N E W S O C I E T Y 14 SEPTEMBER 1967 371

com pared with earlier surveys, is the section dealing w ith various aspects o f the m ental health services in o ther countries. T he articles on Soviet and A m erican conditions are o f special interest. In the Soviet U nion th e size o f the m ental health problem appears to be m uch sm aller than in m ost w estern countries. W hile in this country and in the U nited States alm ost ha lf o f the hos­pita l beds are in psychiatric hospitals, in the Soviet U nion only ab o u t every eighth 6ed is used fo r psychiatric purposes, which m eans one bed per 1,000 o f the population as against fo u r in the U nited States and slightly less in this country . In the Soviet ou t-patien t clinics fa r few er neuroses are seen than in the W est.

T he official Soviet exp lanation is th a t these striking differences are due to the beneficial effect o f Soviet society, bu t on closer scru tiny severe m ental disorders appear to be about as com m on as in the west; besides, the prevalence of the neuroses is notoriously difficult to establish.

A m erican psychiatry presents a different picture. It is described as leading a double life, w ith private practice claim ing too large a proportion o f psychiatric m anpow er, while the vast m ajority o f the m entally ill a re getting a substandard service. Psycho­analysis is often blam ed fo r this d iscrep­ancy, bu t it is just ano ther m anifestation o f the coexistence o f private affluence and public squalor. E xhortations and appeals to the idealism o f the m edical profession will be o f no avail as long as m edical m anpow er is a com m odity subject to the m arket forces. W hy individual psychotherapy should be valued so highly in north A m erica is ano ther question. It is a pity th a t the exorb itan t price o f this book is likely to lim it its sale,

*

E. Stengel

Escape from apartheid

The W orld T hai W as O urs H ilda Bernstein H einem ann 42s

T his is an o th e r m em oir o f one o f the politic­ally -persecuted in South A frica, and it is to be hoped tha t those who have recently read Albie Sachs, R uth F irst. Helen Joseph and Jam es K an to r (to nam e only a few) are not now tired o f the subject, fo r this book is o f in terest and value.

H ilda Bernstein and her husband Rusty (an architect) were leading m em bers o f the South A frican C om m unist Party until it w as m ade illegal and continued a vocal and active opposition to apartheid . R usty was in the T reason T rial; both were arrested in the 1960 em ergency; b o th suffered various bans and restrictions. R usty in the end was under house arrest in the evenings and week­ends. T hey felt they had a duty to stay in South A frica and bravely fought on. struggling a t the sam e tim e to bring up a fam ily and to m aintain som e shreds of norm ality in their lives.

T h a t was “ the w orld tha t was ours .” It was finally shattered in July 1963 when the pSTrce raided a house at R ivonia, near Johannesburg , and surprised a conclave of top com m unist and A frican N ational C o n ­gress leaders, allegedly plotting sabotage: R usty Bernstein was one of the arrested .

T he heart o f the book is thus an agon ­ised, w ife’s-eye view o f the fam ous R ivonia trial. T his is m ostly fresh m aterial, d ram atic and well-described. T here were m om ents o f tr ium ph— including the escape o f four men from police cells, and the quashing of the

indictm ent— bu t conviction alw ays seem ed certa in , w ith death sentences a possibility. H ilda Bernstein conveys well the dignity w ith w hich th e accused conducted them ­selves, and also the pain o f the w aiting wives, w ith their fruitless battles w ith the security police and endless journeys taking laundry to prison gates.

T o his own and everyone's astonishm ent. R usty Bernstein was acquitted , thanks to an astu te defence and a blundering prosecu­tion . The Bernsteins then decided to flee, and the last p art o f the book is an exciting descrip tion o f their hair-raisingly dis­organised dash over the Botsw ana border. They now live in Britain.

K enneth M ackenzie

The im pact o f technology

The N ew Industrial Slate John K enneth G alb ra ith

H am ish H am ilton 42s John K enneth G alb ra ith is the A. J. P. T ay ­lo r o f economics. H e is a radical. H e enjoys attack ing established ideas whose practical relevance has become questionable. H e has a polished and witty style. He is not terribly rigorous, and therefore no t altogether approved o f by m any of his professional colleagues; but he has im portan t things to say both on the structure of the econom y and on the goals o f econom ic activity.

T he subject o f his new book is already well known from his Reith lectures. I t is the im pact o f advanced technology on economic and social institutions. Basically, the point is tha t the design and production of high tech­nology goods such as m odern cars, ae ro ­planes, arm am ents, com puters, etcetera, re- quire m any different kinds o f specialist

know ledge and (both directly and indirectly) enorm ous capital investm ent. This, accord ­ing to G alb ra ith , has two main conse­quences. F irst, industrial decision-m aking has to be done n o t by the individual en tre­p reneur but by com m ittee, o r ra ther by a w hole netw ork of com m ittees and tlieir specialist advisers which he calls the "tech- nostructu re .” Secondly, production in m ajor branches o f industry has to be planned years in advance in a way tha t was no t necessary under raw capitalism .

A ll this has led to a radical shift in indus­trial structure and in business attitudes. As regards the to rm er, the dom ination of the m odern industrial econom y by a small num ­ber of very large firms is well know n; in the U nited States about two thirds o f all indus­trial production is in the hands of 500 firms. W ith regard to the latter, a good deal has been w ritten on the sociological aspects of the organisation m an. G alb ra ith is concerned w un ms econom ic significance.

The m anagem ent of a big m odern co r­poration does not relish the tree-for-all o f the m arket place. On the contrary , it strives to m aintain the m axim um control over its sales outlets and over the sources of its in­puts. Vertical integration, advertising, and governm ent and inter-firm contracts— these, no t price cutting o r com petitive bidding are the m ethods typically em ployed by the large corporation in conducting its affairs. M ore­over, it tries to be independent of its share­holders by relying m ainly on internal sources of capital for fu rther expansion. Except per­haps at a few critical mom ents o f the firm 's existence, pow er w ithin it has passed from the owners of capital to the technostructure.

This carries fu rther im plications. Profitsa rp no JjjpIlS

--

The author ofTH E A FFLU EN T S O C IE T Y

J. K.GALBRAITH’sThe New Industrial State‘An im portant and controversial b o o k . . . a continuous delight to read . . . he writes elegantly and has a happy drawling w it’ S U N D A Y TELEG R A PH ‘As am bitious in scope, as appealing in its sim plicity and as alarming in its implications as M arx’s ever was . . . highly readable’ TH E T IM ES ‘Professor Galbraith’s study of industrial society displays all his major gifts—wit, clarity, precision and his unique ability to make readers look at supposedly fam iliar facts from a w holly new angle of vision’ B A R B A R A W A R D 42s.

HAMISH HAMILTON

A Johannesburg storyTHE W ORLD T H A T W AS OURS. By H ilda Bernstein.

42s: Heinem ann.SOUTH-W EST AFRICA: Travesty of Trust. Edited by

Ronald Segal and R uth F irst. 45s: Andre Deutsch.

By N A O M I M IT C H IS O N

YO U ’V E g o t e v e ry th in g .Y o u ’re r a th e r n ic e lo o k in g ,

w ith fo u r ch ild ren and a m uch b e g i^ ta* “ i'ghten."” " ^ ' ' l o v e d h u s b a n d w h o is a su e - • * - •c e s s f u l a r c h i t e c t . Y o u r se lf , y o u ’r e in jo u rn a l is m a n da d v e r t i s in g ; y o u ’v e g o t t h e ^ J i ia u u u ^ k in d o f h o u s e w h e re p e o p le T he A frikaners w ere determ ined d r o p in a ll th e t im e — th e d o o r ’s a lw a y s o n th e l a t c h — a n d a g o rg e o u s g a r d e n w h e re th e n e ig h b o u r s c o m e t o h e lp y o u e a t t h e fig s a n d a p r ic o ts .

Everything w ould be lovely i. only you never looked over your garden wall. But you do. and ou ts id e th ere is a w orld o f grow ing If your teenage d augh te r w ants to econom ic and social injustice, see tw o o r th ree o th e r teenagers Y our conscience nags you in to you have to stay in th e kitchen, concern and ac tion : you join a b u t even if you do the police mav political party w hich is soon going m ake it so nasty for the teenagers

be outlaw ed. T hen th e forces tha t m ost of them d on’t com e

This was the B ernstein fam ily’s w orld. W hen ‘‘T he W orld T h a t W as O urs" s ta rts , the m eshes were

*18years the A frican N ational Congress w orked patien tly and peacefully to get a few rights for A fricans. It was all no use. T he th ird generation w ere less patien t. The A frikaners were determ ined tha t w hite liberals and black A fricans m ust be k ep t apart- No social mixing. Police raids. N ot funny.

Soon Rusty, H ilda 's a rch itec t husband, was u nder house arrest. This can be extrem ely unpleasant. You m u stn 't be ou t in th e evening. You m u stn 't have your friends in.

of “ law and o rd e r" begin to co n ­verge on you , sm ashing and

back.H ild a B ernstein finishes w ith

th e aw ful decision to ru n fo r it, leaving the ch ildren— w ho u n d er­stand . b u t all the sam e it tears h e r to the h ea rt. T he las t m om ent in th e house, th e hid ing , the messages, finally th e n ightm are escape in to Botsw ana— she d id n ’t know of course how th rilled we w ere in th a t sm all coun try , how we follow ed b reath lessly w hat happened to them !

M eanw hile th e R ivonia trial took place: this is the w om an's eye view of it. in tensely m oving; R ustv was one of those arrested . It show s how th ere is still som e justice left it a very ab le counsel could call it up. But now th a t counsel and alm ost all th e defendan ts are on R obben Island, breaking s tones u nder the burning sun. P erhaps in so lita ry . For life.

T he second book consists o f the papers read a t the In tern atio n al C onference on South-W est A frica a t O xford in early 1966. Some are history , o th e rs s ta rk econom ics, o th ers legal. It is a perfec tly clear case o f South A frica accep ting a m andate a f te r the F irs t W orld W ar an d illegally tu rn in g it in to a colony o r possession. A n d th ere is no in tern a tio n a l force w hich can do a th ing a b o u t it.

K i v o n i a a n d a f t e r 'by Myrna BlumbergT H E W O R L D T H A T W A S

O U R S , by Hi l da Be rns te in ( H e i n e m a n n , 42s ) .

WIT H fine tim in g , M rs B ern ­

s te in ’s book is p u b lish e d w hen th e w orld is b e in g fo rced to fa ce th e in e v ita b ility of g u e r r i l la w a rfa re in S o u th e rn A frica, a fac t im p lic it th ro u g h ­o u t h e r book a lth o u g h sh e only d ire c tly d iscu sses w h a t m ig h t be ca lle d th e la s t p h a se of n on­v io len t v io lence in S o u th A frica — th e R ivon ia sab o tag e tr ia l in w h ich h e r h u sb a n d was one of th o se accused (a n d a c q u itte d ) of b low ing u p p ro p e rty , b u t no t peo p le , in th e i r figh t ag a in st . w h ite racialism .

