by Alan Paton
There is still another serious criticism that is being made of the trial. 156 people, many of them virtually unknown to many of the others, have been brought together in a way that they could never have organised themselves, and have been given a sense of common purpose. Their arrest was the direct cause of the establishment of the Treason Trial Defence Fund, and in London of the Defence and Aid Fund. They sing their ‘freedom songs’ when the court is not sitting, and there is nothing that we can do about that. The moment the orderly calls for silence in the court, they obey him instantly. I must admit to you that it is somewhat frightening. It is a kind of power that hasn’t got a gun or a uniform, the same kind of power that Helen Joseph and those women had up at the Union Buildings. I sometimes have the fear that it is invincible, that we are going the wrong way about it all, that we put on a great show of force and we are met by a resistance that is totally immune to any action by us. It is bad enough to try to cow people, but it is even worse to try to cow people and then to have them singing freedom songs at you. Today I am going through one of my bad patches, so I think I shall stop. I feel that the hand at the helm is not strong enough for these dangerous waters. I feel that it is only Dr. Hendrik that can lead us to safety.
Yes, I am sorry about the shootings into Robert Mansfield’s house. He has been one of the most active workers for the Treason Trial Defence Fund, and I am afraid that such people inevitably attract the hostility of what is called the Right. You know of course it will be said that the Right can shoot into people’s houses with impunity. It will be said — not in public of course — that the police never find out the perpetrators. It will be said too — and again not in public — that the perpetrators are known to the police, and sometimes even that they are policemen themselves, but I do not believe that for a moment.
Aunt, I must stop. I have a rule that I try to keep. If you can only talk gloomily, then keep your mouth shut. You have no right to undermine the hope of others. But I can end on a better note than that. I have been chosen to represent Pretoria in the National Table Tennis Championships.
– Prem.
– That’s Hugh.
– Yes.
– What are you doing here?
– I came to see you.
– Well, you can’t see much.
– I can see your mouth and the tip of your nose. How are you feeling, Prem?
– As they say, I’m feeling remarkably well in the circumstances. I’m not going to die. I thought these were your final exams.
– They are. But they say I can write next week. I had to promise not to try to see the papers.
– And they believed you?
– Prem, I haven’t come here to make jokes.
– No. I know why you’ve come.
– Why?
– To ask me to marry you. We’ll marry in England, and find a cottage where we can see the daffodils and listen to the nightingales. And we would hate it. You would hate me and I would hate you.
– Prem!
– It’s true. I’m not going to go through it again. I love you and you love me, but we’re not going to marry until we can do so in the open. You’ve always thought you had a job to do, and you can’t do it anywhere else but here. But now because someone has shot me, you think things have changed. Hugh, don’t ask me again.
– I shouldn’t have asked you at all. Sorry, Prem. I shan’t do it again.
Mr. Robert Mansfield
Natal Regional Office
The Liberal Party
I suppose you are feeling a bit sorry for yourself, but you have no one to blame but yourself. You are still pursuing your dangerous path, but I must warn you that it is becoming very dangerous indeed. That bullet was not meant for the coolie girl but for your daughter. Our man reports that the light was not very good.
Therefore you will see that our plan for you has not yet been completed. It is our intention to complete it when the time is suitable. You can still prevent its completion. You can announce your resignation of the chairmanship of the Liberal Party in Natal. You must announce it in a Durban paper and a Pietermaritzburg paper. You can give any reason you wish, or none if you wish. Most people will now admit that you have a good reason for resigning.
Let me tell you that we are determined to break your party. It is a danger to white Christian civilisation. Let me tell you in plain language that our next target is your daughter. May I advise you not to sit in front of open windows? I am surprised that you were so foolish.
We sign ourselves
The Preservation of White South Africa League
– Prem.
– That’s Professor Eddie.
– Yes, Prem.
– What are you doing in Durban, Professor Eddie?
– I came to see you, Prem.
– Why did you come all this way?
– Because I love you, of course.
– What does Mrs. Eddie say?
– She says it is understandable. She also says it is a sign of senility. No, don’t laugh, Prem. I’m sorry I made you laugh. Dr. Monty will be furious with me.
– Do you know, it is the first time I’ve laughed?
– Does it hurt?
– Yes, it hurts.
– I’m sorry, Prem. It’s not only my love that I’m bringing to you. I bring love from Laura and Hendrik and Mrs. Eddie, and Jan and Frederik and Izak Berg. And from Ruth. She would have come but she had a case. And all the people at Lenasia. And a special message from Helen Joseph.
– That’s wonderful.
– Now listen to me, Prem. I have a friend in New York, one of the greatest surgeons in the world. Your father and mother are taking you to see him.
– Why must I go to New York, Professor Eddie? Are they afraid about my face? Will I be ugly?
– You’ll never be ugly, my dearest child. But we want to see what can be done.
– You know I never spent much time looking at my face. But now I think a lot about it. What makes one flinch from a girl who has something wrong with her face, even if she is a saint? And why is it more important to a girl than to a man?
