What to Do?- Part 2
Apartheid ? What to Do?
Part 2
One way to contribute was to teach black students in my free periods. This was arranged by Nusas and overseen by Ettiene Mureinik who tragically committed suicide more than two decades later in the face of pressure over, among other issues, his principled defence of educational standards in the new South Africa. He was a brilliant guy, with a tremendous dry humour and wit. I was assigned to teach maths to three matric students separately from a township school. This was a depressing experience. While they were lovely people they were doomed to failure. The pressures on their lives meant that they could not attend reliably, often showing up late or not at all. Progress was at times undetectable, and when it did appear, it was often followed by two steps back. Avril was also part of the program and her experience was similar. In the end we were practically useless to them.
One of the most memorable events of my life was election night, April 24th 1974. I had worked on the campaign to get the Progressive Party candidate Rupert Lorimer elected in Orange Grove. Some months before, I had presented myself on a Saturday morning in the small election office just off Louis Botha avenue near the dolls house. A middle-aged lady named Lottie occupied the office on her own. It did not look promising. But within a few days, I met Ian Browde whom I remembered from high school. He was a larger than life figure who was in matric when I was in Form 1. He was the elder brother of Allan, with whom I had played cricket. Ian was a born leader and within days transformed a lonely office into a hive of excited activity. We door knocked, went to meetings, distributed pamphlets and worked around the clock as election day drew near. Lorimer was fighting Etienne Malan, a veteran conservative United Party MP. There was obviously no Nationalist standing in this constituency. Malan held a meeting at Sandringham one evening which was flooded by progressive party members. Expecting a friendly audience, he was astonished to see the crowd dominated by supporters of his opponent. The meeting was rowdy. We shouted down every thing he said. At one point, he broke from his script and said to us ?Where is the Progressive Party fighting the Nats?? Memorably, in response Ralph Judah yelled out ?In Orange Grove!?
As is well known, Lorimer won that election against all odds. It was a great day for the party as a whole, with several new MPs, including the leader Colin Eglin in Seapoint, van Zyl Slabbert in Rondebosch and a few others joining the long-time lone voice Helen Suzman in Parliament. I had spent the day driving voters to the polling station at Orange Grove school to enable them to cast their votes. The celebrations at the grounds outside of Oxford shul will long live in my memory. We yelled ourselves hoarse when the results were announced and Rupert acknowledged us as he was carried shoulder high past a surging crowd of well-wishes. I got home long after the sun was up but had a graduation to attend, my Bachelors of Science degree. It was to be conferred by the head of department professor Derek Henderson** whose wife Thelma had also triumphed the day before in the Provincial elections. Henderson was head of Computer Science and had lectured to me frequently. I knew him well. I had not slept in 36 hours and was exhausted. During the ceremony as I took my turn to move toward him on the stage I could see that he had not slept either. As our eyes locked and as he handed the certificate to me, he gave me a knowing clandestine wink which made the moment all the sweeter for me.
**(Just today I received an email notifying me that Derek Henderson has passed away.)
When, during the following year, Avril and I decided to get married, I unilaterally decided that we would not have servants. Despite the arguments about providing employment, the thought was anathema to me. This was an early point of conflict with her. I prevailed on the promise that I would do my part in keeping the place clean. Her recollection is that I was not particularly diligent in fulfilling my commitment and I consequently carry shame from that episode.
The Soweto riots of June 1976 told me that time had caught up with all of us and that the black population were not going to wait any longer. The trauma of that week and indeed the entire year that followed ate into my psyche. Avril was pregnant with a baby who was going to be brought into a chaotic and dangerous world with no prospects of a peaceful life. I fell into a sort of malaise. It was not a full-blown depression but more like a morbid sense of helplessness. I felt that all hope was lost. This was re-enforced by the failed talks in Rhodesia, where negotiations between Ian Smith and Bishop Abel Muzorewa or Joshua Nkomo, I am not sure which, came to a screeching halt when Smith made his ?not in a thousand years? outburst that showed his true intentions. I had been training at Karate for a couple of years up to this point and just had to stop. I had no energy or enthusiam for anything. I could not concentrate at work at all. On Friday October 15, 1976 there was a rumour that each black person would be required to kill a white baby. It was a rumour one would dismiss unless one had a baby. Ours was six weeks old. There were other such fear-mongering. Added to this was the constant threat of a call-up to an army camp. Friends had been summoned to support police in the face of riots in the townships and I was terrified that I would be given a rifle and be expected to do the same. The next twelve months went on like this. But for me the bottom came the day in September 1977, around Rosh Hashana time, that Steve Biko was murdered and the World newspaper, a black publication, was banned. It was then that I decided to leave the country.