T h e v a lu e of h e r book is in h e r d e ta ile d , s tra ig h tfo rw a rd re c o rd of th is t r i a l ; sh e no t on ly g iv es a v iv id ly p e rso n a l a c co u n t b u t an a ly se s th e col­lisio n of tw o m o r a l i t i e s : th e p u r ita n ic a l c ru sh in g r ig id ity o f - t h t p ro se cu tio n a g a in s t th e w id er n o n ra c ia l h o p es o f th e accused .

B u t th e f r e s h e s t p a r t o f h e r book is h e r d e sc rip tio n a t th e j

e n d of th e d e s p e ra te a n d I d eso la te e sc ap e of h e r h u sb an d a n d h e r s e lf a c ro ss th e th o rn y . veld t o f th e S o u th A frican b o rd e r in to B o tsw ana w h e re , ,

_even th e re , th e y w e re h u n te d by a pack of S o u th A frican police. D isca rd in g th e occa­s io n a l slog an -slin g in g th a t m a rs h e r e a r ly c h a p te rs , sh e w r ite s j m em o ra b ly a b o u t w h a t is som e­tim e s ab su rd ly re g a rd e d as a j s tre a m lin e d esc ap e ro u te ou t of S o u th A frica I

T h e B e rn s te in s w e re out- ! sp o k en m em b ers o f th e S o u th A frican C o m m u n is t P a r ty w ho c o n tin u e d to be ac tiv e a f te r th e p a r ty w as d e c la re d illegal an d w ho u se d a ll th e i r p o litic a l in g e n u ity in op p o sin g a p a r th e id , in s p ite of b e in g a r re s te d , re s ­tr ic te d , a n d b a n n e d ; a s sh e em p h a sise s , th e y m ad e ca l­c u la te d a n d n o t a c c id en ta l choices. 3 u t th is d id n ’t p re v e n t h e r fro m fe e lin g th e com pli­c a te d p ain w hen fina lly sh e h ad to choose b e tw e en risk in g fu r th e r im p riso n m e n t o r flee­ing , a s h e r fo u r c h ild re n u rg e d > h e r to do. W h a t sh e re lu c ta n tly , b u t m ovingly , d isco v ered w as t h a t w om en w iti. w arm fam ily t ie s ca n ’t c o n tin u e to be re s is t­an c e f ig h te rs fo r long.

T h e r e is so m e ju s tif ia b le b it te rn e s s in h e r w r it in g a n d a h a rsh n e ss , I th in k , th a t ca n a t tim e s d is to r t h e r asse ssm e n ts ; i t ’s a p ity , too, a b o u t th e few fa c tu a l m ista k es , su ch as h e r I s ta te m e n ts th a t N e lson M ande la I w as th e firs t A frican to re fu se I to b e t r ie d by law s h e h ad no I p a r t in m a k in g : R o b ert I S obukw e and o th e rs in th e post- I

IS h a rp e v ille em e rg en c y w ere , as I f a r a s is g c - e ra l ly know n, t h e ® firs t to r e je c t th e v a lid ity o f I w h ite S o u th A frican c o u r ts .®

Afrikai ejszakaH ilda B ernstein konyve — Reg

vo lt tnlaffunk — a d£l-afrikai d ik - ta tu raro l sz616 dokum entum . Ab- b61 a fajtabdl, am elynek rendsze- re s ism erete nelkiil igazi, d tgon- dolt, ak tu a lis sziaifcen ta r to tt e lko- telezettseg nehezen kepzelhetd el. A m u fd m otfvum a a d£l-afrikai szabadsagmozgalmaik to rtenetenek egj'iik legnagyobb jelent6s6gu ese- m enye, a rivoniai per. A vdd!lottak pad jan o tt til Lionel Bernstein, az frond fe r je is, az e lnyom ottakkal egyiitt kiizdd del-a£rikai feh^rek egyik vezetoje. M iert v a lla ita? M int feher, a nyugat-eurdpaindl nagyobb jo letben, zav arta lan u l el- he te tt volna ebben az orszdgban. „D el-A frika m inden nap vdlasz- tas el4 d llitja az em bert” — frja a szerzo, vddasztds ele m indaddig. am fg Johannesburg nagyobbik re- sze elkiilonlte tt nyom ortanya, s am ig a negerek csak cseledekk£nt lakha tnak a feh^rek kozott. S aki a nehezebb u ta t valasztja , a rra le-

s u jt a XX. szdzad egyik legfejle t- tebb ren d o i'a ila ra in ak specialis m ddszerekkel dolgozd rendorsege. A konyv fo jto hetkoznapok la tva- nyossag nelkiili to rtenete , tiz olcLa- lak a csalddrdl, hazlfogsagrol, le­es k ihallgatasokrol, s kozben feL- tu n n ek a feh£r (6s feherek kozdtti) fekete—Indiai ellervt^tek kdrvona- lai, tisztazodnak a tort^nelm i gyd- kerek es a tav la tok is. A dokum en- tu m ujsagir6i stilu sban frddofct, nagy terjedelm G m ondanivald jd t a szerzo nem tu d ta m indv^glg egy- segbe foglalni, sok az ism etles, a te ljes dram ai hatashoz hidnyzik a tdmors^g. Megis nagy hatdsu ol- vasm dnyt, szem&yes h ltu , elso k£z- bdl szdrm azd inform dciot kap az olvasd, a kdnyvet az a szenved6!y emeli ki a m ufaj bo term es^bol, am ely letrehozza m agdt a vdltozdst is a fekete fo ldresz deli reszen.

Kurkovszky Lasz!6

Csak otvenen Idttuk...„Mi td rten t Za la tnayva l?” — harsogta a fii-

lem be az ujsagarus es arra gondoltam-: bdrm i to r t in t is, sem m iseg a hhoz kepest, am it tiz perccel ezelo tt l&ttam.

N em sokan, koriilbeliil o tven en i il tu n k a kis vetitd terem ben . A fordito , ott az elso sor- ban, csak neha szolalt m eg, a kep ek m agukert b esziltek . A ranybdnyak, vere jtekezo feke te m unkasok, ce lb a lo v is t gyakorlo kesztyus, ka- lapos feh er holgyek, te rm ik e tle n ho m o k es iszonyu gazdagsag, in ternalo tdborok a benn- sz iild tteknek es iivegpalo tdk a feh e re k n ek . . .

D el-A frika .L dttam , hogy f£ l m agyarorszagnyi negert

k o lto z le itek el lakhelyerol, a feh er telep iilesek- toi tdvoleso teriile tekre . ahol leve lte len ek a fd k es hom okon k iv iil csak sz£l m eg szdraz- sdg te re m a ptisztasdgokon. A nagy halan- dosag e llen ire m egis hogyan maTadnak elet- bcn, egydltaldn m ibol e lnek? — taldny. A z a n chany szakdllas f e h t r orvos, ak i a telepe- ke t ja rja s a korh a zn a k csu fo lt tomegszdlldso- kat. elldtja , n em tud ja e ltiin tetn i. m egm asita- n i a d e l-a frika i feh e re k ordogi tala lm anyat: az elk iilonito tdborokat.

A ve tites v ig e n va laki m egkerdezte : va jon a bennsziilott lakossdg m odszeres es lassu k iir- tasdt celozzdk-e e zek a rendeletek?

— Pontosan errol van szo — valaszolt Hilda B ernstein, ak i szem elyes e lm enyekrd l szdm olt be, a m ikor D el-A frikdro l beszelt. Hosszu iv e - k ig dolgozott es harcolt a negerek jogaiert, m ost Londonban el, em igrdcidban. A doku- m e n tu m film e k e t o hozta.

A z anydm kord , dsz asszony e lm ondta, m i tort&nik napja inkban D el-A frikdban. A fek>:- teke t , a k ik o tthon vannak, a feh er idegenek u gy kezelik , m in t a fegyenceket. Ha va lakinek — akar W C-re m en e t — nines kezn e l az iga- zold passzusa, rajta a m egfelelo szdm u. szinii, a laku pecset: irdny a g yu jtohely , a z ta n vagy a borton vagy a ko telezo m unkaszolgalat. az or- szdg m asik v e g e b e n . . . A csalad persze nem tu d sem m irol, kereso n e lk iil m arad s k ite lep i- tik . A z em b erek ehenha lnak vagy e ltu n n ek az arany- es gyem a n tb a n ya k su llyeszto jeben . S e n k i s e m f e l e l 6 r t i i k . Senki, senki- n ek sem ta rtozik elszdm oldssal rdluk. Egy ne- gerrel kevesebb. A feh&r holgyek re tik iilje iben revo lver es konnygdzgrandt lapul — fek e tek - n ek tilos a fegyverm seles, egy zsebkesert elite- -Itk dket.

A lig o tven en Id ttuk a rivonia i sortuz halot- tait, a tiltakozd gyul&seket, a partizanm ozga- lom katondit, a X X . szazad utolso harm adanak

koncentracios tdborait, ha llga ttuk Hilda B em ste in t.

N eperdl beszelt. a szenved tsiikro l, am in itt M agyar or szagon ugyan nem segithetiink , de m dr azzal is haszndlunk, hogy tu d u n k rola. ler je sz tjiik es e lm ond juk , verm ersek letiinkhoz kepest fe lhaborodunk azon, mi folyik n a p ja ­inkban D el-A frikaban, m it produkal a Hold- kutatds, insegakcid, gazdasagi csoda moge bii- jo monopoltdke. a v ilag kevesb e szem elott levo reszein.

■ A lig o tvenen Id ttu k a film e t — alig o tvenen, egesz B udapesten . . .

A z a n yam koru dsz asszony a B eke-vildg la - ndcs kongresszusara hozta es szerette volna m inel tobb helyre, m inel tobb em berhez el- ju tta tn i a szam ara o ly keseru es ertekes d oku- m entum oka t, az u jabb hiradast hazdjarol. Er- d ekes m odon, csak ehhez a kisszam ii hallgato- saghoz ju to tt e l . . .

A lig o tvenen tu d tu k m eg hite les forrasbol, mi to rten ik legujabban D el-A frikaban.

£ s t o b b t i z e z r e n ertesiiltiink ugyan- aznap, hogy m i tdrten t Z a la tn a y v a l. . .

O szinte legyek? En m eg m a sem tudom . T u l- zo ttan n em is e r d e k e l . . .

( K o r m o s )

MAGYAR KEMZETi BANKgniTf'CMtJ HAH'*. ' tAHKyUFAB/ftHKE H ‘. uK3HbiX OUtiAiiHt

NAT 10HAL B/'f-K OF H U N G A R Y

p :U S f ) -O f E X C H A N G E

B A N .’-’i »>-' ■ l ^ E r ' ^ P I F O FflC E 0 1 S C'TiNU:*.":

UNGARISCHE N A T ’O n *- SAM/* O SV KScM O ;' • *t

Mrs Hilda BERNSTEIN

5 Rothwell Str.

LONDON,

England

< National Bank of Hungary International Economic tj Research Section

Budapest, 54.

Mi\r,yr- rs,-̂ i

3 0 0

.*51

! irzi FILLER □ {

n - < &> &

ONE OF THE strong­est impressions one has of this country is that of security.

T his is n o t secu rity in th e econom ic sense, b u t th e strong feeling of the p revailing of the law , of civil liberties — desp ite abuses.

