Honorary White (3 page)

“Can't think what anyone could find necessary to cut in that film,” I said.

“This is South Africa, my friend,” she said. “Can't publicize the idea of a black and a white teacher getting too chummy. Especially if one of them is a woman. Worse yet, teenage, white, girl students having a crush on a black teacher! Tut, tut.” The smile breaking through to undermine the mock severity of her tone.

“Couldn't have been much left of the film if they cut all that out,” I suggested.

“I wouldn't know, as I didn't see the cut version. But I do know it was very popular. People crying buckets into their hankies. It was banned for a while, you know.”

“Yes, I heard. I even met one of the MPs who sat on the committee which imposed the ban. A Mr. Englebrecht. But that same committee later rescinded the ban and Englebrecht admitted that he and his family enjoyed the film.”

“That's part of our problem, going around in circles where Blacks are concerned. On the one hand we promote the myth of the inferior Black while on the other we refuse to look at him for fear of discovering his equal humanity. I hear that you plan to spend some time in South Africa. How long?”

“As long as I can bear it,” I replied.

“Oh, you look fit enough,” she laughed.

“I was thinking of my spirit,” I said.

“So was I. How do you plan to move about and where do you intend to go?”

“I've arranged for a car and driver for trips outside Johannesburg. In the city, I intend to use whatever public transport is available. I'd like to visit as much of the country as possible, particularly the Bantustans.”

“The new name for them is ‘Homelands,'” she smiled, as if the name conjured up for her some particular irony. “One word of advice. This is not London or New York. You can't get on any bus or hail any taxi you see. If you have a car at your disposal, use it. Understand?”

“Understand.”

“No point in exposing yourself to unnecessary embarrassment.” She excused herself to step into the garden and adjudicate a minor argument between the children, returning within a few minutes. Her movements were quick and controlled.

“That's part of my dilemma,” I continued when she returned. “I want to avoid embarrassment to myself, but I also want to have a clear idea of what life is like for a Black in this society. I'm sure I'll learn nothing if I'm preoccupied with my own comfort and sensitivity.”

“Being insulted and abused won't help either. If you want to know what it's like for Blacks in this society, talk to them. Ask them. They might not tell you, but ask them just the same.”

“Why wouldn't they tell me?”

“They might not trust you.”

“I'll take that chance. Could you introduce me to some of them?”

“I don't know that that will help you. Some of them talk with me, but I'm not sure that they trust me. Don't blame them. In their position I might not trust me either.”

“In New York, I was told that you are perhaps the only White in Parliament who speaks on behalf of Blacks.”

“You were told wrong. I speak up against repressive governmental policies. I speak against the arbitrary way in which those policies are imposed on our citizens, black and white. I speak against house arrest, banning and jail sentences for those who criticize the Government. I speak against disenfranchisement of all Blacks. Actually, I think it would be truer to say that I speak against the inequities in our society rather than for any particular group.”

“But I heard that Blacks are more favorably disposed to you than to other Whites.”

“You're very kind.” Again that quick, lively smile. “Although, come the crunch, I don't know that that would save me. Anyway, I don't think I can be much help with introductions. At this time, most politicians are busy in their constituencies getting themselves ready for the opening of Parliament next week in Cape Town.”

“I plan to visit Cape Town. Mr. Englebrecht promised to arrange meetings with the Foreign Minister, the Minister for Bantu Affairs, and, if possible, the Prime Minister.”

“Fine, then you'll be well taken care of. Anyway, phone me when you're there and we'll have lunch together or something.”

We were joined by Helen's daughter, son and daughter-in-law, and Helen's husband. The children ran in from their play to be fussed over and conversation became general. I learned that the son and daughter were both living and practicing their separate professions overseas because they preferred the freer societies of Britain and the United States. Dr. Suzman, a slight, graying man, said little, yet there was an aura of strength about him. Perhaps he supplied the anchorage which secured and sustained Helen.

In time, the other guests arrived and we were introduced. Most of them were Afrikaners, members of the dominant white group, supporters of the Nationalists, the political party in power. I had no idea whether Helen had told them much or anything about me to prepare them for the encounter, but I immediately sensed their effort to appear cosmopolitan, able to consort easily with anyone. The handshakes pumped a bit too hard, the greetings a shade too hearty. The few other guests were British, that is, they were of British rather than Boer extraction and proudly English-speaking. I'd heard that there existed a wide philosophical gulf between these people, their common whiteness notwithstanding. Perhaps there is a real difference, but apart from the somewhat heavily accented English of the Afrikaners, to which my ear quickly became attuned, they appeared the same to me. White.

“Tell me, Mr. Braithwaite,” I was asked, “what's your impression of our country?” A stocky, florid man in, I guessed, his early fifties, well-groomed, well-rounded, exuding an air of substance. He had been introduced as a banker, and looked the part, although his grip as we shook hands was strong and forceful and suggested he spent as much time outdoors using his muscles as indoors using his banking skills. His round, pleasant face seemed accustomed to smiling easily as if his course through life avoided the rocks and shoals which battered the less fortunate.

“I've been here only a day,” I replied, “hardly enough time to form an impression.”

“But surely you have some feel of the place,” he countered, smiling. “You writers are supposed to possess a special sensitivity to atmosphere. You have the advantage of viewing things with both an inner and outer eye, which suggests that you see more and in a shorter time than the rest of us.”

I wasn't sure about him. The bonhomie came so easily. All I'd heard about South Africans in general and Afrikaners in particular had warned me to be wary of them. Was this one being complimentary or mocking? I thought I'd play it safe.

“I don't consider myself specially equipped to view you or anyone else, so I prefer to take time in looking.” The rest of them were looking and listening to us.

