Government by violence.

  – Yet you continue to address as Chief a man who has been deposed by lawful authority. You are in fact doing something which in terms of the Native Code is now unlawful. You don’t call that subversive?

  It was not meant to be subversive.

  Lieutenant van der Spuy looked at his notes. That may have been a signal to his superior, for Captain du Plooy took over.

  – Mr. Mainwaring, we are not interested in what you meant or did not mean to be subversive. We are interested only in what our legal advisers think to be subversive. They are of opinion that it is for example subversive for a students’ organisation to continue to give a man a title which has been taken away from him by a Minister who ultimately derives his power from Parliament. It is in fact contempt of Parliament, which is a serious offence indeed. The penalties are heavy, and could be crippling for you and your organisation, even though you receive such generous help from people outside South Africa who have no loyalty to this country whatsoever, and some of whom have said that their aim is to bring our lawful authorities to their knees. Have you, or any of your associates, ever used this expression: to bring the Government to its knees?

  – It has been used, yes.

  – Has it been used by you?

  – No.

  – By whom then?

  – Must I answer that question?

  – At the moment, no. But I must warn you, Mr. Mainwaring, that we have not come here to play games with you. We regard your union as dangerous, and we can advise the Minister to use his powers to bring its life to an end. Would you like to see that happen while you are its president, and have presumably been given the responsibility of guiding its fortunes?

  – No.

  Here Lieutenant van der Spuy intervened.

  – Can I suggest, Captain, that we let Mr. Mainwaring rest for a few minutes? He is very young, and he is clearly disturbed . . .

  – So he ought to be disturbed. Mr. Mainwaring, what do you mean exactly by the expression: to bring the Government to its knees?

  – It’s a strong expression. Students use strong expressions. It means, to make the Government change its course.

  – Does it not mean, to make it capitulate? To make it make way for another government?

  – Yes, it could be that.

  – And will you tell me, said the Captain in a hard voice, a voice as hard as the eyes that never left Hugh Mainwaring’s face, how you could make this Government capitulate except by force of arms, that is by armed revolution?

  – That was never intended.

  – Then what was intended?

  – To use the powers of reason, of persuasion, to arouse public opinion, to make the Government change course.

  – And how does a government change course when it is on its knees?

  – I admit it is too strong an expression.

  – Just now you admitted it was strong. Now you admit it was too strong. What you really mean is it should not be used. Did this same congress of yours condemn the proposed new Bantu Education Act that will transfer all Native Education to the Department of Native Affairs?

  – Yes.

  – Did one of your speakers say that it was an education designed to prepare black children for slavery?

  – Yes.

  – Did you call him to order, and ask him to withdraw the expression?

  – No.

  – Why not?

  – It was a student debate. Such things happen frequently in student debate. If you were to examine Hansard, captain, you would find that the same kind of language is used in Parliament.

  – Parliament is privileged, Mr. Mainwaring, but NUSAS is not. When you say that the Minister of Education has designed an education which will prepare black children for slavery you are gravely defaming the Minister. But what is more you are asserting that the Minister proposes to revive an institution which is forbidden in international law. Do you realise that?

  – The word was used in an exaggerated sense.

  – Like the words: on their knees?

  – Yes.

  – So that every time a student uses subversive language in NUSAS you as president will claim that it was not meant in a literal sense, only an exaggerated or symbolic sense. Like poetry, I suppose.

  – Captain, can’t we let Mr. Mainwaring have a few minutes off? Your questions are upsetting him, so that perhaps he is not thinking too clearly.

  – I’ll soon be finished with him. Mr. Mainwaring, what were your movements on the eighteenth day of September 1953?

  – I can’t remember.

  – Do you keep a diary?

  – Yes.

  – Where is it?

  – My secretary has it.

  – Will you get it, please?

  – . . . Well, Mr. Mainwaring, can you tell me now what your movements were?

  – I went to Ladysmith in the afternoon.

  – To a speech contest?

  – Yes.

  – With two Indian girls?

  – Yes.

  – Miss Prem Bodasingh and Miss Lutchmee Perumal?

