Ah But Your Land Is Beautiful

by Alan Paton

  – I understand what you are doing, Robert, and I admire you for it, but I am desolated all the same. You know it is my weakness to lean on you, and whom shall I lean on now?

  – I thought of you a great deal before I did it. I had to ask myself which was more important. You and I have tried to bring our schools and our children closer together, but now our attempts have been forbidden by both our departments. What was more important, for me to stay here to comfort you, or to go out and fight on a national platform for the things we believe in?

  – You don’t need to explain it to me, Robert. But Elizabeth and I are going to miss you and Naomi . . . sorely.

  – But at least you haven’t got Dlamini to contend with. Tell me, why did he resign?

  – He didn’t tell me, but I assumed it was because he refused to teach under Bantu Education. The Security Police wanted to know too.

  – So they’ve been to see you.

  – For two days running. They searched Dlamini’s house from top to bottom. They asked me why he resigned. I said I had heard that he had been offered a job as an industrial chemist in Durban. But they didn’t believe me. They asked me his views of Bantu Education, and what he thought of Dr. Hendrik. I told them that he didn’t approve of Bantu Education, but that I had never heard him speak about Dr. Hendrik. Then they wanted to know why he disapproved of Bantu Education, and I said it was his opinion that it was an inferior education, and furthermore that the insistence on home language as the medium of instruction up to Standard Six simply meant that no black child could ever become a scientist or a mathematician. Then they asked me if I agreed with him, and I said that this was the opinion of the majority of black teachers of Science and Mathematics, and that I agreed with them. Then the black man took over, Sergeant Magwaza was his name, and asked if I was ashamed of the Zulu language. Robert, I nearly laughed, but I decided not to. I said no, I was very proud of it, and I wanted all my pupils to speak it well and to write poems and stories in it, but it was not the language of Science and Mathematics, no more than English is the language of cattle and grass and herbs. Then this black fellow asked me what I thought of Dr. Hendrik and I told him that my opinion was my own, and that in any case I was not a great talker about other people.

  – Good for you, Wilberforce. How did they take that?

  – Not well at all. The white fellow said to me that where the security of the State was concerned, no one’s opinions belonged to himself, and that it was the duty of the S.P. to know everyone’s opinions, and that it was the duty of every person to let the S.P. know what his opinions were. I wanted to say he was talking rubbish, but I thought I had better not. I just said I did not believe that. I believed that every man and woman had a right to privacy, just so long as they were not using their privacy to break the law. This white fellow said to me that a court of law might decide that my views were subversive, and that I had better be careful. I said the big trouble was that the court of law was no longer allowed to judge such matters. It was decided by the Minister of Justice acting on the advice of the S.P. The white fellow was now getting angry, and he asked me whether Dlamini and a number of staff members had celebrated the election of Lutuli as national president of Congress. I said they had had a party, yes, but I was not invited so I did not know what they were celebrating. Then Sergeant Magwaza said they had proof that I knew perfectly well what they were celebrating. I thought to myself, only my wife and my vice-principal could have given them proof, and neither of them would. But then I thought of someone else. That’s what happens, Robert, you begin to trust nobody. I remembered that on his way to report to me about the hostels, Koza had met Mbele coming away early from the party, and Mbele had told him that the staff was sending a deputation to me the next day to ask me to change the name of the school. Koza and I have always regarded Mbele as on our side, but then one begins to doubt. So I said to Magwaza, What is your proof? He said it was not their custom to bring the proof, and that made me think again of Mbele. The white fellow asked me if I had announced to the school that Lutuli had been elected and I said yes. I had done it because the school was restless. He wanted to know if I had called him Chief Lutuli, and I said yes. He asked if I knew that he was no longer a chief, and I said yes. Why then did I call him a chief? Was I trying to belittle Dr. Hendrik in the eyes of the school? Had some of the boys and girls called out Mayibuye? Yes. Did I know what this meant? Yes. I was now almost at the end of my patience. You have never had this experience, Robert, of being interrogated by two hard and determined and limited men, who have sold themselves body and soul to this terrible machine that has no mercy. I regard these men as my inferiors, but I must sit for hours and be questioned by them. The white fellow I understand. He is defending his people and his language and his power and his children. The black one I do not understand at all. I want to say to him, Come and see me one day because I want to understand why you take a job like this. Then they get up to go, and the white man says to me, Nhlapo — not Mr. Nhlapo, not Headmaster, just Nhlapo — watch your step, we know everything that goes on here. Then they drive away and I think immediately of Dlamini, and I feel pity for him, because they’ll get him one day, that’s for sure.

  Robert Mansfield, because he could speak and write Zulu, had quite a standing in the African community of Newcastle and the district. He was also known to be friendly with Mr. Nhlapo the headmaster of the J. H. Hofmeyr High School, not the kind of friendliness where a white man writes a letter to a black man and starts it off with the word Greetings, but the kind where the white man and his wife call the black man and his wife by their first names, and visit them often. Now Mr. Nhlapo was held in very high respect by the black people of the district, and if he and his wife could go to the house of the white headmaster for dinner, then the white headmaster and his wife must be human beings, they must have the quality of ubuntu, which is the quality of humaneness, the quality of human beings when they are at their brightest and best.