There is an enormous amount of tolerance, too much perhaps, a certain lack of anger. Though people born to it don’t always seem to realise it, in many ways this is a tremendously demo­cratic society—for all the very strongly entrenched class struc­ture underneath it all.

For someone from Johannes­burg, there is a lack of aggression in life at all levels in people’s re­lations with one another.

In South Africa, society is tremendously aggressive.

One thing we missed most of all was the loudness and excita­bility of people, the vitality. When we m et South African friends and went into a cafe, we realised how much more loudly we talked than the people around us.

In the sunshineThe climate is part of it. Here

in England, when the sun shines, you open your windows, you feel lively and brighter yourself.

Perhaps the atm osphere is responsible in part f6r this sub­dued characteristic of English people.

It has its good side. There is more tolerance of divergent atti­tudes and views. In London everyone can be what they like, dress how they like. Society is big enough not to require con­formity.

South African society less easily tolerates the deviant of any so rt— this, in part, is due to the very rigid nature of Calvinism ex. pressed through the Dutch Re­formed Church there.

W hen I speak of the sense of security here, I think of the way in which you consciously o r un-

NotenoughaugerHILDA BERNSTEIN

who was obliged to leave South Africa with her family, talks about the life there and in this country to BOB LEESO N .

consciously adjust yourself to a restrictive society—as anyone who has been involved in the struggle in South Africa knows.

Certain things become a habit, like never discussing anything political over the phone, no m atter how trivial.

Bans at homeIf you are Living under bans

you adapt your life and routine, My husband was breaking ihe terms of his house arrest if he was in the front room of the house when visitors came for one of ou r children.

The police even said our daughter Toni couldn't have

visitors. She fought this herself •—she learned to use the weapon of Press publicity and won an acknowledgment from Justice M inister Vorster that children were allowed visitors.

You were prohibited from communicating with o t h e r banned people. An Indian girl saw a friend in court, who smiled at her. She put a finger to her lips to warn him not to speak to her, and both were charged with breaking the ban.

People talk with horror of the acceptance by the majority of whites in South Africa of the state of affairs there. Young people I have spoken to here have been shocked a t the suggestion

tha t most of them, too, had they been born there, would have accepted it.

It was not in the “ nature” of white people there any more than nazism was in the "nature" of the German people. It is the par­ticular conditions which produce this type of inhumanity.

Ju s t a desertA white person who accepts

apartheid comes to live a life which is incredibly barren. Life is a desert—not a physical, but a cultural, s o c i a l , intellectual desert.

The fact tha t South Africa is a -lush and beautiful country has

compensate for the lack of 'everything else which makes life truly Worthwhile.

In South Africa, the greater part of life is lived out of doors. Schools finish early, there are five months of summer, with swim­ming and games— tennis all year round. There are marvellous natural advantages, wonderful beaches, gorgeous scenery.

M aterially for the white per­son, then, who accepts, life is very comfortable, yet incredibly empty, particularly for the young, for they are cut off from those things which make life worth­while.

If they like jazz, the really ter­rific groups are among the African people. There was a time when young whites and Africans might meet across the colour line due to their interest in jazz, but the Government has stopped that.

No inspirationIn the creative arts, if you cut

yourself off from the mass of the people you cut yourself off from the source of inspiration. In the Tian**^al^Academy, the young artists, ~wifo -tmfi J.r, pvrpn- tions, could havcocdn TTonfTtrnr country. Even their landscapes coulo have been .landscapes any­where.

A number of the writers have proved themselves to v be more

[-.sensitive, however.The Africans are particularly

gifted in music. I think they sing better than anyone else in the world. Singing costs so little. It is a gift for the world which they could develop if they had the opportunity—if they could practise it on any other level than that of the local church choir.

The person who goes along with apartheid deprives himself of all this.

W hite women are freed of the drudgery of housework, but what do they use this gift of free time for ? For bridge, tennis and ferrying their children back and forth to various activities.

The master-servant relation­ship is always there. A child is accustomed to the idea of black people in subservient roles.

They cannot visualise them as their social equals. Every African, no m atter what age, is a "boy” or a “girl.”

A child spokeI remember the girl of three

who looked out of the tram window at some African nannies and said in a superior white voice: "Those nannies can’t get on this tram .”

If when white children grow up they are confronted with non-whites who are their equal in background t h e y are astonished.

When we were bringing up our children we knew there were differences, contradictions be­tween what was accepted by society and what was accepted by their family.

The attitude of their friends and teachers in schools was different from ours. To some extent they were puzzled, al­though they accepted the attitude of their parents; later still they would understand, but have diffi­culties.

Our children would have white friends round and we would have non-white friends there. We felt that this was something on which we could not compromise and when our children began to reason thc-mselves they saw that this was obviously the right way.

People have a need to live fully and this can only be satis­fied through and with other people. Those who feel this can­not accept apartheid. 1 knew people in South Africa who did not share my political views, but believed that a human being—is a human being.

Life rejectedPeople who accept apartheid

have rejected life itself in its fullest meaning. Quite apart from the acceptance of injustice and c r u e l t y , they are rejecting humanity and thus rejecting part of themselves.

W hen you fought this in South Africa, there was no room for doubts about what you were do­ing. The issues were very clear and you worked together with people in a way which brings out the best. It creates heroes like Kathrada, Fischer. Lutuli, Man­dela.

Sometimes here I find society very jaded and cynical.

There we were never cynical. We were up against tremendous odds, but felt tremendous confi­dence. We were incredibly opti­mistic about the future — con­vinced not only in the justice of

hat we weie doing but in our ability to triumph in our own lifetime.

• H i l d a Bernstein’s recentlu published book. “The World That Was Ours," will be reviewed nextweek.

Peace News November 10 1967 3

Bob Overy WORLD APARTThe World That Was Ours, by Hilda Bernstein (Heinemann, 40s).

Out of the last few months and years of her life in South Africa, Hilda Bernstein has in this book construct­ed an unanswerable indictment of the apartheid state. Married to Lionel Bernstein (“ Rusty ”), who was in the dock with Nelson Mandela for the Rivonia tria l of 1963, she has been able to record in precious detail the remorseless efforts of the Security Police to crush out of their lives friendship, dignity and those o ther elemental hum an decencies which condemn honest men to fight apar­theid.In the end, she and Rusty had only two choices left: a lifetime in prison or a lifetime in exile. When they fin­ally escaped by plane from Bechu- analand, that was a victory for the apartheid state:

“ The plane is their success, it is our failure. The plane breaks the last contact and withdraws us final­ly from that world of endeavour which henceforth we will touch only peripherally. ”

One feels that Hilda Bernstein has written her personal narrative of these last years so sensitively, with­out invective, because they m ark her failure, our failure, the failure of the white “ liberal ” to defeat white racism.This book won’t bring down the apar­theid state. It can only minimise “ their ” victory by helping to edu­cate white society to the iniquity of racialism. How does Hilda Bernstein tell us?

“ Sometimes I was consumed with a desire to conform to middle-class normality, to be unknown, obscure, unwatched; to bake cakes and take children to the dentist, em broider cushion covers and discuss only literature or modern a rt when friends came to dinner; to go on holidays and be just ordinary peo-

Ele like all the others, caravaning y the sea; to join an a rt class and

be just a housewife fiddling with paints.“ Whenever I tried, something would happen to strip the screen of normality and reveal our differ­ence. Holiday friends at the camp­ing site would say something in­tolerably insulting about non- whites; to rem ain silent was to be a party to their attitudes. We spoke, and were im mediately set apart from all others. A new ban o r another police raid would take place and we would be publicised in the press, which tore aside our anonymity. One way or another there was never a topic of conver­sation which did not, inevitably, be­come related to the realities of our lives: racialism, the police state. ”

And again:“ The years made me increasingly intolerant of those well-meaning whites who believed in gradualism and wanted to improve conditions among what they term ed * the less- privileged section ’. I came to be­lieve more and more in the essen­tial one-ness of humanity, in the need to express this through one’s life. All our activities, what crea­tive powers and abilities we posses- ed were directed towards this in- olvement with human beings as

mans, not because they were ck and oppressed, but because

human. ” defeated:was when I came home

in 1960 that I knew Jonger responded to

even with the bans e had lived under

for so long, the many constraints on activity, the troublesome years of the treason trial, which started in 1956, the raids and closing down of organisations and periodicals and the closing-in of fascist-like laws - yes, even with the state of emergency and the never-back-to- norm al of its afterm ath, we had not screened off our lives. They were wide open as our doors were open, as our home had been for so long. ”

In the face of bans and restrictions, prevented by law from visiting the “ locations ” where Africans live, they were forced to carry on their political work in secret and became increas­ingly cut off from form er neighbours and friends:

“ W hat the house really needed now was a high surrounding wall and a locked and solid gate; win­dows with sills above head level, none overlooking the entrance area; an entrance hall completely detached from the house; and an incinerator. ”

There is a brilliant passage on book- burning:

“ . . . there were great quantities of books and pamphlets which we had put into storage fifteen years be­fore to save them being taken in police raids; and now they were all banned, or by authors who were banned, and could not be put in the dustbin or given away, but had to be burned. So we became book- burners. Books resist burning, their pages curl and singe and the fire goes out, it is necessary to work at the burning to destroy them suc­cessfully. ”

The World that was Ours is in three parts. The first part describes the system of vicious laws and intimida­tion that Vorster as Minister of Jus­tice brought in to suppress all politi­cal opposition to apartheid, and the various ways in which his victims sought to defy, defeat or circumvent the restrictions. The second is con­cerned with the Rivonia trial, when Nelson Mandela, W alter Sisulu, Ah­med Kathrada, Denis Goldberg, Go- van Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, Andrew Mlangeni and Lionel Bernstein were accused of planning “ hellish revolution . . . on a military basis. ” The third describes the Bernsteins’ escape.My only quibble with the book con­cerns the acceptance of the restric­tions and Hilda Bernstein’s presenta­tion of non-violence. Hilda Bernstein w rites:

“ The person under house arrest is not only deprived of his right to communicate, not only cut off from the stream of normal living, but in addition he becomes his own jailer. He must himself impose these con­ditions, he must divorce himself from the community of man; he must maintain his isolation by his own actions and will, and day and night he must be vigilant to hold himself away from the ordinary life in which he may no longer have a part.”

