Roots of Outrage

Whites were slashed with pangas and riddled with bullets and burnt alive, raped and robbed and tortured. Belgium and America sent aircraft to evacuate their nationals as all over the vast land the whites abandoned their properties and fled the country in terror, crowding the airports, driving frantically for the borders into Burundi, Uganda, Rhodesia and mobbing the ferries across the Congo river into Brazzaville, gunned down, robbed, murdered as they ran.

On the seventh chaotic day after independence, Moise Tshombe, provincial premier of Katanga, raised the first sane voice when he demanded that Belgium send troops to restore order. But that very day the Congo was taking its seat at the United Nations in New York and loss of face for Africa had to be avoided. On the eighth day Moise Tshombe unilaterally requested Belgium to send troops. On the ninth day Belgium paratroopers dropped out of the sky and fierce fighting began. On the tenth day Patrice Lumumba, infuriated by this challenge to his sovereignty, asked the United States to send its army to help him. Russia loudly objected, and President Eisenhower backed down for fear of aggravating the Cold War. On the eleventh day the Congo collapsed and Moise Tshombe proclaimed the unilateral independence of his province of Katanga.

Thus the independence of the Congo began. The chaos was to last many years. The Western world looked on in horror. And when those in the corridors of international power looked at what was happening in the Congo and in the rest of the continent – in Kenya, where the Mau Mau had raged, in Ghana and Nigeria with their riots and tribal war, in Rhodesia, where their policy of equal rights for all civilized men was under attack, mission stations burnt down, dip tanks burned, cattle maimed – there were many who wondered whether the Afrikaners might not have the right idea: maybe apartheid was not such a bad thing.

Mahoney begged his editor to send him to the Congo to cover the crisis, but the idea was turned down. He took unpaid leave and went up to witness the drama, to interview the wild-eyed Belgian refugees. He filled a long article, but his editor could not publish it.

‘Great stuff, Luke, but what Drum wants is the blood, sweat and tears of apartheid.’

The blood that his editor particularly wanted was that which flowed from the hearts broken by apartheid – from domestic tragedies arising from the Group Areas Act which forced members of the same family to split up under the Population Registration Act, from marriages and relationships broken up under the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, from indignities caused by the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act – but the most dramatic blood of all was that flowing from prosecutions under the Immorality Act. That was always news: scandal and heartbreak, broken lives, broken careers, and sheer shame. Most cases were prosecutions of white men screwing black prostitutes, or knocking off their housemaids when Madam wasn’t looking; but sometimes there was a case where a girl was only slightly coloured, and she was in love with a white man. That was big news. And that is how Luke Mahoney met the beautiful Patti Gandhi again.

Patti Gandhi had made news several times since she had left Umtata: as the Indian schoolgirl who walked into the Durban whites-only library; the Indian girl who climbed onto a whites-only bus and manacled herself to a stanchion; the angelic Indian girl who walked into the Dutch Reformed church and prayed until the police were called to take her away for disturbing the peace; the impertinent Indian girl who took herself to a whites-only beach and swam until the constables had to plunge in to drag her out; the girl who had become such a problem to her father that he had finally sent her to England to finish her schooling; the beautiful Indian girl who, when she returned, had the audacity to enter the Miss South Africa contest knowing she would be barred and cause a hullabaloo. And now here in the dock of the magistrates’ court, Johannesburg, looking absolutely beautiful (so said Drum, the Star, the Rand Daily Mail, the Sowetan et al), was the notorious Patti Gandhi, aged nineteen, long-legged and with a bust and face to break your heart, the great-niece of Mahatma Gandhi, charged with contravening the Immorality Act in that upon or about the 20th day of May, 1961, and at or near the city of Johannesburg, she did, being an Indian as defined by the Population Registration Act, wrongfully and unlawfully have carnal knowledge of Peter Howardson, a person defined by the aforesaid Population Registration Act as White.

All the crime reporters were in court that day. Patti Gandhi was alone in the dock because her co-accused, Mr Howardson, had broken bail and fled the country. Miss Gandhi did not have an attorney to represent her. She listened to the prosecution evidence with a little smile. When the arresting police officer, Sergeant van Rensburg, finished his evidence-in-chief, she stood up to cross-examine.

‘Sergeant, how long have you been on the Vice Squad?’

‘Five years.’