  – Yes.

  – The elder girl was in jail last year, three times I believe.

  – Yes.

  – The contest finished at ten-thirty p.m., and Miss Perumal stayed with friends in Ladysmith, while you and the older girl set off back to Durban?

  – Yes.

  – Where you arrived at ten o’clock the following morning?

  – Yes.

  – What did you do between ten-thirty p.m. and ten o’clock the next morning?

  – I am sorry, captain, I have tried to be civil with you, but what authority have you to ask me such questions?

  – As a matter of fact, Mr. Mainwaring, I don’t have any authority at all unless I suspect a crime to have been committed. And when a young white man and an Indian girl take twelve hours to travel from Ladysmith to Durban, then I am fully justified in suspecting a crime to have been committed.

  – What sort of crime?

  – Under the Immorality Act of 1927 as amended in 1950.

  – She is not that kind of girl.

  – And you are not that kind of man. We’ve heard all that before. The police caught a white man and a black woman in the bush at Umhlanga Rocks a few days ago. They had taken off some of their clothes because the night was so hot. And what were they talking about? Music. And why did they go into the bush? Because of what people might say, of course. All right, say I don’t have any authority. But I have the authority to go to the Minister of Justice and tell him that you are leading NUSAS into subversion, and that you ought to be banned from public life for five years. He could ban you from the university too. Therefore it would be advisable for you to tell me your movements between ten-thirty p.m. on the eighteenth and ten a.m. on the nineteenth. And if you still refuse to tell me, I have no doubt that Miss Bodasingh will tell me.

  – I’ll tell you. We got to Pietermaritzburg after midnight, and went to stay with friends in Scottsville.

  – At 127 Carmichael Road. Name of Harper.

  – Yes.

  – And
you slept in separate rooms?

  – Yes.

  – That’s very satisfactory. As a matter of fact I did not suspect a crime to have been committed. But I want you to know that everything you do is known to us. At this congress did a black member from Fort Hare move that NUSAS should persuade all Native teachers and pupils to boycott the schools of the Bantu Education Department?

  – Yes.

  – Did you pull him up?

  – No.

  – You allowed a debate?

  – Yes.

  – During which the speeches were highly inflammatory?

  – Some yes. Others no. Many pointed out the foolishness of such a step, especially if the Minister expelled all who took part in the boycott.

  – The mover was Thomas Mafolo, of Bloemfontein?

  – Yes.

  – You had better warn Thomas Mafolo, Mr. Mainwaring. Another speech like that, and that’s the end of his education. And you had better be careful yourself. Your father is the Chairman of the Provincial Executive, not so?

  – Yes.

  – I have thought several times of going to see him, to ask him to warn you.

  – I don’t think it would help, captain. He doesn’t speak to me.

  – Because you went into Germiston location with Patrick Duncan?

  – Yes.

  – Mr. Mainwaring, you had better be very careful about what you are doing. You are on a dangerous course. You probably do not know it, but the communists are using NUSAS to further their own ends. Last year you were the president, and no doubt you thought you were running the organisation, but you were only their tool. In fact they put you into the presidency, a nice high-up liberal who’d been to St. Michael’s and whose father was Chairman of the Provincial Executive. I suppose they thought that we would then leave you alone. But we won’t leave you alone, Mr. Mainwaring. If it’s necessary we’ll smash you and your career and your reputation and your organisation. I want you to be in no doubt about that. Good day.

  Lieutenant van der Spuy allowed his superior to go ahead, and then he smiled at Hugh Mainwaring.

  – Be careful, old chap. It’s not worth it.

  A nice chap, Lieutenant van der Spuy.

  . . . I can tell you that the take-over of all Native schools by Dr. Hendrik and his Department of Native Affairs has gone off splendidly. They will come under a new Department of Bantu Education. Dr. Hendrik has been making speeches that can only be described as magnificent. They will endure as long as Afrikanerdom endures. Sometimes his imagery is breathtaking. He said that the missionaries showed black children the green pastures in which they would never graze.