The question which none of us who has not faced the dilemma has a right to ask nonetheless presents it­self as central: If house arrest is so intolerable and inhuman, how can any man with respect for himself and others consent to so restric t himself? For the Bernsteins, it seemed silly to go to jail for a minor infringem ent of the banning order, and it seemed silly to refuse to obey the restrictions when it was still possible to engage secretly in political activities and to preserve some sort of normality in the daily routine of life. Moreover, the decision not to go immediately

Kusty Bernstein is released on bail after being charged with breaking his banning order. His wife Hilda, daughter Toni, and her husband Ivan, greet him.

into exile but to sit it out under house arrest was itself a challenge to the apartheid state. As Rusty says at one point, when his family is begging him to escape:

“ I don’t give way before I am forc­ed to, I don’t voluntarily throw in the sponge. That’s exactly what the government wants - it wants to be rid of all its critics; and I don’t see why I should co-operate with them. ”

The tough irony is that he has already given way and is voluntarily co-opera­ting with them .lt is sadly evident that the two lost their fight with the apar­theid state long before they boarded the small plane that flew them from Bechuanaland.Hilda Bernstein writes most inter­estingly on the African National Con­gress’s rejection of non-violence. The treason trial, which began in 1956, she describes as “ a played-out drama ” of no political significance by the time it ended four years later. The ANC had outlived the policy of non-violence and legality which was the basis of its defence to the charges, and in the meantime the Nationalist government had “ finally clamped down on all methods of non-violent protest ”, declaring the ANC itself illegal.The African people were turning naturally to violence. “ Thus ” , she says,

“ in its final year, the treason trial was the trial of an organisation that no longer had legal existence; of policies th a t no longer had vali­dity. It was a trial of leaders who defended discarded attitudes at the very time they were confronted with new challenges which they must either meet, or renounce all claims to leadership. ”

Nelson Mandela went underground to direct the general strike with which Africans greeted Verwoerd’s

Republic Day celebrations in 1961. This strike was met with massive military intimidation by the govern­ment. “ The lesson . . . was implanted deep, ” says Hilda Bernstein, “ . . . peaceful protests can no longer take place. Non-Violence! Legality! I t is all in the past. ” The “ new policy of struggle ” th a t was developing “ no longer sought to work within the framework of what the government declared legal. ”This association of “ non-violence ” with respect for “ legality ”, despite or ra ther because of the passive re­sistance campaign against unjust laws of the 1950s, tells us a g reat deal about the rejection of non-violence in South Africa. Hilda Bernstein is scathing about the Liberals and Black Sash movement who began protesting non-violently too late in 1962: “ They were under the illusion th a t they could bring about changes by parliam entary means, ” she says. Elsewhere, she writes:

“ There was never any doubt in our minds about the morality of defy­ing laws that were essentially im­moral; nor was it a conscious de­cision taken at any particular time. The law had ceased to have valid­ity. ”

There is of course no particular rea­son why the advocacy of non-violence should imply a respect for the law, any more than the advocacy of vio­lence implies a disrespect for it. But once Nelson Mandela had said in court th a t South African laws bound him neither legally nor morally be­cause he was not represented in par­liament, and the government had shown itself willing to use “ the full m ilitary m ight of the state ” to sup­press peaceful protests, the decision to adopt violent tactics In the strug­gle against apartheid seemingly be­came inevitable.

continued on page 10

1 0 Peace News November 10 1967

JOHN ARDEN'S

A play last Sunday on BBC 2 by Ronald Eyre called The Single Passion promised to be an interesting histori­cal reconstruction of educative or even nostalgic value, but not much else. The subject (as announced in the Radio Times) was Lenin’s family life; he himself as a schoolboy sees his elder brother arrested and sen­tenced to death for taking part in an abortive attem pt to assassinate the Tsar: predictable conclusion of the play being a final shot of young Lenin, meditative, followed by a mon­tage of him in his m aturer years or­ganising the Revolution and running Russia, probably taken from old news­reels.This did in fact prove to be the case; it was all very worthy and competent­ly done, and there might appear to be no great reason to write about it fu r­th er except for one or two very strik­ing and perhaps not intended corres­pondences with certain features of our contem porary life. It is an allow­able coincidence that St Petersburg Students wore long hair, little peaked caps, and scruffy wee beards. Had the play been presented ten years ago, these details would presumably have been the same (taken as they were from old photographs of the princi­ple characters); but in 1967 one is frequently seeing the same faces, spectacles, and hats. Where? Well, oddly enough, on the same place, the TV screen, and doing the same thmg;

self quite as easily as all that? May­be not, but then I re fer to this week’s Sunday Times and find an article headed “ US Close to a New Civil War In this article, Governor Rom- ney is quoted as having found Ameri­can cities “ on the brink of open re­bellion ”, and a leader of Americans for Democratic Action (Daniel Moyni- han) warns that “ We m ust prepare for the onset of terrorism ”. The young activists in Mr Eyre’s play talk about terrorism , and speak the word with enthusiasm ra ther than a shud­der, which is the more normal reac­tion to it in this country.The recent “ siege ” of the Pentagon was not precisely terrorism (except for the behaviour of some roughs ap­parently calling themselves “ law en­forcem ent officers ”) but the actions of a num ber of the dem onstrators do seem to have gone fu rther in that direction than ever before in anti-war

protests. Similarly, the Grosvenor Square punch-up the same weekend has left a num ber of people wonder­ing what is going to happen the next time. What would have happened, I wonder, had the crowd succeeded in pushing through the police cordon and getting into the American Em­bassy? The trouble with these affairs is th a t the demonstrators actually in the front of the crowd, and therefore the ones who ought to be doing Eisen- stein movie things like scaling walls and heroically waving NLF flags while the polizei sharpshooters prepare to afford them a m artyr’s death, are not necessarily in the front by choice and may be totally unprepared for a posi­tion of sudden prominence. It could be very embarrsssing.I bring this up not out of mere frivo­lity, bu t because a num ber of recent circumstances (of Which the TV play and the Sunday Times article are

only two) have combined to make me feel tha t our present situation in the “ W estern bloc ” is even more shakey than it appears. Are we on the verge of a revolution? If so, what sort of revolution is it going to be, and who will finally be in control of it? A cur­sory glance through the history books is sufficient to show that anything that anyone tries to predict is bound to be wrong in detail, though not necessa­rily in essentials.Anyway, keep your eyes open. And your ears. Show some solidarity with your friends, but not too much. Half of them will be on the wrong side when it comes to the crunch. By the wrong side, I don’t mean the obvious wrong side, against which the revolu­tion is directed, but the wrong side in the split which will open up among the revolutionaries themselves. Some­body is going to want to run the sec­re t police in the New Jerusalem.

SERENA WADHAM

The Barbican battlei

Quotes from a meeting of building workers and other trade unionists on October 4. Speaker 11: “ The Cam­eron Report is underpinning the Prices and Incomes Policy. ” Speaker 12: “ We are still on the picket lines [a t the Barbican] . . . because of the support we are getting up and down the country! ”Resolution: “ This meeting condemns the Cameron Report . . . ” Resolution carried with few abstentions.

n

ted), visits the site to speak to the lads, and to put the unions’ point of view, in preparation for a re tu rn to work, as recommended by the Cam­eron Report. Mud is slung at his par­ty; a t one point they find their way barred by a locked gate.

m

October 16. The battle of the Barbi­can. The police grim. The workers tense and uneasy. Violence; but, as one photographer put it, “ It was all over in four minutes! You could have waited all day, and if you had gone to get a cup of tea or gone to

ave been overv V i l j CLX lvA U U X i l g t i l e O U l l l v U l i l l g . J -1 J . . 1 -J ,

standing in a line chanting slogans October 10. Brother Weaver, General twhile being hosed at by the fire bri- Secretary of the National Federation e y ggade and beaten over the head by the of Building Trades Operatives (topolice. ” which the unions representing theBut surely history does not repeat it- workers at the Barbican are affilia-

IV

Peter RobinsTHE YEARS CONDEMNDo you think that I need to stand sprucely dressed at some cenotaph?Would any man willingly watch such cool mockery of the dead?

Believe me, I’d have more respect— for you—at eleven o’clock if you emptied a pail of shit on that mute grey muster of waste;

it would be more apt than a flower.You’re disgusted? Why, then, you glimpse my feelings precisely: three hundred and sixty five mornings each year.

Must you reverence a stone—just the names of men who, unscathed by campaigns, danced with us too? Their shadows were warm round our thanksgiving flames.

Yes, surely, the lampshade makers,napalm furnaces or a woundwasted them. Such things they survived.We murder more expertly now.

Men die as we poison the air with slander of colour or race.He blinds his son with cigarbutts who condones starvation and war.

Refinements are practised each day: so, pardon me, if I walk on suggesting that your poppies appear an expensively cheap display.

Minister of Labour, Ray Gunter, speaks of “ an unholy alliance ” of Communist and Trotskyite elements, and warns th a t “ . . . plotting may make this a w inter of disruptions. ”

Even if it is valid to cry “ Reds under the bed! ”, it is not relevant; they always were there. So w hat has changed?The Cameron Report Singled out the London Building W orkers’ Joint Sites Committee for blame, saying th a t it played “ an active and mischievous part in bringing about the series of events which ultim ately led to the closing down of the contract on each of the sites. ”In an earlier paragraph, it said :

“ . . . Mr Lewis [“ Lou ” Lewis, Federation Steward on the Myton site at the Barbican] who was writ­ing in the Morning Star in Febru­ary 1966 as Chairman of the Com­mittee, is himself a m ember of the Communist Party and we do not believe th a t his association with the Committee is merely an accidental coincident of his membership of the Party.”

So the Report drew the conclusion that the Morning Star and the Com­munist Party were deeply involved with the Joint Sites Committee. Members of the Joint Sites Commit­tee, on the o ther hand, claimed tha t if the unions had provided them with an alternative means for discussion of problems common to building sites in the area, the Joint Sites Committee would not have been necessary.

VI

The problem is not new. Shop stew­ards have formed committees outside the structure provided by their un­ions before now; for example, the “ Shop Stewards’ Movement ” of World W ar I. And then, as now, the

shop stewards’ leanings towards Communism em barrassed their unions.The question seems to be one of struc­ture and communication; the shop stewards represent the men at site level, or in the workshop, and solve their day-to-day problems, while the top men in the union offices may be negotiating with the government or travelling across the world.The union has a vertical structure, the shop stewards’ committee a hori­zontal one. The top should be in com­munication with the bottom. The head ought to know in what direction the feet are walking. At the Barbican, this was not so.The Barbican lesson is not yet finish­ed: one thing we can learn from it,in the meantime, is tha t democracy starts at the bottom.

WORLD APARTfrom page 3Hilda Bernstein’s highly critical as­sessment of the conduct of the Rivo- nia trial by the judge, de Wet, and the prosecutor, Yutar, in the long middle section of the book, is of great value, not least for the parallels it presents for the English reader with our own legal system. In this connec­tion, her descriptions of confronta­tions with the security police (Colo­nel Klindt, Dirker and Swanepoel) and the prison warders are also fami­liar, though thank God we don’t have the same dreadful systematic to rtu r­ing.The portraits of Bram Fischer, Nelson Mandela and W alter Sisulu are en­nobling for them and for the reader and I was particularly grateful for the descriptions of Fish Keitsing, the ANC’s “ Robin Hood ” in Bechuana- land, and Youssef Omar, who had been in solitary confinement, beaten and tortured by electric shocks and was unsure whether he could stand up to it again, for he might talk, man. If the characters in The World That Was Ours were not real, this would be an excellent novel. As it is, despite the wealth of factual material on the freedom struggle which Hilda Bern­stein has absorbed into the story (and which I haven’t begun to do justice to here), the book is essential­ly the story of how one family was hounded out of the police state. It speaks to the “ one-ness of human­ity ”. And it goes without saying that readers in South Africa will have to burn their copies.