  Mind you, the fact must be faced that many black people don’t think white people have any ubuntu at all. They think the laws show this clearly, the law for example that does not give teacher Mr. Mazibuko the human right to have his widowed mother to come to live with him, because her home is in Eshowe, and her son is in Newcastle, and he is in Newcastle only because he is a teacher, and teachers are not subject to the stringent regulations that control the movements of African people into other areas. Or it would be truer to say, the Bantu Education Department is not subject to these regulations. However, the widowed mothers of teachers are subject to them. Black people are at a complete loss to understand how this can be, because such laws were unknown in their societies. But they do not protest, except to one another. Indeed to whom else could they protest?

  But one must also face the fact that many white people don’t think that the black people have the quality of humaneness either. Black people are cruel and merciless and will rise up tomorrow and kill everybody, as they killed Sister Aidan in East London. These white people have not heard of Mrs. Theresa Ganyile of that same city, who hid Inspector Pieter de Vries in her bedroom when he was in danger of his life, but luckily the angry mob went down another street, otherwise she would have been in danger of her life also. Or maybe these white people have heard of Mrs. Ganyile, but she is the exception that proves the rule of their fears.

  Will these people ever overcome their fears of one another? Well, that’s a big problem, and it exercises the minds of Robert and Naomi Mansfield, so much so that he has given up his job to join the Liberal Party, and she, after her initial shock, is supporting him.

  There is one thing more. This white headmaster has more than once taken his boys and girls up to Ingogo to play cricket and hockey against Mr. Nhlapo’s boys and girls. Then the Department of Education forbade him to do it any more, and he has resigned. Nevertheless his knowledge of the black world is still limited, but he is shortly to have it considerably extended.

  – Mr. Mansfield, a Mr. Emmanuel Ne
ne to see you.

  – Mr. Nene? Who is he?

  – He says he is the messenger of the court. But his visit is private, and if you would like him to come after school he would willingly do so.

  – No, no, let him come now.

  Mr. Nene was not a big man, but he had a fine big moustache. He wore riding breeches and short leggings halfway to the knees, and he carried in his hand a magnificent hat with Texan and South American connections. He appeared to be in his early thirties and he advanced on Mansfield with a confident smile, holding out his hand with every confidence that such an action would not be regarded as presumption by the headmaster.

  – Mr. Nene. Sit down.

  Mr. Nene sat down and surveyed the office with his confident smile.

  – Call me Emmanuel. That is what my father called me. It means, but you probably know, God with us. As far as I am concerned, my father was right, for God has been with me. And I am coming here today to hope that he will be with you also.

  – So you are not here as messenger of the court?

  Mr. Nene’s eyes widened at such ignorance, and he smiled too at it, but very tolerantly.

  – I do not go to white people as messenger of the court, Mr. Mansfield. I go to black people, not coloured people or Indian people or white people.

  His eyes widened again as he prepared to instruct the headmaster in the intricacies of his profession.

  – Could I come here to your office and tell you that you must be at D Court at nine o’clock tomorrow morning? Oh no, I could not do that. Or could I come to your house and take away your car because you have not yet obeyed the decision of the court to pay a fine of twenty pounds? Oh no, I could not do that. But I can go to Headmaster Nhlapo and tell him to be at the court.

  Mr. Nene laughed with amusement at what he had to tell next.

  – I was once sent by mistake to Mr. Ebrahim, the big merchant with the big house and the big car. He did not like being summonsed by an African messenger who had only enough money to buy a motorcycle. Now in Mr. Ebrahim’s car he can roll down the windows if he is hot, and he can roll them up if he is cold. But there are no windows on my motorcycle, only fresh air. So he complained, and they sent him a white messenger.

  – Then tell me, Mr. Nene, I mean Emmanuel, why have you come to see me?

  – I’ll tell you that. I’ve come to see a man who resigns his job because he does not wish to obey an order that will prevent the children of his school from playing against the children of Mr. Nhlapo’s school. I want to see what this man looks like. We are not used to seeing such people.

  – It is not quite true that I resigned because of that order. I resigned because I think it is time to go out and fight everything that separates people from one another, and especially people of one colour and one race from people of another colour and race.

  – I am not foolish, Mr. Mansfield. You must not think, because I have this big hat and wear these riding trousers and ride round on a motorcycle, that I am foolish.

  Mr. Nene laughs cheerfully at such a proposition.

  – Perhaps you think I am foolish because I work for a government that sends white men to summons white men and black men to summons black men. Perhaps then you would be right. But I understand very well that you have not resigned just over a game of football. And I want to see what you look like for a special reason.

  – Well, how do I look? Like a knight in shining armour?

  – Like a what?

  – A knight. K-n-i-g-h-t.

  – Oh yes, a man on a horse.

  – Yes, and his armour is shining because he is going out to do brave deeds.

  Mr. Nene was suddenly serious, but even when he was serious, he smiled his innocent smile.