‘My word! We assume, therefore, that you are very experienced in vice? So will you please define for us the word “vice”.’

‘Objection, Your Worship,’ the public prosecutor said.

‘Miss Gandhi,’ the magistrate said, ‘we are not concerned with the witness’s ability to define abstract nouns – it’s not relevant whether the police call it the Vice Squad or the Virtue Squad – we are only concerned with his evidence that on the night of 20th May you contravened the Immorality Act.’

‘But it concerns his attitude to his job, Your Worship,’ Patti Gandhi said politely. ‘If that attitude is hostile, if it is persecutory, it reflects upon his overall credibility as to what he saw. If, for example, we were in Germany now, in 1939, and Sergeant van Rensburg were a Nazi, it would reflect on the reliability of his evidence that he saw a Jew breaking the law –’

‘Miss Gandhi,’ the magistrate said, ‘is it part of your defence that you are a white person?’

‘No, Your Worship, Heaven forbid! I am an Indian person. The real thing. My great grandfather came all the way from Bombay to these blighted shores as a coolie cane-cutter. My great-uncle was Mahatma Gandhi himself – that trouble-maker.’

‘Then stop talking about Nazis. Confine your questions to the evidence pertaining to the Immorality Act.’

She turned to the witness. ‘Sergeant, in your five years experience in vice – which means, by the way, things that are wicked, immoral, unjust, such as dealing in drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling, protection rackets and the like – have you done many prosecutions under the Immorality Act?’

‘Yes, many,’ the sergeant said grimly.

‘Indeed, is the Immorality Act the bulk of your job?’ She added kindly: ‘“Bulk” means the greatest part of your job.’

‘Yes, Your Worship,’ the sergeant said to the magistrate.

‘So when you broke into my friend’s apartment –’ she indicated the empty seat beside her – ‘you were using your experienced eye to look for evidence of immorality?’ The witness hesitated, and she snapped: ‘Yes or no?’

‘What’s the purpose of the question, please?’ the public prosecutor asked.

‘The purpose is to establish whether or not the witness was eagerly looking for evidence of immorality,’ Patti Gandhi said.

‘Very well,’ the magistrate said wearily.

Patti turned back to the sergeant. ‘You were looking for evidence of immorality, weren’t you?’

‘Correct, Your Worship,’ Sergeant van Rensburg said.

‘And in fact you were very confident of finding such evidence – otherwise you would not have taken the risk of damaging my absent co-accused’s door.’

The sergeant said: ‘Yes, I was confident, Your Worship.’

Patti Gandhi cried: ‘So confident that you were prejudiced!’

The sergeant said uncomfortably: ‘No, I was not prejudiced.’

‘No? You weren’t convinced you were right? Then why did you smash a citizen’s door down?’

The sergeant said gruffly: ‘Yes, I was convinced.’

‘Aha! You were convinced you’d find evidence of immorality within. And therefore, Sergeant, your expert, five-year-experienced eye was prejudiced by your conviction that you would find steamy evidence of immorality.’

‘I was not prejudiced …’

Patti started to argue but the magistrate said, ‘You’ve made your point, Miss Gandhi, now please proceed to your next question.’

Patti Gandhi said sweetly: ‘So, therefore, Sergeant, it is very appropriate – very relevant – to ask you what your definition of immorality is. To define to us exactly what you were looking for.’

‘Objection, Your Worship,’ the prosecutor said. ‘Argumentative.’

The magistrate sighed. ‘No, Mr Prosecutor, Miss Gandhi has squeezed the question in legitimately. Her question is: What was the witness looking for and what was going on in his mind? That’s relevant.’

Patti turned back to the witness. ‘So, what is immorality?’

‘Sexual intercourse.’

Patti’s finger shot up. ‘Ah! So sexual intercourse is immoral!’ She turned to the magistrate. ‘And he was so convinced it was taking place that he smashed a door down! If that isn’t a prejudiced witness, what is, Your Worship?’

The magistrate managed a smile. ‘Continue, Miss Gandhi.’

Patti glared at the witness. ‘And what exactly did your prejudiced eyes see, Sergeant? First you saw my friend in his underpants, looking frightened, agitated.’

‘Correct.’

‘Wouldn’t you expect anybody to be frightened if someone breaks into his house at midnight? And then you looked into the bedroom. But you did not see me in there, did you?’