  He has of course been bitterly attacked by the non-Afrikaner churches. Archbishop Clayton of Cape Town has said that African education will now become the instrument of a white political party, and that this is a Nazi technique. A certain Reverend C. W. L. Skey has declared that the Government is following communist practice. And the chief troublemaker, the glib-tongued Father Huddleston, has called it ‘education for servitude’.

  Dr. Hendrik exposed their fallacies with a skill and a logic that we lesser mortals can only admire. He quoted them all to show that it was ‘highly desirable that their hold on Native education should disappear’. After that what could they say? The Archbishop and Huddleston don’t know a word of Afrikaans. They came to South Africa knowing nothing of our customs and traditions, and then had the impudence to criticise. The Archbishop has a great head, and is reputed to have a great intellect, but he cannot stand up to Dr. Hendrik. They dislike each other intensely, that is if a great man like Dr. Hendrik could be said to dislike a man of lesser stature.

  Of course Lutuli and the Congress are making trouble. They urged a boycott of the schools, and seven thousand children stayed away in protest. Dr. Hendrik reacted magnificently. He ordered that not one of these children should ever be allowed in a school again. That was the end of the boycott.

  I can tell you in confidence that Dr. Hendrik is now urging the Cabinet to create a Department of Coloured Education and a Department of Indian Education. The first would fall under a yet-to-be-created Department of Coloured Affairs and the second under a Department of Indian Affairs. The whole magnificent plan of Separate Coexistence is taking shape under our very eyes. The Cabinet, with one or two exceptions, are under the spell of Dr. Hendrik. He may not be the Prime Minister, but it is he who is at the helm of the ship of State. The future is bright indeed.

  I think I told you that Welthagen was due to retire. Well, he has gone and I have a new superior, Dr. Jan Woltemade Fischer, B.A., B.Ed., LL.B, Ph.D. He is said to be the most brilliant student that our university here has ever produced. He was making a fortune at the Senior Bar, but the Minister asked him to join the Department. The Civil Service Commission objected but the Minister is not a man to be opposed. Dr. Fischer is in his middle thirties, and it seems clear that he is destined to go very far indeed.

  Dr. Fischer is said to be, after the Prime Minister and Dr. Hendrik, the most compelling public speaker in the country. He is highly regarded in church circles, not only for his theological knowledge, but for his unshakable principles in all matters of sex and race. But his strongest card is his membership of the Broederbond, and he is regarded as one of the most promising of its younger members, which means that he will certainly reach high office.

  It can, I think, be safely said that soon every key position in South Africa will be held by a Broederbonder. When the Broederbond was founded, its intention was that the Broeders should rule South Africa. That is nearly the case. The Prime Minister, my own Minister, and Dr. Hendrik are all Broeders. I was never asked to become one, and that is why I am now junior to a man ten years younger than myself. Naturally I feel rather bitter and, I must confess to you, a bit second-class. I did have hopes of getting the post myself. My superior has on his desk a rectangular piece of polished wood which reads, Dr. Jan Woltemade Fischer, B.A., B.Ed., LL.B., Ph.D., which I think vulgar. Sometimes I toy with the idea of asking for a transfer to Dr. Hendrik’s department. That is where the future lies.

  I am sorry, my dear aunt, that I have allowed these personal matters to intrude upon what I try to make a factual and reliable account of what goes on behind the scenes. I must try to think less of my private affairs, and more about my duty to Afrikanerdom. It troubles me greatly that I do not feel attracted to a man who is a one hundred per cent Afrikaner. I have to confess a deep secret, that if you are not a member of the Broederbond you are not an Afrikaner in the fullest sense of the word. This may not matter if you are a farmer or a doctor or a mining man. But if you are a member of the Civil Service it matters a great deal.

  Yes, my dear aunt, you are quite right. I should not have compared Peter with Paul, and I should not have compared fishermen with scholars. I did it because I was angry about the Defiance Campaign, and I went too far. Sorry, dear Aunt Trina.

  – Robert, I am in deep trouble

  – Is it Dlamini?