  – Yes, you look like a knight in shining armour. But you are going to get wounded. Do you know that?

  – I expect that may happen.

  – Well, you expect correctly. In my work I see a lot of white people. They talk freely in front of me because in a way I am not there. They do not like what you are doing. They did not like what you were doing before, but when the Director of Education said no more games, they thought you would stop, and they wanted you to stop, because you are a good cricketer and a good headmaster. But you don’t stop and so they are forced to do something they do not like to do at all, they are forced to say that a good cricket player is not always a good South African.

  Mr. Nene smiled deprecatingly and smoothed his moustache.

  – Now you know that rugby and cricket are the white man’s religion, and it is a terrible thing when you find out that a man who is good in your religion is against the colour bar. Because rugby and cricket and the colour bar are really the same thing. That’s why the All Blacks leave the Maoris at home when they come to play the Springboks. That’s why no black man has ever been allowed into a white cricket club, and no black man has ever become a Springbok. Am I right?

  – Your language is picturesque, Emmanuel. When you say that rugby and cricket and the colour bar are really the same thing, then I understand what you are saying, but I don’t say it like that.

  Mr. Nene acknowledged the criticism cheerfully.

  – I am picturesque.

  Mansfield laughed.

  – I said your language is picturesque, but you are quite right, you are picturesque too. What is the special reason that made you come to see me?

  – I understand that you are resigning to join the Liberal Party.

  – I am not saying till I have left the service.

  – But you must tell me. It is important to me to know. It might change my life.

  – Yes, I am going to join the Liberal Party.

  – I am thinking of the same thing.

  – You’re going to wear the shining armour too?

  – Yes. And I’m going to get wounded also. Not only by the Government, but by my own people as well. Just like you. Some of them will say, Why don’t you stay with your own people? Why don’t you join the Congress? Why get mixed up with these white people, who are rich while you are poor? — There’s your bell, so I must go.

  – I must go too. Thank you for your visit. You must come to visit us. My wife will be glad to meet you.

  Mr. Nene rose, and looked cheerfully around him.

  – I don’t worry about the wounds. When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I haven’t any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for? I couldn’t face that question.

  Mr. Nene left his aura in the headmaster’s office. Mansfield, who was sometimes troubled by the magnitude of his decision, felt a burst of hope for the future. He felt that he had experienced an nhlanhla, a sudden stroke of fortune, in the strange person of a messenger of the court, a small man with a big hat and a big moustache. He had in fact had an encounter with the light. It was not the kind of thing to expect in Newcastle.

  . . . I am glad that you follow the political news with such assiduity. Every good Afrikaner Nationalist should do so, for ignorance is a poor weapon in these mighty days. There is no doubt that you are watching the birth of a new society which will one day command the admiration of a world that is at the moment so hostile to us. I served under the Smuts Government as you know, but I can assure you that there was never in his Cabinet any evidence of the single-mindedness and the devotion to one’s people, combined with such high intelligence, that you find in the Malan Cabinet. Smuts and Hofmeyr had intelligence, it is true, but Smuts was an internationalist and Hofmeyr a liberal, so that neither of them understood the nature or the power of Afrikaner Nationalism. Smuts called himself an Afrikaner, and indeed he was one until the Treaty of Vereeniging, after which he became the handyman of the British Empire. Hofmeyr was never an Afrikaner at all; he went to an English church, an English school, and an English university.

  It has been said of our Cabinet by Dr. Johan de Villiers, who as you know is one of the most penetrating of Afrikaner observers, that never in history
have so few legislated so thoroughly and devotedly for so many divergent peoples, nor ever before in history have rulers shown such a high sense of purpose or such idealism; that never have so few drawn such sharply critical attention. But, says Dr. de Villiers, the critics did not understand that the manifest harshnesses, the patent injustices, were all the necessary results of a most rational, most passionate, most radical will to restructure the world according to a vision of justice, all with a view to lasting peace, progress and prosperity.

  I know that you have at times been anxious about the harshnesses and the injustices, and so have I, though perhaps not so keenly as you. Therefore it is encouraging to have this reassurance from a learned man that they are merely the results of the radical will to restructure our world according to a vision of justice. And it is even more encouraging to know that this learned man sees the end as lasting peace. progress, and prosperity.

  The English press is making a great fuss about Dr. Malan’s attempt to get the coloured voters of the Cape on to a separate roll. His legal advisers told him that he could do this by simple majority, because South Africa had become a sovereign state by the Statute of Westminster of 1931. He followed their advice, but the Act was struck down by the Appellate Court in Bloemfontein. The court held the view that Parliament was still bound by the clause entrenched at the time the Union of South Africa was created, which laid down that the Cape coloured and African franchises could be altered only by a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament sitting together.

  In April 1952 Parliament legislated to make itself a High Court superior to the Appellate Court, and then reinstated the Act. But in November the Appellate Court struck that down also. How was Dr. Malan to get his two-thirds majority? There was only one answer to that. He must enlarge the Senate in such a way that he would get his majority, and he must enlarge the Appellate Court so that he would be sure of a favourable decision.