‘No, you were in the bathroom.’

‘Correct. You opened the bathroom door – which is down the passage – and saw me there. With a towel wrapped around my chest?’

‘Correct.’

‘Looking frightened, too, you said. Wouldn’t you expect any woman to be frightened – horrified – when a strange, nasty man bursts in when she’s naked, about to shower.’

‘You weren’t about to shower,’ the sergeant said wearily.

‘How do you know?’

The sergeant muttered: ‘It’s obvious.’

‘Oh, obvious? And you say you weren’t prejudiced? But the bathroom is an obvious place to shower? And isn’t naked the obvious way to shower?’

The sergeant sighed. ‘Of course, but …’

‘Thank you. And on the bathroom floor were my clothes, you said. Isn’t that the obvious place you’d expect to find them, as I was showering in somebody else’s house?’

‘No, you could have undressed in the bedroom, grabbed your clothes and run into the bathroom when you heard me coming.’

‘I see … But did you see me do that?’

‘No, I told you what I saw.’

‘But you presume I did that?’

‘That’s for the magistrate to decide, not me,’ Sergeant van Rensburg muttered.

‘Thank goodness for that! Now, turning to the bedroom: you say the bed was unmade, as if somebody had recently slept in it? Did my absent co-accused have a servant who makes his bed?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So the bed could have been unmade like that for days. So why do you say it had been “recently” slept in?’

‘Because,’ the sergeant said triumphantly, ‘the bed was warm.’

‘Ah, yes, so you said. Warm? You used a thermometer, of course?’

‘No,’ the sergeant sighed, ‘I felt it with my hand.’

‘Oh, yes, your hand. I suppose your five years’ experience in vice has made your hand a reliable thermometer?’

‘The bed was warm, Your Worship,’ the sergeant insisted.

‘How warm, Sergeant?’

‘It was warm – it was obvious people had been lying in it.’

‘Obvious? People? Not just one person? It was obvious the temperature was caused by two or more human beings?’

The sergeant sighed. ‘The point is it was warm. And there were two people in the apartment.’

‘And two people will always jump into the same bed? Two people couldn’t possibly be in the presence of one bed without feeling irresistibly compelled to jump into it? Is that your experience?’

The sergeant sighed again. ‘I’m just telling the magistrate what I saw.’

‘And felt. With your experienced hand. So tell me, what was the temperature of the bed – in Fahrenheit. Or Centigrade.’

The sergeant muttered: ‘I don’t know. Just warm.’

‘I see. Hold your hand up in the air, please, Sergeant.’

The sergeant did so, grimly.

‘What is the temperature of the air in this courtroom?’

‘I don’t know, Your Worship,’ he sighed. ‘It’s normal.’

‘Normal for what? For Africa in general? Johannesburg in particular, six thousand feet above sea level? What is normal?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know! And what is the normal temperature of a bed that has just been vacated?’

‘I don’t know.’

In those days Drum had its premises in a rundown building called Samkay House, Troy Street, in downtown Johannesburg. It was a small outfit, with sales of only 80,000 copies per month, but over a million blacks read it. There was also a Rhodesia Drum and a Kenya Drum and the publisher intended to publish from Cape to Cairo in the fullness of time. Drum was also strong on black culture, all aspects of black urban life: Sophiatown had been the most dramatic manifestation of that urbanization, but Sophiatown had been razed to the ground and now Soweto was Drum’s new focus. Drum’s treatment was very American in style, heavy on American movies, cars, clothes, music and rising stars like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. In those days the ANC and PAC imagined that the repressions of apartheid would make their causes bloom into open rebellion, but the government clampdown on all dissent in pursuit of its dream state was so effective that Drum was the only mouthpiece the blacks had, and they loved it. In short, Drum owed its success to apartheid.

But Drum was careful. The basic, day-to-day enemy was the Police Censorship Department, the Subversive Publications Act as supported by the Suppression of Communism Act, but the editor managed to steer a precarious course through this maze of legislation. Nonetheless, every Drum writer – and many from the other newspapers – had received an ‘invitation to tea’ with BOSS, the Bureau of State Security, a branch of the South African Police. It was the week after Mahoney’s story of Patti Gandhi’s acquittal was published that he received his invitation.