;O L O N E L GEORGE K L IN D T Ip f , ngw ^ed ioU ^^\

DEATH OF MAN WHO UNMASKED

RIVONIAC rim e R e p o rte r

rO L O N E L GEORGE , K L IN D T , th e m an b e h in d

-the— u n m a sk in s -o f L iU ie s ie s f - F a rm , R iv o n ia , h a s d ie d in

. J o h a n n e s b u rg a f te r a seven- m o n th i lln e s s .

T h e 53-year-old d e te c tiv e ,I w ho f o r th r e e y e a rs h e a d e d

J o h a n n e s b u rg ’s S e c u r i t y B ran c h , w as in s tr u m e n ta l ~ sm a sh in g m a n y p lo ts.

A d is tin g u is h e d p o licem an , h e w as a d m ire d a n d lik e d by c o llea g u es . H e w as kn o w n a s a s t r i c t b u t d e v o te d m an w ho m ad e m an y fr ie n d s a n d se rv ed a t v a r io u s s ta t io n s th ro u g h o u t th e c o u n try .

T r ib u te s p o u re d in to S e c u r­i ty B ra n c h h e a d q u a r te r s in J o ­h a n n e s b u rg y e s te rd a y fro m

I p o licem e n w ho h a d w ork ed w ith a n d u n d e r h im in C ape

[ T ow n, P o r t E liz a b e th , S o u th i W e s t A f ric a a n d Jo h a n n e sb u rg .

SERIOUS TU R NA t o n e t im e h e a d o f th e

M arsh a ll S q u a re C .I.D ., C o lone l j K lin d t s p e n t m u ch o f h is ser- I v ice in th e T ra n sv a a l.

B e fo re h e a d in g th e J o h a n ­n e s b u rg S p ec ia l B ran c h , he w as C .I.D . c h ie f in P re to r ia .

C o lo n e l K lin d t h a d b e e n i l l fo r so m e tim e . S even m o n th s ago h is i l ln e s s took a s e r io u s tu r n . H e d ie d in a Jo h a n n e s ­b u rg n '\irs ing h o m e a t th e w eekend;,

H is fu n e ra l w ill la k e p la c e a t th e N e d e rd u its e G e refo r- m e e rd e K e rk in F o u r th A ve-

In u e , M elv ille , a t 3 p .m . today . T h e fu n e ra l — o rig in a lly p la n n e d to ta k e p la c e in R o b e rtsh a m — w ill be a fu ll

| m ili ta ry o ne .P a ll b e a re r s w ill b e C o lone l

P . J . V e n te r , C olonel K lin d t’s d e p u ty , C o lo n e l A. P . B u rg e r , a c tin g D iv is io n a l C rim in a l I n ­v e s tig a tio n O ffic e r fo r J o h a n ­n e sb u rg , C o lo n e l C. W . L ouw ,

I C o lo n e l C. P . J . d e G u is ti, L ie u te n a n t - C o lone l J . H.

I H ow ell a n d L ieu ten a n t-C o lo n e l

1^ BRIEF

Jack-of-all-tradesT HE th in g a b o u t Ja c k H ouse

is t h a t h e n ev er tak e s h im se lf too seriously.

H is au tob iography , “P av em e n t in th e S u n ” (H utchinson;- $5.30) is ju s t h is own s to ry o f a jo u rn alis t, a u th o r, television personality , Jac k -o f-a ll- tra d e s .

S h u n n in g a n y a tte m p t a t se lf- analysis, h e w rites a s a k in d of h o u se-n ex t-d o o r, a fr ien d ly Scot who m akes good com pany fo r a couple o f h u n d re d pages.

D avid M. D avies’ "T h e R ice Bowl of Asia” (R o b ert H a le : $3.15) is a k in d of li te ra ry escape for m ore serious s tu d e n ts of th e n e a r N orth .

Davies, a n i t in e ra n t E nglish jo u r­n a lis t w ho previously h a s w orked in B rita in . In d ia a n d A ustra lia , know s T h a ila n d well. T o h im i t is a co u n try un ique in A sia in th a t i t is free a n d n o t overpopula ted , gracious a n d h ap p y , a n d a b o u n d ­in g w ith food.

I n "T h e R ice Bowl o f A sia," h e lig h tly ana lyses tow n a n d coun try , p a s t a n d presen t.

R ed o len t of R o b e rt Louis S te v ­enson’s “T rav els w ith a D onkey,” "M adly in All D irections” (L ong­m a n s ; $3.85) is W ynfo rd VaugRalT- T h o m as’ trave ls w ith a pony th ro u g h th e rem oteness o f h is n a tiv e W ales.

A B BC co m m en ta to r a n d w ar co rresponden t, V a u g h an -T h o m a s now h ea d s h is own television com ­p any.

W ittily , discursively, h e re la tes h is trek , evoking m em ories of h is W elsh ch ildhood — in fa c t, h is e n tire ca ree r — u n til h e h a s w r it ­te n w h a t is essentia lly h is a u to ­biography.

H ild a B e rn s te in ’s “T h e W orld t h a t was O urs” (HeinemalTn.; $5.30) w rites a ro u n d th e R ivonia tria l in S o u th A frica in 1S33 h e r ow n s to ry of one fam ily trap p e d

b y Its u n a lien a b le a n ti-a p a rth e id views.

H e r h u sb a n d w as on tr ia l for h is life w ith e ig h t o th e r m en a r re s te d a t R ivonia.

S h e w alked o u t of th e back door o f h e r Jo h a n n e sb u rg hom e one m o rn in g , leav ing h e r w ashing m ac h in e ru n n in g , h e r ch ild ren un aw are t h a t sh e h a d gone.

S he recoun ts well h e r life a s a fugitive, h e r h u sb an d 's escape, th e ir e v e n tu a l crossing of the S o u th A frican border.

T ho u g h co u n try an d ce n tu ry m ig h t vary by th o u san d of m iles a n d hu n d re d ^ of years, m em ories o f school a p p a re n tly re m a in very m u ch th e sam e.

G illian A very’s “School R em em ­b ered ” (V ic tor G ollancz; $3.85) is a n an tho logy o f o th e rs ' reac tions t» ed u c atio n . . . people like L eigh , H u n t. A ugustus H are, G eorge Orw ell, M axim G ork i . . . /

hOURRANT HOUSE

H ERBAL HILL

LONDON E.C.1

0 1 -2 7 8 1733

EVENING HERALD

15 S E P 1967

M anhattan ProJeot ^ColUnB. 4 5 /.) is by a B ulgarian jou r

years In America. a t,e r he f.M from the C om m unist regime. cteplia.ne G roueff re-teAla in dra­m atic form th e story oi G-enera.1

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R iv o n ia ctatS *TH E W ORLD T H A T WAS O U RS by Hilda Bernstein (Heineraann 42s)

T H IS is a m oving account by a South A frican exile of how her life dis­integrated af te r the 1963 Rivonia T ria l. A leading Johannesburg left­winger, M rs Bernstein tells o f her tense double life as m em ber o f the illegal underground and respectable suburban housewife. T he story starts with her husband’s arrest a t R ivonia, gives a vivid eye-witness account of the trial, and moves to a gripping clim ax with their hurried escape through a back door, followed by a dash through the night into Bechu- analand.

T he final chapter* are as exciting as any Jam es Bond thriller. But underneath is a lam ent, fo r colleagues railed, a hom e abandoned and, per­haps, fo r hopes defeated. H er book is an antidote to the curren t m ood of appeasem ent o f D r V orster’s regime. If South A frica is a well-ordered State it is only because the genuine opposi­tion is stifled, im prisoned o r has been driven into exile. T o understand why A fricans can today see no o ther a lter­native to violence, one should read this book.

C h a r l e s B lu m b e r g

B20 NotebookSTUART WAVELL

South Africa's trial and error

IN THE quarter of a century since Hilda Bernstein fled from South Africa and perse­cution for her anti-apartheid activities, she has dreamed of a sea-change in the relation­ship between rulers and the ruled in her land. Something similar trembled on the brink recently in Peking, when stu­dents implored Westerners to tell them what to do. I asked her what advice she would have offered.

Bernstein is now, at the age of 74, an accomplished nov­elist and artist, but her politi­cal instincts remain dominant and sharply tuned. In a firm voice she began by dismissing any parallel between the two situations. “In China there’s no well organised opposition to the present regime, whereas in South Africa you have ex­tremely seasoned political lea­ders inside and outside the country,” she said.

But having made the point about the African National Congress, for whose cause she and her husband were impris­oned, she relented: “If I had been there on street level with the Chinese I would have said ‘Carry on with your peaceful protest.’ But I wouldn’t have foreseen what looks like the beginnings of civil war. That’s

a horrifying thing.” She was equally appalled when the ANC turned from its Gan- dhian principles to sabotage and violence after the Sharpeville killings in 1960, but she felt it was the only remaining course of action. Three years later her husband Lionel stood trial with Nelson Mandela and other national­ists. He was acquitted for lack of evidence, and the couple escaped into Bechuanaland, now Botswana.

It was known as the Rivonia trial, named after the Jo­hannesburg suburb where the defendants’ hideout was raided. Tomorrow, on the 25th anniversary of the trial’s conclusion, Bernstein publi­shes an account of the events surrounding what she consid­ers one of the most important legal proceedings in recent South African history.

“If you want to understand the policies of the ANC today, you have to go back to the trial,” she says. The unprece­dented lifting of state censor­ship had allowed many people to hear for the first time the whole story of black oppres­sion and struggle through the testimony of Mandela and his fellow accused.

Finding the trial’s tech­

nicalities “terribly tedious”, she has written a subjective account, expanded from her 1967 version with material provided by Joel JofTe, the instructing attorney

“Locked away for 25 years, six of them still there, who remem bers the men of Rivonia?” she writes in The World That Was Ours. “The world remembers,” she an­swers. Yet ignorance in the most unlikely quarter has taken her back to Africa.

In April she joined her hus­band in Tanzania, where he had accepted an ANC invita­tion to run a political institute. “The feeling is that more and more people coming out of South Africa know less and less about the political history of their country,” she said.

The couple live in Mazimbu, which she describes ironically as a South African enclave — a government-do­nated plantation which ac­cepted young people who fled across the border after the 1976 Soweto uprisings. “The complex is non-military, for educational purposes only,” she said. “It has a farm which aims to supply the commu­nity. There are tailoring and garment workshops, and it has

Bob Collier

Writer in exile: Hilda Bernstein, 74, who says ‘I am wanted for so many things, including things I didn’t actually do’quite a well established library.”

Still waiting for her art materials to arrive, she plans a book on the exile experiences of South Africans, and reck­ons Mazimbu is a good place to start. She has returned briefly to Britain to launch the book. “They are hoping that I will go on the Wogan show, which I understand is very prestigious,” she said with no evident hint of mischief.

She was bom in London of poor Jewish immigrants. While still a teenager she vis­ited an aunt in South Africa, where she joined the Com­

munist party and married Lio­nel, a South African architect. After their escape in 1964 they eventually settled in a con­verted farmhouse in Wales.

In a relative’s London flat she points out a photograph taken of her daughter, flanked by the newly wed Nelson and Winnie Mandela. “It’s a sad story,” she says of Winnie Mandela’s fall from grace. “When I knew her she was an amazingly beautiful woman. During the Rivonia trial, she drew the eyes of white police­men. There’s an ambivalence there. They hated her because they lusted after her.”