– I don’t know, child. These questions look very simple, but they are not.
– Do you know the story of the girl with the terrible blemish?
– No.
– She fell in love with a blind man and she married him. He didn’t flinch from her. He was the only one who didn’t flinch from her. Then along came the great surgeon, from New York too, I suppose. He examined the man and he said, I think I can restore your sight. And the man was filled with joy, and she was filled with fear. She was filled with shame too, because she could not share his joy. Now blind people can see things that we can’t, and he knew that she did not share his joy. So he said to her, Why do you not share my joy? But she told him that he was making a mistake, that she did share his joy. He said to her, You have never before lied to me, why do you lie to me now? So in the end she had to tell him about the blemish. And he loved her so greatly that he decided to stay blind, for her happiness meant more to him than his sight. What do you think of that story?
– It is very beautiful, Prem.
– They left my mouth and my nose open, then why did they have to bandage my eyes?
– They wanted you to breathe, Prem, but they don’t want you to use your eyes just yet.
– Am I going to be blind, Professor Eddie?
– They don’t think so, Prem, but they want to take every care.
– It’s a good thing you can’t see my eyes.
– Why, Prem?
– Because you’d see that I am weeping. Why do people do things like that, Professor Eddie?
– Because they hate, Prem. Something has died in them. Perhaps something happened to them, in childhood perhaps. The man who shot at you, he hates all black people, but even more he hates white people who treat black people as their equals. They hate and they fear equality more than anything else.
– Like the Lily Maid of Astolat?
/> – Like whom?
– Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat.
– She didn’t hate, Prem. She died of love.
– We have our own Lily Maid of Astolat. She comes to our meetings and shouts and chants and curses. She hates all of us. Her name is Elaine, so they call her the Lily Maid of Astolat. She spat in my face once, Professor Eddie. Tell me, how are the Mansfields? Why don’t they come to see me?
– Dr. Monty doesn’t want them to come yet. He thinks they’d be bad for you. They’d weep and suffer. Your visitors have to be cheerful like me.
– Professor, I must ask you to go now.
– Oh no, sister, not yet, not now.
– Yes, Prem, now. He can come again tomorrow.
– Goodbye then, Prem, till tomorrow.
– Goodbye, Professor Eddie. And take my love to the Mansfields. Tell them I’m getting better. Tell them I’m going to New York. Tell them that’s what money can do. If I had been the daughter of a flower-seller, I wouldn’t be going.
– That’s enough, Prem. This is not the proper time for a political discussion. And what is more, you’ve had excitement enough for one day. Professor, off you go.
. . . So off I went, with that cursed lump in my throat, but this time worse than ever, for the land that is beautiful, and for the girl who was beautiful, and may not be beautiful again. If I prayed, I would pray for her, but I say, May she be beautiful again, and I suppose that is a kind of prayer. Ah, well, I am getting old, and my tear ducts are getting old too. The terrible thought comes into my mind, if she’s going to be disfigured, wouldn’t it be better if she lost her sight as well?
The Minister of Justice is satisfied that Mrs. Helen Joseph is promoting feelings of hostility between whites and blacks. He has therefore issued banning orders under the Suppression of Communism Act, and these prohibit her from attending any gathering, except those of a social, religious or educational nature, and they also prohibit her from leaving the magisterial district of Johannesburg.
Mrs. Joseph has asked the Minister for his reasons for issuing these banning orders, and has received a seven-page reply, claiming that she had actively associated herself with propaganda inciting black people to resist discrimination laws, and had vilified the white people of South Africa, calling them oppressors.
However, Mrs. Joseph is allowed to travel daily to Pretoria, for the Treason Trial has now begun in earnest. She has one comfort. She has bought a house of her own, 35 Fanny Avenue, Norwood, Johannesburg. It is a house that may one day be proclaimed a national monument.
. . . Yes, it is true that when I last wrote I was facing a crisis of confidence. There are days when I feel, as the English say, on top of the world, and there are days when I feel that Afrikanerdom and the Afrikaans language, born in this country of rock and krans and mountain and thorn, fashioned in suffering and fortitude, are doomed to disappear from the face of the earth. The Norman conquerors of England were in their turn conquered by the people they conquered without bloodshed and violence, leaving no legacy of hatred. But the Normans and the English were both Europeans. Their two countries were separated by a mere twenty miles of water. They became one people. Centuries later an Englishman would boast that he had Norman blood in his veins.
I do not see how that can happen here. We are so alien to one another. I fear that the Afrikaner will never be able to undo conquest. His pride of race is too unyielding. Therefore surely the doctrine of peaceful and separate coexistence is the only answer to our problems. I am ashamed that I sometimes doubt it.
The Minister does not know of these doubts, but at times he comes close to discerning them. The closest that he came to it was when he said to me, ‘Van Onselen, you have only one fault, and that is that you too often see two sides to a question, and that always leads to indecision and a blurring of policy.’ I could not possibly say to him that I shall not feel confident about the future until Dr. Hendrik is our Prime Minister. I could not say to him that it is only Dr. Hendrik who can convince me that there is only one side to a question.