BOSS had its offices on the eleventh floor of Marshall Square Police Station, in the heart of Johannesburg. You were escorted into the building, and you rode up in a special elevator with only one button. You passed through a security gate, walked down a row of offices to the big one, and there was Colonel Krombrink, his hand extended and a smile all over his Afrikaner face.

‘Mr Mahoney, thank you for coming to see us …’

‘Us’ included a young man in plain clothes at the window, smiling faintly, holding a fat file conspicuously marked Luke Mahoney, which he now carefully placed before Colonel Krombrink. Tea was served on a tray by a black constable, with a saucer of Marie biscuits.

After the niceties, Colonel Krombrink said: ‘Mr Mahoney, every man is entitled to his opinions, hey, provided he doesn’t commit subversion, but tell me, have you read the Communist Manifesto, and Karl Marx’s Das Kapital?’

Mahoney had: it was in his father’s library. But now Das Kapital was a banned book. ‘No.’

‘No? That’s interesting, because it strikes us here in BOSS that so many of you English journalists have had a grounding in communism, hey. Particularly you people in Drum. Nothing wrong, I suppose, with an intellectual inquiry, hey, provided you don’t write about it, indirectly encourage it. Anyway, it’s nice to chat about these things, us intellectuals.’ He waved his hand at his bookcase behind him. ‘I’ve studied just about every book that’s ever been written on communism, hey. It’s my business. So I’m very interested to hear what you have to say, Mr Mahoney. About our Suppression of Communism Act.’

Mahoney’s heart was knocking. He said: ‘I don’t believe in communism, Colonel Krombrink. For what my youthful opinion is worth, I think it is doomed because it must, by definition, be repressive, imposing a one-party state on the populace. And secondly, by definition, it must also suppress the most valuable resource a nation has, namely human initiative. Ambition. The work ethic. The determination to prosper.’

Colonel Krombrink smiled. ‘What big words for such a young man. But, of course, you are a journalist. And your father –’ he indicated the file – ‘is a Member of Parliament, an “independent”. And he is always proposing his votes of no confidence in the government, hey, so I suppose he taught you a lot of big words too.’ He smiled. ‘Tell me, Mr Mahoney, why don’t you have confidence in our government?’

Oh Jesus, he wanted to get out of here. ‘Because I think apartheid is also doomed to failure. Unworkable. And unjust.’

‘Ah. But you say you’re not a communist? Tell me, was – or is – Lisa Rousseau a communist?’

Mahoney was taken aback. Lisa – they knew about her? ‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Perhaps your knowledge of her was only carnal? Oh yes, she’s a communist. Do you know where she is now?’

A communist?! ‘At the University of Cape Town, doing her doctorate.’

‘She’s in a house in Cape Town, doing her doctorate. She’s been banned.’ Mahoney stared. Lisa banned? Oh God, how awful!

‘It’s a terrible business being a banned person, hey, Mr Mahoney. Imagine, she’s not allowed to be in the presence of more than three people, she’s not allowed to make any speeches, or write anything for publication, she can’t play sport, she must be in her house from five in the afternoon to eight next morning. For three years. That’s a hell of a way to live, hey? It would be a pity if it happened to you. But it’s necessary in her case.’

Mahoney’s pulse tripped at the threat. ‘Why was it necessary?’

‘That’s our business. But you know she’s a member of the ANC. And now the ANC is a banned organization, after Sharpeville.’

‘I didn’t know she was a member. But being a member of the ANC doesn’t make her a communist.’

‘No? Have you read the so-called Freedom Charter of the ANC?’

‘Of course.’

“‘Of course”?’ Krombrink smiled. ‘Yes, journalists love to read things like the Freedom Charter, hey. Well, the so-called Freedom Charter says, amongst other things, that the land, and the mines, banks, life insurance companies, industry, big business, they all belong to the people and will be nationalised. What’s that if it’s not communism, hey?’

Mahoney took a deep, tense breath. Oh, he wanted this over. ‘But I think somebody like Lisa Rousseau can be a member of the ANC without supporting all its economic principles.’

‘You think so? Are you a secret member of the ANC, Mr Mahoney?’

‘No.’ Thank God he could truthfully say that. They could have no evidence to gainsay that.

‘Are you an ANC sympathiser?’

Mahoney mentally closed his eyes. And, oh God, he hated himself for being frightened of the bastards. ‘No’ would have been untrue. So would ‘Yes’. ‘Partly’ would open a Pandora’s box. ‘No.’