While paying tribute to her

courage and personal resour­ces, Bernstein feels that Win­nie’s seven-year banishment had put her out of touch with political changes in Soweto. “I think she was unable to adapt to the new conditions. It seems obvious to me that in her football team there were South African agents who probably exacerbated the situation. But I don’t think it has damaged Nelson Man­dela’s image.”

She sees the impending visit to Britain of South Africa’s president-designate, F W de Klerk, as a sign of “despera­tion”, and asserts that Britain has no right to negotiate on

behalf of the South African people. “I saw a report that the United States is prepared to relax sanctions if Nelson Man­dela is released uncondi­tionally, as if his release becomes the be-all and end-all of everything.” !

Had she ever been ap­proached to return? She looked incredulous. “I am wanted for all sorts of things,” she said. “Including things I didn’t actually do.”The World That Was Ours is p u b lish e d to m o rro w b y 1 SAWriters. £5.95 paperback,£14Books.

• Hilda Bernstein: “Stili incredibly relevant.. ."

Hilda’s famous trial testamentW hen Hilda Bernstein left her Johan­nesburg hom e for the last time in 1964, the washing machine was going into its rinse cycle, and- the pressure cooker was giving out puffs o f steam . Thirty seconds later, hidden among the trees at the end of the garden, she saw the special branch detectives arrive at the .front and back doors of the house.

A few days later, together with her husband, Rusty (Lionel), one o f the defendants with Nelson M andela in the famous Rivonia trial, H ilda made a mid­night escape across the border into Bots­wana, and has never been back.

The Bernsteins came to London, where they lived in Rothwell Street, Primrose Hill. Rusty worked as an architect, and Hilda became almost as well known for her distinctive etchings and drawings as for her writings — there have been a num ber of books and many articles about South Africa, including the prize-winning novel, Death is Part of the Process, which became a television series.

O ne of her finest pieces of writing was

the book, T he W orld That W as Ours, written shortly after arriving in this country, and describing the events which led up to the Rivonia trial, the trial itself and its impact on her own family.

This has now been revised to bring it up to date and was re-published on M onday by South African W riters, which is based in Greencroft G ardens, W est Hampstead.

She and Rusty are currently spending a year teaching at the African National Congress’s school in Tanzania, but Hilda was back in London this week for a hectic round of interviews.

The book is now sub-titled: The Story o f the Rivonia Trial, and when we met at the home of her daughter, film-maker Toni Strasberg, in Canfield G ardens, West H am pstead, I wondered whether the Rivonia trial still had any relevance 25 years later.

“ I t ’s still incredibly relevant," she said with spirit, showing little sign of her 74 years of age. “ History is a continuum, and it is important for people to under­stand why the A N C abandoned its

stance of non-violence after 48 years and adopted a policy of armed resistance — and all this was brought out at the trial.

“ It was also important because it b roke the pattern of political trials in South Africa. The nine defendants all pleaded guilty and then proceeded to explain why they did what they did, instead of looking for legal ways out of the charges.

“The o ther important thing is that this was the trial in which Nelson Mandela was convicted. H e is now the most famous political prisoner in the world, and it is necessary for the world to know why he is in jail and what happened at his trial.”

Hilda Bernstein also presents a para­dox: things have never been worse in South Africa in term s of repression and intim idation, and yet she added: “ In the last year the possibility of an end to A partheid has come much closer. I f only we could get some really effective sanc­tions going in all South Africa’s trading partners, the Pretoria government would be forced to negotiate .”

Hilda’s famous trial testament

• Hilda Bernstein: "Still incredibly relevant. . . ”

W hen Hilda Bernstein left her Johan­nesburg home for the last time in 1964, the washing machine was going into its rinse cycle, and- the pressure cooker was giving out puffs of steam . Thirty seconds later, hidden among the trees at the end of the garden, she saw the special branch detectives arrive at the front and back doors of the house.

A few days later, together with her husband, Rusty (Lionel), one of the defendants with Nelson M andela in the famous Rivonia trial, Hilda made a mid­night escape across the border into Bots­wana, and has never been back.

The Bernsteins cam e to London, where they lived in R oth well Street, Primrose Hill. Rusty worked as an architect, and Hilda becam e almost as well known for her distinctive etchings and drawings as for her writings — there have been a num ber of books and many articles about South Africa, including the prize-winning novel. Death is Part of the Process, which became a television series.

O ne o f her finest pieces of writing was

the book, The W orld That Was O urs, written shortly after arriving in this country, and describing the events which led up to the Rivonia trial, the trial itself and its impact on her own family.

This has now been revised to bring it up to date and was re-published on Monday by South African W riters, which is based in G reencroft G ardens, W est Hampstead.

She and Rusty are currently spending a year teaching at the African National Congress’s school in Tanzania, but Hilda was back in London this week for a hectic round of interviews.

T he book is now sub-titled: The Story of the Rivonia Trial, and when we m et at the hom e of her daughter, film-maker Toni Strasberg, in Canfield G ardens, W est Hampstead, I wondered w hether the Rivonia trial still had any relevance 25 years later.

“ It’s still incredibly relevant,” she said with spirit, showing little sign o f her 74 years o f age. “History is a continuum, and it is important for people to under­stand why the A N C abandoned its

stance o f non-violence after 48 years and adopted a policy of armed resistance — and all this was brought out at the trial.

“ It was also important because it broke the pattern of political trials in South Africa. T he nine defendants all pleaded guilty and then proceeded to explain why they did what they did, instead of looking for legal ways out of the charges.

“The o ther im portant thing is that this was the trial in which Nelson Mandela was convicted. H e is now the most famous political prisoner in the world, and it is necessary for the world to know why he is in jail and what happened at his trial.”

Hilda Bernstein also presents a para­dox: things have never been worse in South Africa in terms of repression and intimidation, and yet she added: “ In the last year the possibility of an end to A partheid has come much closer. If only we could get some really effective sanc­tions going in all South Africa's trading partners, the Pretoria government would be forced to negotiate .”

26 BOOKSTHE GUABD1AN

Friday Ju n e 16 1999

Twenty-five years ago this week Pretoria Supreme Court sentenced Nelson Mandela and five others to life imprisonment for conspiring against the state — the most famous political incarceration of our time had begun. Hilda Bernstein, whose husband Rusty was one of the accused, sat in court watching. These are her recollections

“I f my film makes one more person feel

miserable, 1*11 feel I ’ve done my jo b ”

B/tRTLEITS, J a m ilia r l|uotations|

I members of the Special Branch. I iry to Ignore them and speak directly to Yutar. asking him why he will not give my husband bail

"Well — bat you know It ts not in my power to grant bail: only the Judge can do that."

"But you know very well that If you do not oppose it. he will get bail.'' We have quite a long argument, but he does not say to me Under no circumstances will your husband get bail Instead, he tells me to come and sec him again m about two weeks. In all 1 see him three times: a waste of time, but since he has not given an outright refusal. 1 still go. What I should realise is that his Inability to give me a firm "No" Is based on the strange fact that he wishes to be loved and respected by all around him.

On the third occasion there is no one in the office except himself and a colonel of the Security Police, a huge man. tall and broad, with a bullet head Hands in pockets, he takes a stand near a window with his back to the room.Percy Yutar says. "Colonel,Mrs Bernstein wants us to let her husband have ball." He turns his head slowly, looks at me coldly, says "No", and turns back to the window. That is the only word he says during the whole Interview.

"You see how it Is," Percy Yutar says. “I would very much like to help you. I would Indeed, but as long as the Security Police — It's not In my power, really. 1 am sorry. It can t be done" ~ I

you

Rwf HHr J kiSN#' \ KThe Rivonia trialists . . . (clockwise from top left) Nelson Mandela. Waiter Sisulu. Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba. Denis Goldberg. Ahmed Kathrada. Andrew Mlangenl and Elias Motsoaledi ixmoeuw outMxt aidfumi

June 1964: Mandela is guiltyIt was from Rivonia that the

new policy o f sabotage, violence and destruction was planned, engineered and directed

In six months the High Command planned to obtain 200.000 hand grenades and thousands of mines, time devices for bombs and other materials. The police found I OS maps marked with proposed sabotage targets Young Africans were recruited and sent out of South Africa for military training

Sabotage was the preliminary step aimed to product chaos, disorder and turmoil, to pave the way for the second stage, which was the waging of guerrilla warfare. The accused studied tactics of such warfare as waged in Algeria, Cuba. China and elsewhere.

For the wholesale manufacture of explosives, another property, Travaltyn,was bought and workshops were to be erected there The final stage of the second phase would come when the government hod been brought to its knea and a revolutionary Government would be set up.

Financial support was received from supporters in African states and other countries. In conclusion there remains only to be said that the documents and witnesses will reveal to the court that the accused had so planned their campaign that the present year— 1963 — was to be the year of liberation from the so-called yoke of the white man‘s domination

The opening address ts Yutar's most effective piece of work in the whole trial, setting out what the State Intended to prove: the first Indication to the defence team of the lines the trial would take

WHEN the court resumes after lunch. Nelson continues speaking, referring from time

to time to his sheaf of notes.He speaks for five hours,

with unvarying clarity of voice and of argument. Finally he states:

Africans want to be paid a living wage. Africans want to- ' — work which they ore

want to be allowed to live when they obtain work, and not to be obliged to live m rented houses which they can never call their own. Africans want to be pan of the general population, and not confined to living In their own Khetutts African men want to have their wives and tobies to III* with them where they work, and not be forced Into an unnatural existence in men's hostels. African women want to be with their mer\folk and not be left permanently widowed in the reserves. Africans want to be allowed out after eleven o'clock- night and not to be confined

their rooms like little children. Africans want to be allowed to travel in their own country and to seek work where they want to and not where the Labour Bureau tells them to Africans want a Just share In the whole of South Africa: they want security and a stake in society.

Above alL we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites In this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy

But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial domination. Political division, based on colour, is entirely anlflcial and. when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group

During my lifetime I have

of the Afrlcah people I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I haie cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society In which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opponunities. It is an Ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But. if needs be. it Is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

The last words are spoken in a lowered voice, so controlled yet communicating such powerful emotion, that a most profound silence grips the court for some minutes after, until there Is a concerted sigh, like the release of breath

speech for the prosecution The speech which is normally intended to assist the court In summing up and a* evidence, rela ’the charges s ( -----------------indictment, and attempts to present the entire case clearly.It is unheard of in South ‘ ' ican courts that comment.

or sarcasm at the expense of the accused forms any part of this speech It should be simply a sound legal analysis of the evidence and the laws bearing on the charge.

But Yutar has his own method of presenting an argument His team stagger under a load of thick blue volumes, newly and beautifully bound, with gold lettering.Four volumes to a set. Several sets are handed to the Press When the turn of defence counsel comes, they are handed one unbound copy of the treatise to serve the whole team of five.

In the few minutes before the Judge appears, defence skims through the document. It proves to be not a legal argument as they understand it. but a summary of all the

■nee in sequence, with no attempt at analysis, of Its strength or discrepancies Bram later comments: “His evidence in chief consisted largely of the reading of documents; his cross- examination consisted of reading the documents to the accused. And his closing address consisted of reading the documents to the Judge."