  – Yes, it is Dlamini. But the deep trouble is in me. I am losing my jolliness, Robert.

  – Have you tried to get Dlamini transferred?

  – Yes, I have tried. Inspector Anderson says it is impossible. He says that the J. H. Hofmeyr High School is one of the most important of African schools, and that this is largely due to the excellence of its Science and Mathematics.

  – Can’t Dlamini swap places with another first-class Science master?

  – The inspector says that the Department has no other Science teacher of his calibre. He says I should think myself lucky to have such good teachers in both Science and Maths. He says no other high school is as lucky.

  – Why does Dlamini have this hatred for you?

  – I don’t think he hates me for personal reasons. He hates me because I am a moderate, because I don’t believe that things will change tomorrow. I am the good boy, Robert. I am not a revolutionary.

  – What is he? A Marxist?

  – I don’t think so. I think he
is a black national-socialist of an extreme kind. He does not communicate with any white person. He does not communicate with me except on formal matters. If I go to him and say, I’ve had a letter from Matthew Zondi’s sponsor, and he wants to know how the boy is doing in Science, then Dlamini will tell me. He will say, The boy is excellent in Chemistry, with so-much per cent. But Dlamini is also talking a silent language and he is saying to me, Why don’t you give a lead to your people? Whom do you follow, our black leaders or the white Director of Education? If he says that the boy is equally good in Physics, then he is also saying to me, Why are you losing hold of your school? Because for you it is not a school for the black nation, it is a school for the white Director of Education. He is saying to me, You are a white man’s stooge, you are selling out your nation.

  – Don’t you just imagine all this, Wilberforce? Aren’t you, as we say, at your wit’s end?

  – Yes, of course I imagine it all. Did you not hear me say that it is a silent language that he talks? Of course I am at my wit’s end. Why do you think I came to see you? Last time I came to see you was when the children wanted an announcement of Lutuli’s election, and the staff deputation wanted me to ask the Department to change the name of the school. You gave me great courage, Robert. I was afraid to meet them. I thought, now they like this bitter Science master, not their jolly headmaster any more. I thought, now Lutuli, who has no enmity towards me, and who was a warm friend to me in his teaching days, has destroyed my life’s work in a moment. You said to me that I was not in fear of real things but of things I had created in my own imagination. It gave me courage to hear that, which is very strange, because I knew it already. I imagine the worst, I fear the worst, and this often prevents me from facing trouble immediately, and if you don’t do that it can grow bigger because you are not doing anything. You shut yourself off, Robert, you don’t want to hear anything. You are like a horse in — what do you say?

  – In blinkers.

  – Yes, in blinkers. I am very ashamed of this weakness.

  – It is a weakness many of us have.

  – Well, I went to face the children. You know we allow quiet talking in our assembly until the headmaster comes in. Then there is absolute silence. When I came in on that day, there was absolute silence. My heart was lifted up by that small thing. I said, Members of the school, I understand that some of you have a grievance against me because I did not announce the election of Chief Lutuli to the national presidency of Congress. I do not wish you to have a grievance against me. But it is not the custom of this school to make such announcements. We did not announce the previous election of Dr. Moroka. Nevertheless I announce this morning that Chief Albert Lutuli, who was deprived of his chieftainship by the Minister of Native Affairs, but will always be known as the Chief, has been elected by acclamation the national president of Congress. Then the children clapped and some gave the sign of the Congress and some called Mayibuye but very self-consciously. It was all very orderly. I said, John Malinga and Constance Mtshali, is there anything you wish to say? The head boy and the head girl exchanged a few words, and then John said to me, Headmaster, we are satisfied. Then there was more clapping, this time for me, I suppose. I said to the school, I shall call you together again soon to talk to you about the new Bantu Education Act and how it will affect all of you and all our schools. Let us close the assembly by singing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. When the children had gone, the staff, most of them I would say, gathered round me. I was the headmaster again, not some frightened man. I could see the relief in their faces. Koza said to me, Headmaster, you are a clever man. I said to him, Koza, I have a man who gives me good advice. I love that man, Robert.