“May I ask the same question, but in another way?” another guest interposed. Voice, casual manner, all of a piece, proclaiming the Britisher. Perhaps deliberately so to emphasize some difference from the Afrikaners. This gentleman was tall, lanky in his baggy but well-cut clothes. Thin-faced and sad-eyed. I wondered whether he was an immigrant or a native. So difficult to tell with the British. They can remain considerably aloof from a community even if they were born in it, as if geographical locations were merely accidents of fortune with no formative influence on their ancestral character. He went on.

“Did you have some personal view of South Africa in advance of your decision to visit us?” Even if he wasn't a native, he certainly seemed to feel at home. “Us,” he'd said.

“Certainly.”

“Would you like to tell us about it?”

“Why not?” I decided to lay it on their collective plate and watch the reaction.

“Simply stated, it was a negative view. Some of it derived from those white South Africans, officials and others, who tried to defend your policies and were obviously uncomfortable about it; some of it from other white South Africans, mainly churchmen, whose conscience made them resist those policies and who suffered house arrest, banning, and sometimes imprisonment. But most of it came from Blacks of both South Africa and Namibia who were victimized by those policies and were lucky enough to escape. I found their stories most persuasive.”

“And would you, as a writer, be content with that?”

“Surely my presence here is answer enough. However, while at the United Nations I noticed that even those countries which seemed most friendly to South Africa never publicly defended her policies. Still, I am here and will try to be as objective as the situation will let me.”

Hell, I didn't need to sugarcoat anything for them.

“Perhaps, while you're here, we can change your view,” the banker said. “Providing you are willing to subdue your prejudices. Many people from outside our country are deeply prejudiced against us without knowing anything about how we came to be what we are, how we function as a people, and the real nature of the relationship between us and the Bantu nation.”

“Nation?” I asked. “I thought that, Black and White, you were all one nation.”

“That's a common misconception.” He smiled, assured that he spoke for all of them. “The Blacks are a separate people, several nations, in fact. Language, customs, religions. They're not the collective group outsiders imagine them to be. I know. I grew up with them and speak several of their languages. Among themselves they are as different from each other as they are from us. Our policy, simply stated, is to respect those differences, and as circumstances dictate, preserve them.”

“Have you decided all this for them or with them?”

“Come now, let's be quite frank with each other,” he admonished, still smiling. “Our predecessors fought and conquered the Bantu and, like conquered people everywhere, they became subject people. Subject people are never treated as equals, at least not until prevailing political and economic conditions dictate such a step. The Bantu outnumber us ten to one, at least, and we cannot now or in the foreseeable future allow them any conditions or circumstances which could precipitate armed conflict with us. We must protect ourselves against them. Outsiders don't understand this. Actually, we live in fear of them.”

“You, in fear of them? In the few hours I've been here, I would guess that the shoe is on the other foot,” I said.

“He's right, but for all the wrong reasons,” said Helen's daughter. Her dark eyes flashed under a short crop of brown hair, everything about her explosively vital, in marked contrast to her calm, unflappable mother. “Of course we're afraid, but we deliberately create and maintain the awful conditions under which the Blacks live, then we watch them for signs of revolt. If there's no sign, we pressure them a little more. So it goes on. We're afraid of their numbers, but, in our fear we seem to want to woo the very danger which threatens us. It's a vicious cycle. I couldn't function in such an atmosphere, so I cleared off.”

“We can't all exercise such a happy choice,” the Englishman said. “Some of us must accept the responsibility for finding a formula which would allow—”

“What formula?” I interrupted. “For more than a century, the Blacks have been completely disarmed, tribally dislocated, disenfranchised, and displaced. Given your economic power, your command of military personnel and weapons, the fear of them which you express seems to me at best dubious.”

“It's not as easy as that,” the banker interposed. “I'm sure you appreciate that even the most sophisticated arms in the hands of a few cannot always resist the resolute pressure of an unarmed or primitively armed mob.” The smile was there, as if he already rejected the image his words conjured up. “However, we hope it will never come to such a bloody test. In spite of what you have certainly heard to the contrary, we are not completely against change. We welcome change, providing it is orderly. We welcome evolution, with everyone developing in his own way, at his own pace, with his own kind. It is revolution that we oppose.”

Several others intervened now, as if triggered by the word revolution. One elderly gray-haired couple kept determinedly out of it. From the few words they spoke, I guessed that they were Afrikaners. They seemed ill at ease and I wondered why they were there. Maybe Helen had her reasons. Maybe they simply weren't used to meeting Blacks, even one unarmed Black from overseas.

“How can you claim to favor the development of the Blacks in their own way, at their own pace and with their own kind if you reserve to yourself the right to control that way and that pace?”

“For the time being, my friend,” the banker insisted, “only for the time being. Our Bantu people are not like you, educated and sophisticated … ”

“I met some in New York, petitioners against your policies. They seemed sophisticated enough for me to believe them highly educated,” I told him. “Some of them are products of your university system.”

“Any glib dissident could sound off at the United Nations,” returned the banker, with a trace of heat. “Anyone who is against South Africa is sure of a hearing there. Our Bantu people need to be educated into the responsibilities of government. We have designed an educational system which will provide them with the necessary skills.”

“Wouldn't they have acquired those skills in your established universities?”

“We do not wish the black man to be a carbon copy of ourselves. Anyway, it is easy to see you have been told a great deal about us, all of it to our disadvantage.” They were all watching me, Helen aloof from it as if she had provided the stage for this encounter and was letting it take its course.

“I told you so earlier this evening,” I reminded him. “It seems to me that if your claims of goodwill are genuine, you should be having this kind of dialogue with South African Blacks. Do you? I'll be here today and gone tomorrow. Why not give them an opportunity of testing your goodwill?”