Yutar hands four volumes to lo Wet saying: "My lord, to

assist the court I have had my address typed out and bound up, and I beg leave to hand It in —1 crave that It may be of

ip assistance to your lordship."

He then begins to read from the volumes.

in a dramatic flourish he proclaims "The day of the mass uprising in connection with the launching of guerrilla warfare was to have been May 26.1963 '

The acctuscd arc mystified; they were arrested six weeks after this date And the

ihow* that the only armament thiiy possessed was an air rifle with which Mandela hud once tried target practice.

by SA Wrtur, at iU 9 i

cries. “My conscience is clear! I am a deeply religious man. haven't you heard that I am a deeply religious man

"I don't know anything about

"Yes, yes, everyone knows 1 am very religious."

The beliefs and personality of Percy Yutar are inextricably bound up with the conduct of the whole trial. Yes. 1 learn, he Is a devoutly religious man.

| proud of being Jewish, longing to be the first Jewish Attorney- General ever to be appointed In South Africa. Through his conduct of the Rivonia Trial ha hopes to prove that Jews are good citizens and patriots, not all communists. He is devious, vain, with a passion for publicity, and will contrive to conduct the trial in such a way that he can always get press headlines. As the trial

B lesses, defence counsel ns to understand that,

come what may. dramatic evidence of som< sort will always be Introduced In court late every Friday afternoon — lute enough to be newsworthy for the Sunday papers.

THE formal start of the trial The Assistant Registrar puts the charges to each of the accused in tum.

Mandela: "My lord, the Government, not I, should be In the dock. I plead not guilty to all charges “

Sisulu I Waller Sisulu, accused] "The Government ts responsible for what has happened In this country. 1 plead not guilty."

Justice de Wet: “I do not want any political speeches You are asked to plead guilty or not guilty,"

Goldberg [Deils Goldberg, accusedJ: "I plead not guilty and I associate myself with the remarks of Mandela and Sisulu."

Each of the accused Ignores de Wet's warning and blames the Government for what has happened, with the exception of Kantor who says simply: "I am not guilty, my lord "

Yutar rises to his feet with printed copies of his opening address, all beautifully bound and tied up with green tape As though to emphasise the importance of the documents and evidence he has collected, everything Yutar presents will appear beautifully bound In printed covers.

I He hands copies of his

■n of it. although it has been in the hands of the press for some time: and opening his copy, he starts to read

At this crucial moment Bram \Abram Fischer, appearing for the accused] stands up Overnight a small black microphone has grown up on Yutar's desk; defence noticed technicians from the South African Broadcasting Corporation testing It earlier

The SABC is stat*controlled. not an independent or an impartial body And whatever the traditions In other countries, broadcasting any part of a court case is unknown in South Africa. Defence know that they will not get facilities equal to those provided to Dr Yutar. not now or at any other time.

Bram asks If It is in order for the opening address to be broadcast in this way. Mr Justice de Wet. looking somewhat uncomfortable, says he had given permission to record the opening address “In order to inform the public", as he had not seen any objection to it at that stage. But now. he states, the position has changed— though how or why he does not mention — and for this reason the previous permission had lapsed. He was not at present prepared to allow the broadcast. Has Yutar any comments? Yutar declares he has no share in the matter at all.

There is a recess The SABC technicians dismantle and remove the microphone

Yutar's opening address:A plot to commit sabotage,

violence and destruction as a prelude to guerrilla warfare, armed invasion and the violent overthrow of the Government In- war o f liberation, was planned

. >r this year The plot was the work o f the ANC Theirheadt, larters was Llllltsleaf, the farm t.1 Rivonia, the home of Arthur Goldrrlch Here. too. lived Nelson Mandela. Walter Sisulu. Ahmed Kathrada.Govar. Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba. all under false names. Penis Goldberg and Lionel Bernstein were frequent visitors.

The farm, chosen because of Its seclusion, was the focal point of the ANC. the Communist Party and the National High Command The National High Command Issued directions and Instructions lo cells and

all ooer the country

JEWISH CHRONICLE JUNE 30 1989 19

Books EDITED BY GERALD JACOBS

Down in black and white

A Freudian slippedDANNIE ABSE

A gainst T hera p y . Jeffrey Masson. Collins, £15

On May 27 of this year “ The G uardian” asked, “ Who is afraid of Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson?” And immoderately replied, “Every practising psychoanalyst. Once the golden boy of Freudian analysis, Masson is now its most notorious critic.”

These lurid claims have little sub­stance. Mr Masson did write a book, “ The Assault on T ru th ,” in which he focused on Freud’s abandonm ent of the seduction-in-childhood hypothesis as the root o f so much mental ill- health.

In so doing he attem pted to character-assassinate Sigmund Freud himself. That must have irritated many a Freudian. But Freud, over the years, has had more arrows slung at him than St Sebastian so the assault on the Master would hardly have been newsworthy had not the young Jeffrey Masson earlier been trustingly appointed director of the Freud archives by eminent older analysts.

Masson repeats his blood-tipped archery in his new book “ Against Therapy.” His argum ents are simple. Not only does Masson see child abuse everywhere but he believes that every analyst, o f whatever creed, attem pts to infantalise his patient and to become the All Powerful Father. A dangerous

human relationship, apart from being an undesirable one, argues Masson, especially when so many therapists have serious character flaws.

Jung, for instance, omie the only Christian among so many Jewish colleagues, he portrays as a Nazi collaborationist, as one who was fascinated by that charismatic, irrational creature, Adolf Hitler. “ N obody,” writes Masson, “ has attempted to link this (Nazi) sympathy with elements of Jungian psychotherapy.”

Alas, Masson hardly dwells on that link (which would have been interesting) but instead concentrates on Jung’s record regarding racialism, as so many others have done before him, most notably Edward Glover in his book, “ Freud or Jung” (1950). But Masson, as convincingly as any other, goes on to accuse Jung of being far from honest in his post-war excuses about collaborating with Nazi psychiatrists.

Do hatchet-jobs on psychotherapists have any value other than entertaining those who enjoy calumny? “The Assault on T ru th ,” however pernicious, led many to question whether Freudians have underestimated the role of actual sexual abuse in the aetiology of neurosis; but “ Against T herapy” , with its wild anarchist viewpoint and total belief that psychotherapy is not a healing process but one always coercive and hazardous to mental health, is unlikely to lead to new, constructive, serious debate.

London-born Hilda Bernstein is a seasoned campaigner against apartheid in South Africa. Back in town for the launch of her book to mark the 25th anniversary of the Rivonia trial, she spoke to Lesley Friedman

Hilda Bernstein, physically, is a tiny woman. But when she speaks with quiet passion about the struggle for justice in South Africa, she dominates the room like a “giant” — the nickname her children gave Nelson Mandela in the early 1960s.

Now 74, Hilda has been fighting racism for nearly 60 years, and her political instincts remain sharply attuned. In the years after she left Finchley, north London, as a girl of 16 to settle in South Africa, she suffered banning, police harassment, the house arrest o f her husband Lionel “ Rusty” Bernstein, his detention in solitary confinement and his two trials — the last with Nelson Mandela and others, the so-called Rivonia trial (after the affluent White suburb where the arrests took place) o f the leaders of the African National Congress, exactly 25 years ago.

Eventually the family were forced to leave South Africa, she and Rusty fleeing by foot at dead of night into neighbouring Botswana.

Now living in Mazimbu, Tanzania, where her husband has a one-year assignment to run a political institute for the ANC, Hilda was in London briefly to prom ote her book, “The W orld That Was Ours, the Story of the Rivonia Trial,” published to co-

H ilda Bernstein — b attlin g on in exile

incide with the 25th anniversary of the conclusion o f Rivonia, when Rusty was acquitted and Nelson Mandela and the other defendants started serving their life sentences.

It is written with the same sensitivity and power which earned her novel, “ Death is Part o f the Process,” the Sinclair Prize for fiction four years ago.

She was a Communist member of the Johannesburg City Council from 1943 until the party was banned in 1950. “ Among a group of us detained in 1960, quite a high proportion of the women were Jewish,” she says.

The men o f Rivonia, to whom the book is dedicated, include Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Denis Gold-

Fannins Warners and sold winnersflames K>Hw

LIONEL SIMMONDS

The Burning Bush. Barnet Litvinoff. Fontana/Collins, £5.95

Wtiite the UUTflOr t»f fTK extraordi­narily interesting account of anti­semitism, measured against the back­ground of 2,000 years of Jewish history, seeks to attain a high degree of objectivity in assessing people and events, he does seem a t times to lean over backwards to do so. An example is his implication that Ernest Bevin was constrained to conduct an anti-Israel policy because he was bequeathed the impossible task of attempting to be even-handed in adjudicating between Arabs and Jews over the Palestine issue.

Even allowing for this contention, the Labour Foreign Secretary's deci­sion to order the sending back to Germany of passengers on the refugee ship “Exodus” bound for Palestine was surely a despicable act by any standard. If Bevin was not an antisemite, he gave, on that occasion, a very good indication of being one.

Overall, however, the book is both stimulating and illuminating and worthy of repose on any Jewish bookshelf.

It is fitting that it now appears in a paperback edition to capture a wider audience.

An Empire of their O w n. Neal Gabler. W. H. Allen, £14.95

Hollywood in its heyday was much more than an industry. It was a pott^itl mytnoiogy th a t svmbotrsed Americaand projected itself into the lives of millions. That it was a largely Jewish creation is not without relevance and this book depicts that story; one o f the most extraordinary phenomena of the twentieth century.

Uneducated, determined and fiercely competitive, the studio bosses were mostly children of poverty who came from nowhere and fought their way into positions of immense cultural and economic power.

Jack W arner, the son of an immi­grant cobbler, epitomises the extraor­dinary social mobility of Hollywood. On meeting Albert Einstein, he bragged, “you know I have a theory about relatives too — don’t hire them .”

Denied access to the traditional avenues of success and respectability by an exclusive WASP establishment, they created an empire of their own and in so doing, for the most part, left their Jewishness behind.

In this meticulously researched and eminently readable book, the author does not paint an attractive picture of these modern buccaneers. Often ru th­less, conspiratorial and despotic, they came to be who and what they were on principles o f pure Darwinism.

In time, they were to find themselves

berg, Govan Mbeki, Lionel Bern­stein . . . Jews and Blacks. The prosec­u tor was D r Percy Yutar, a devout Jew. Hilda writes: “Through his con­duct o f the Rivonia trial he hopes to prove that Jews are good citizens and patriots, not all Communists.”

There was antagonism from the start. W hen Hilda met D r Yutar before the trial, she says she told him: “ I hope you will not regret this,” adding that what she meant to say was: “ I hope you will regret this.”

Flanked, as he always was, by a member o f the security forces, he responded: “ My conscience is c lea r. . . I would not do anything that went contrary to my religious beliefs.”

While admitting to a lack of Jewish religious and cultural knowledge, Hilda Bernstein has firm views about Israel.

“ I believe the Palestinians have a right to a country of their own and that they have come to realise that Israel has a right to exist.

“ After what happened to the Jewish people, which was the very reason for the existence o f Israel, that the Israelis should exhibit racial intolerance is so sad I don’t know what to say.