Of course I am writing to thank you for having Mrs. Fischer to stay at Weltevreden. She tells me it is a place of healing, and she needed it. She is a quiet, devout, sensible woman. Her religion rules her life, and it was her tragic lot to bear a son who brought down on her the greatest calamity that can befall an Afrikaner mother. She tells me that she has invited you to come and stay with her, and to see the great city of Pretoria. It would be hard to imagine two places more different than Pretoria and Weltevreden. We have no mountains here, and you cannot wake up in the night and hear the sound of water falling. That is what pleased her most of all, the sound of water falling, and of cows lowing, and the tapping of the bokmakierie on her window. There is still peace in those parts.
I agree that the restrictions on Mrs. Helen Joseph are very severe, but what is the Government to do? It is surely intolerable that a person standing trial for treason should go round making political speeches. No one likes to restrict personal freedom, but we are facing a challenge from world communism, and you cannot fight communism by democratic methods. She absolutely refuses to listen to reason. She is going to go her own way and no one is going to stop her. She tells the Security Police that they are the instruments of a totalitarian society, but she is pretty totalitarian herself. She has been warned that, if she persists, the Minister is fully empowered to cut her off from social gatherings as well. In a way it is farcical to cut a person off from political gatherings and yet allow her to meet freely with anyone she wishes. It is said that she is not a communist, yet she belongs to the white Congress, and that is to all intents and purposes a communist organisation.
I suppose you know that Father Huddleston has gone back to England, and just in time too. He was well on the way to getting a banning order, but his Community recalled him in time. He and Helen Joseph had the same technique. They stand up in front of large black meetings, they give their audience a list of grievances, they condemn the Government. and in particular the National Party, they work up their hearers into a state of frenzy, and then they go home and leave them angry and frustrated. That there are black grievances one has no doubt, but why don’t these people work steadily and quietly to remove them, just as our own people do?
I don’t think that there can be any doubt that world pressure on us is much greater in 1958 than it was when we came to power in 1948. I can give you a small example of this. It’s only a straw in the wind, but the wind is, I fear, going to blow more strongly. Two members of my table tennis club were chosen to go to Amsterdam to represent South Africa in the world championship. But the International Table Tennis Federation has refused to recognise the South African team. Our club belongs to the South African Table Tennis Union, which is white. But the I.T.T.F. has announced that it recognises only the South African Table Tennis Board, which has no colour bar. At first the I.T.T.F. was willing to recognise both the Union and the Board, but the Union barred non-white spectators during the Israeli tour, and that was the end of our recognition.
It is a most humiliating situation. We cannot play any overseas matches without the permission of the Board, and the Board will not give permission so long as we have a colour bar. Our club is adamant against admitting black members or spectators. You will remember the famous church clause. It was part of the Native Laws Amendment Act of 1957, and it empowers the Minister, after consulting the local authorities, to forbid a Bantu to attend any function in a white area. Our local authority is the Pretoria City Council, and they would certainly not give us permission, nor would the owners of the hall in which we play, to have Bantu as members or spectators.
Our president swallowed his pride and went to Durban to see a certain Cassim, who is the president of the S.A.T.T. Board, and the man who is certainly behind all this racial agitation. Our president told us that he had never before been spoken to in such a way by a non-white person. This Cassim rejected any kind of federation, and said that any white player was welcome to joi
n any of the clubs controlled by the Board.
The Government has offered generous help to all legitimate non-white organisations, provided there are no interracial competitions, no mixed teams, and no mixing of spectators. Non-white teams from, abroad would be welcome to play non-white teams in South Africa. Sportsmen from other countries must respect our customs just as we respect theirs. The Government’s generous approach has received a surly response from the man Cassim. He says that when the Government orders there to be a separate Afrikaans table tennis union, and a separate English-speaking union, then he might be prepared to negotiate. He says that the Government does not object to racial mixing, it objects only to colour mixing.
The black soccer federation is also stirring up trouble. It wants FIFA, the Federation of International Football Associations, to recognise the black federation and not the white association. It refused to affiliate to the white association, which offered it affiliation though without voting powers. It seems that any concession is refused. The Government announces that it will not grant passports to any person going abroad to lobby for the exclusion of white South Africans from world sport.
The South African Olympic Council has decided that no competition between white and black would be allowed in any sports association affiliated to the council. But it is said that prominent South Africans in exile are approaching the Olympic world body to have white South Africans excluded from the Olympic Games altogether.
Behind all this is undoubtedly the man John Parker, about whom I have written to you before. He has one supreme aim in life, and that is to have white South Africans excluded from any kind of world competition. How a man can so hate his own people, I cannot understand. But of course he is a member of the Liberal Party. So is the man Cassim. So is of course your friend Robert Mansfield. It is not to be wondered at that they sometimes find themselves the victims of violence.