‘Then why – ’ Krombrink opened the file – ‘do you write nonsense like this, hey?’ He tossed onto the desk the glossy pages of Mahoney’s story in Drum about the Sharpeville massacre.

Mahoney looked at him grimly. ‘It’s news.’

‘News? It’s your opinion.’ Krombrink frowned at him. ‘You’re nineteen years old and your opinion is published across the land for all these stupid blacks to take as gospel. I ask you, is that reasonable? Would any other civilized country put up with that?’

It was Mahoney’s instinct to retort that the Pass Laws were not reasonable, that South Africa did not have a civilized government. ‘It was also my editor’s opinion – he made the decision to publish. It was also the opinion of the international press.’

Krombrink sat back in his chair and tapped the printed pages. ‘Mr Mahoney, you call the Pass Laws unjust. Unfair. Cruel. And you praise the defiance campaign, which resulted in all these people dying, hey.’ He shook his head. ‘Mr Mahoney, do you realize what would happen to this country if we didn’t have Pass Laws? Can’t you imagine the chaos? The millions of blacks streaming out of their homelands to look for work? Millions of blacks roaming our streets, knocking on doors – sleeping in the streets. Can’t you imagine the shanty towns? The squalor, the disease, the crime … Got, man, it would be chaotic! It would be asking for trouble. And so unhealthy. And for every job there would be a hundred blacks queuing up, hey – is that fair to them? They’ll be so desperate for jobs every Jew-boy will be screwing them for cheap labour, hey? And can you imagine the security problem?’ He shook his head. ‘Got, man, surely you can see that the Pass Laws are absolutely necessary for good government?’

Good government? Mahoney wanted to ask whether Job Reservation was also good government, but, oh God, what Krombrink said was also true – social chaos would ensue if the millions of blacks descended on the cities. Before he could muster a comment Krombrink tossed another pile of print on the desktop.

‘And if you’re not ANC, why do you write crap like this, man?’

It was his story of Patti Gandhi’s trial.

Mahoney stared at the top page: it was dominated by a photograph of Patti, looking like a million bucks, the breeze blowing her long black hair, descending the steps of the Magistrates’ Court, a smile all over her beautiful face. ‘What’s wrong with that story, Colonel Krombrink?’

The good colonel sat forward. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ He frowned in wonder. ‘Got, man, Mr Mahoney, I admit she is a good-looking girl, hey – you get some okay-looking Indian girls, I admit. Even some Coloured girls. But Got, man, that isn’t the point, hey.’ He frowned. ‘The point is we must have order. And the white man in Africa represents order. It’s all in the Bible, man. And therefore the white man must keep himself pure, hey. Can you imagine what a tragedy if the white man went kaffir, like in Brazil. Look what a mess South America is.’ He frowned again. ‘Mr Mahoney, does the sparrow mate with the swallow? Does a goose mate with a duck? Does a cow mate with a kudu?’ He shook his head, eyes big. ‘No, man – the sparrow sticks to other sparrows, the cow sticks to ordinary bulls. Why? Because it’s the natural law, man! God’s law!’ He stared, then raised his finger. ‘An’ what’s the only exception – the horse! The horse will mate with the donkey, hey. And what is the result?’ He looked at Mahoney sadly. ‘The mule. An’ we all know what a stupid animal the mule is! It can’t even breed.’ He shook his head. ‘The human being is as randy as hell, hey. An’ what’s the result? The result is Coloureds, Mr Mahoney – brown people who are neither one thing nor the other. Half-castes! Neither black nor white!’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘And Got, man, we know what a problem those bastards are: drunks, liars, crooks, prostitutes …’ He frowned at him, then jabbed a finger. ‘You know: you’ve been on the whaling ships with them.’

‘And most of them are perfectly ordinary people.’

‘“Most” of them! Ja – and the rest? Skollies. Hottentots. Troublemakers! Neither one thing nor the other! Don’t know where they fit in!’ He shook his head, then leant forward again. ‘Mr Mahoney, surely you can see that Nature did not intend that. Surely you can see that that is not God’s law. God’s law is pure. Sensible. Obvious.’ He held up a finger. ‘It’s all in the Bible, Mr Mahoney. God said unto Moses when he led them out of Egypt, “Thou shalt not let the seed of Israel mingle with the Canaanites”!’