TTOHimal/sei*

Jack W a rn e r w ith his second w ife , Ann A lva rad o , in 1 9 3 7

the target o f attack by reactionary politicians, culminating in the notorious McCarthy witch-hunt.

The problem with “ An Empire of Their Own” is that it hangs largely on a single thesis: that the Jews of Hollywood were motivated by a deter­mination to overcome their sense of disadvantage and, in everything they produced, to emulate the bourgeois attributes of the American establish­ment.

Even if there is an element o f truth in this, the au thor’s assessment is too pejorative. There is something essen­tially Jewish in what they sought to create — a paradoxical combination of both the aristocratic and the demo­

cratic; aristocratic in the sense that only the best will do, democratic in the sense that it should be made available to all.

The studio heads established styles of production that were highly dis­tinctive, regardless o f expense (though inexpensive to enjoy). With the advent o f TV, ageing and past their prime, they were deposed and taken over by faceless multi-national corporations. The visionaries were replaced by accoun­tants. The personality went out o f it. As Billy Wilder has said, “ In those days you spent 90 per cent o f your time making films. Nowadays you spend 90 per cent o f your time making deals.”

racialism is of such overriding impor­tance that there is no way you can just put it on one side. People who have known racialism have the best under­standing and should be in the fore­front.”

Hilda has special praise for Joel Joffe, the instructing attorney to the defence in the Rivonia trial, o f which he wrote an unpublished account. Joffe was never a political animal before 1964, and was about to emigrate to Australia with his family at the time he accepted the brief. After the trial, the Australians revoked his visa and he eventually settled in England.

Hilda Bernstein, meanwhile, has become an artist, whose work has been exhibited in Britain and around the world. But despite her busy sched­ule, including her writing and work with the external mission of the ANC, she remains very much an exile. And her influence is still powerful enough to ensure she remains banned in South Africa, which means her book cannot be quoted or distributed there.

“ But I am sure copies will get in,” says the indefatigable fighter. “ They always do.”

"The World That Was Ours” is published by SA Writers at £14.95 and £5.95 (paperback).

6400 QUESTIONS about JUDAISM and

the JEWISH PEOPLEby Dr Edmond Y Lipsitz

6400 Questions about Judaism and the Jewish People is a veritable treasure trove of fascinating, often surprising data about the Jewish faith, the Jewish people, and th^_Jewish experience. This volume offers a mine of tantalising questions which are both informative and intellectually stimulating. Both the novice and the well-informed will find great delight

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Paperback £11.50 Delivered

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On beingHOWARD I. COOPER

The Right to be H um an: a b io­g rap h y o f A b ra h a m M aslow .Edward Hoffman. Crucible, £13.95

O ne of the ironies of our century is the phenomenon of Jewish intellec­tuals alienated from their religious backgrounds, whose pioneering con­tributions to society remain pro­foundly Jewish. O ne compelling example is the American psychologist Abraham Maslow who died in 1970, an intuitive, interdisciplinary thinker whose innovative work seems little- known here.

This uncritical but absorbing bio­graphy, quoting generously from Maslow’s own writings, illustrates his contributions to fields as disparate as counselling, education, health care, business m anagem ent and theology. The atheist’s late, moving realisation of the negative effects which follow the disappearance of our sense of the sacred is conveyed with prophetic conviction.

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WEEKLY MAIL, July 7 to July 13 1989 25

BOOKS

The homecoming that took half a lifetimeTWENTY-FIVE years ago, Hilda and Rusty Bernstein began their journey to freedom with a nightmare dash across the border and a trek north. Their aim was to settle elsewhere in Af­rica — but it took a quarter o f a century before they could complete their journey.

A year ago they moved to the African Nation­al Congress’s Mazimbu refugee village in Tan­zania, where Rusty Bernstein is involved in es­tablishing an institute for contemporary South African research.

The Bernsteins's flight into exile has been re­corded in the pages o f The World That Was

. O urs by Hilda Bernstein, a powerful and moving record o f the effect on a family of bans, detentions and constant security police surveillance.

It is a story of a wife holding her family to­gether through the 11 months that her hus­band, who faced a possible death sentence as a Rivonia trialist, was held in solitary confine­ment-

„ On the eve o f the 25th anniversary o f the Ri-\ e a i a - trial Bernstein returned briefly to Lon­

do n tcfllaunch a reworked edition of her book. Released by a London publishing house, SA V ite rs, it includes new details of the trial from ;infir>piityished manuscript written by the in- stru - 't^ f attorney, Joel Joffe.

Be/i3^in has been a listed person since the mid- 980s and cannot be quoted, but her story speaK?or

It is that began in the Johannesburg suburb o b s e rv a to ry in the early 1960s, a t a

Twenty-five years after the Rivonia Trial, in which her husband was among the

accused, Hilda Bernstein has re-issued her moving

account of the Rivonia years._______ MOIRA LEVY reportstime when the Bemsteins’s normally hospita­ble household was locked and shuttered to keep out prying security police eyes.

It is an account o f two years in the life o f the the Bernstein family, a story o f a world that was lost and can never be regained.

Specifically, it is a compelling book about the Rivonia trial. Through the eyes o f Bernstein we see M andela in the dock (she quotes ex­tracts from his statement verbatim), the flam­boyant prosector Percy Yutar, the state wit­nesses confusing and contradicting their own and each others’s statements.

It is a story of the constant struggle o f the Ri­vonia wives and mothers for the right to see their men, and for the privilege of bringing them fresh clothes and food and books, and later, their daily trips to the trial in Pretoria.

What is left out of the book is the story of Bernstein’s own political activity. Bom in Eng­land, she arrived in South Africa as a teenager and was profoundly shocked by the daily in­justices of apartheid she witnessed.

She joined the Communist Party in the 1930s— it was the only non-racial party at the time

Hilda Bernstein... gives creative vent to her political passions

fighting apartheid — and served as a CP Jo­hannesburg city councillor representing Hill- brow until new delimitation laws guaranteed her defeat at elections.

From then on most o f her tim e was spent working in the trade union movement. A femi­nist before feminism was popular, she was a founding member of the Federation o f South African Women.

Her first ban soon followed — when her husband was banned, a special clause was add­

ed to his restriction order perm itting him to communicate with his wife.

Four children were born over the course of 13 years. M eanwhile the security net drew tighter. As a banned person, she could not con­tinue copywriting at an advertising agency or writing for the Congress Alliance newspaper. A correspondent for overseas newspapers, she continued writing under a pseudonym.

Rusty Bernstein was acquitted in the Rivonia Trial but immediately rearrested while he was on bail facing trial on lesser charges. Hilda fled South Africa with the security police close on her heels.

Thus began a journey into exile that compares with any political thriller: a pre-dawn walk, without guide or compass, across the Botswa­na border and a wait in Lobatsi with other South African refugees.

Bernstein’s book ends with Rusty and herself on a tiny chartered plane flying to Zambia.

From there they took a flight to London, where their wait to return to Zambia lasted half a lifetime.

Hilda B ernstein’s novel on the sabotage movement in South Africa won her a literary award and was made into a film by the BBC.

Today, Bernstein is starting a fresh journey o f her own. Her more than 25 years away from home have generated a deep interest in the sub­jec t o f exile, and in London she has signed a contract with publishers for a book on South African exiles.

Page 14 July 21 - July 27, 1989 THE NEW NATION

BOOKS

The world of theRivonia Trialists

People demonstrate their support for the Rivonia Trialists.

"The world that was ours" by Hilda Bernstein. Pub­lished by Saw riters. Price: 14.95 (hardback).

HILDA Bernstein, an ANC exile now living in the ANC's Mazimbu village in Tanzania, has been banned constantly since the mid- 50s. She cannot be quoted, but her latest publication, "The world that was ours", is a powerful story that speaks for itself.

The book covers the two years before the Bernstein family fled into exile.

It was a time when a normally open-to-the-world home was shut­tered, bolted and locked for the first time to keep out prying eyes, when the stream of visitors dried up, when they had to bum their own books to keep them out of the hands of the security police, and when they had to keep secrets from their own children to protect the family.

It is a tale of a world that was lost and which can never be re­gained.

The Bernsteins were active in the passive resistance campaigns of the ANC during the 1950s.

Hilda Bernstein tells a disarm- ingly personal, but never self- pitying, account of bans, police raids, house arrest, constant sur­veillance and detentions - both she and her husband, Rusty, spent months in solitary confinement.

In these pages are the stories be- hir d the daring escape from jail of Rivonia detainees Harold Wolpe, Arthur Goldreich, Abdulhai Jassat and Mosie Moolha, the escape at­tempt by Denis Goldberg, and the flight into exile of countless other [activists of that period].

The book opens on the night of the Rivonia arrests, at 5 o'clock in the evening, less than an hour be­fore her husband had to be home to comply with his house arrest re­striction order.

The night-long wait in vain sets the tone for the pages to come.

It is a story of a woman holding her family together through the 11

months her husband was jailed and on trial, facing a possible death sentence for treason; her fight for the right to visit her husband; the precious single contact visit al­lowed them - happiness for less than an hour and the anger at his re-arrest immediately after his ac­quittal.

More than that, it is the story of all the Rivonia wives, mothers, partners, and their regular, some­times daily, trips to Pretoria for the trial.

The book details the policies and practices of the ANC of that time;

it is a thorough treatise on a decade of resistance to apartheid.

Bernstein knew Mandela, Sisulu and the Rivonia accused personal­ly, and her book [describes the central role played by them in this period],

Hilda Bernstein barely escaped the security police - fleeing out of the back door, while they rang at the front - leaving behind her a home never again to the entered and fleeing, with her husband, [and escaping] over the border.

The Bernsteins’ escape into exile reads like a political thriller - ex­

cept that it is all shockingly true.The book also [refers to] the

courage of the unnamed and first- name-only people who gave them refuge.

There is "McClipper" who drove them as close to the border as he dared before bidding them fare­well, advising them to aim for the border by walking in the direction of an invisible point between the sound of the distant cock crows.

A woman from a border kraal found them, lost and exhausted af­ter their pre-dawn tfek across the Northern Transvaal veld, and gave

them a place to sleep.ANC officials welcomed them in

the village of Lobatsi in Bechuana- land (now Botswana) where they waited with other South African refugees, always under the threat of police raids from across the bor­der, always watched by security agents.

The book ends with the Bernsteins taking off in a tiny chartered plane into the African sky, in the direction of Lusaka, and freedom.

This book was launched in Lon­don on the eve of the 25th anniver­sary of the Rivonia trial.

A reworked version of an earlier edition written in London soon af­ter the Bernsteins' escape, this book now includes details of the trial from an unpublished manu­script by the defence attorney, Joel Joffe.

It includes some material never before published, and other facts that, although not new, are written in a bold, new way.

But, more importantly, it adopts a fresh approach. Looking back over the years since the trial, the book treats the hiatus of the 1960s, then a seeming defeat, as a tum- ing-point, a new beginning of a new, more militant phase of strug­gle.

- Moira Levy

Collection Number: A3299 Collection Name: Hilda and Rusty BERNSTEIN Papers, 1931-2006

PUBLISHER: Publisher: Historical Papers Research Archive Collection Funder: Bernstein family Location: Johannesburg

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