Old Comrade Crafts a Fine Memory of Our Past

Old comrade crafts a fine memory of our past Memory against Forgetting: Memoirs Now he re-visits us, ever the ana Govan Mbeki and others, stood ac from a Life in South African Politics lyst, theoretician, activist, the stimu cused at the Rivonia Trial. Following 1938-1964 lating and helpful companion. Again the petty-minded and vindictive fic by Rusty Bernstein (Viking) R128 he fires my insurrectionary imagi tions presented by the prosecution, nation, as, surely, he will ignite those he alone among his comrades was Review: Alan Lipman who treat themselves to this quietly acquitted. Isolated and depressed he didactic book. bowed to the now urgent need for es Among the facets of a sustained cape into exile with his family. his is a finely crafted vol political life which Bernstein illumi If there is a need for the feminist ume: the lucid, analytic nates, the most constant is his contention that “the personal is po record of someone who propensity for incisive analysis, for litical” to be affirmed, this book does was engaged, who was em epitom ising EM Forster’s memo so. Despite the author’s reticence beddedT in the politics of South rable invitation, “only connect”. about such matters, one is reminded African resistance from the late- This is a pervasive thread, repeatedly, and always poignantly, of 1930s to the 1960s. If on entering a through events leading to and sur the effects of his wife’s and his en new century, you wish to touch the rounding the post-1948 Votes for All forced separations from their four core of those momentous decades, assembly and the Suppression of children, from each other. get this book, devour it. Communism Act of 1950, the Con There are constant calls on neigh Be prepared, though, to be de gress of the People and proclama bours to care for the children after voured by your growing insight into tion of the Freedom Charter in June late-night arrests, there is the bewil spirited mass opposition to the 1955, the Sharpeville massacre of derment of little ones witnessing the dying years of Smutsian post March 21 1960 and the subsequent forcible removal of parents from colonialism as well as the initial state of emergency. home, there are necessary secrets forays of National Party bigotry, Throughout these and the many between spouses. There are the con corruption and brutality. similarly significant episodes in stant disjunctions imposed on daily Whether or not you lived through which he participated, often central life by a viciously vengeful police that agitated period, whether you ly, Bernstein searches unceasingly state, not least of which was the de share Bernstein’s resolutely left- for connections, for broad explanato moralising difficulties of earning wing perspective or not, you will ry contexts. Perhaps the most im money during wilfully prolonged tri find his recollections as gripping as pressive of these is the complex of als. spells in prison and 90 punishing they are historically informative, as inter-related events assembled in his days of solitary confinement. forthright as they are revealing, as chapter To Put Up or Shut Up, in his Intentionally or otherwise, Bern scholarly as they are readily accessi depiction of how, in 1960-61, the ANC stein provides a template against ble. You w'ill be introduced to the and other organisations came to which to gauge many taken-for- troubled times of a remarkable cou abandon their long-standing princi granted truths. Were, for instance, ple, comrades Rusty and Hilda Bern ple of non-violent opposition. Here trade unionists in the hands of stein: the latter, a woman whose he juxtaposes such seemingly dis bloody-minded agitators intent pri analogous dedication and achieve parate issues as the then astonishing marily on despoiling the country’s ments also warrant full attention. rift in Russo-Chinese relations, economy? Was the ANC led by a For me the term “comrade" has Chief Albert Luthuli’s Nobel Peace cabal seeking principally to sup long had, still has, revolutionary Prize, the government’s referendum plant its fellow white citizens: worse, connotations. for withdrawal from the Common to banish or murder them? Did the To address another or be greeted wealth and the abortive strike called Communist Party advocate gory rev in this manner is to express individ in protest by the disenfranchised olution, a national bloodbath? Were ual and social solidarity in a poten black resistance movement. members of these and cognate or tially worldwide, historically rooted Taken together, the ramifications ganisations naive dupes, ignorant striving to shift humankind from ex of these are teased out to disclose natives all too ready to be manipu ploitative injustice and cruelty to co subtle interdependencies, to high lated by demagogic ogres? operative fellowship, to humane so light changes in political, social and The testimony of this book gives cial relationships. Though I later economic contexts that call for no credence to these raw carica wandered down more libertarian major shifts of policy. In this in tures, nor to the marginally less ways than he, in my mind’s eye Com stance, those shifts focus on the crass beliefs often associated with rade Rusty has, over some 50 years, pressing necessity for meeting bru them. Quite the contrary. Bern been a frequent exemplar: since we tal force with force. Initially that was stein’s pages are peopled with dedi met as ex-servicemen after the sec "interpreted to mean widespread sab cated democrats; activists with in ond world war, since 1 worked in his otage: acts that do not imperil formed social visions that they draughting office as a student archi human life. Umkhonto weSizwe was tested and re-assessed in what he tect, since we were briefly together born. Increasing state repression led terms their “tradition of consulta in an underground Communist to less and less fastidious action. tion and majority consent”. Party group, during our years of Shortly afterwards, the author, That, then, is what Comrade mutual exile abroad. with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Rusty has been up to of late - 2 7 - 6 - -=7^7 - ' Bernstein’s memoirs: a finely crafted record P h o t o g r a p h : J o h n H o g g shoring up memory against casual records. How. over the years he cov world war, the credibility of women as well as consciously suppressed ers, did otherwise humane, percep and men who were manifestly forgetfulness. For this, much thanks. tive comrades come so persistently committed to unearthing the I There are, though, areas which to defend the patently indefensible, realities that underpinned their and | are not enlightened by his strobe the corrupt, murderous history of our alienated world. like focus. None more than the dam socialist construction? It was used to devalue the goals | aging distortion of socialist theory This is no abstract matter. It af and efforts of too many thoughtful, and action that the German analyst fected the crippling ideological courageous people. It cries for thor Rudolf Bahro was later to depict as schisms and day:to-day practices ough analytic attention. "actually existing socialism”. An ab that weakened the political left, the sent but always pressing question public isolation of that left before, • Alan Lipman is The Sunday Inde- | hangs over much that Bernstein after and even during the second pendent's architecture critic ment, imprisonment, persecu Tanzania for the ideological Memory Against Forgetting tion, a hair-raising escape from training of new young recruits by Rusty Bernstein South Africa and a virtual life in MK. I time of exile. Bernstein him He pays due tribute to his fel self was charged in both the REVIEWED BY JOE PODBBEY ments about Zionism and the rationalisation. He was dedi low warriors against apartheid, Treason Trial and the Rivonia need to support Israel among cated to the Communist Party such as Braam Fischer, Walter Trial; in both instances he was t can be argued that his Jewish associates, but that and, in turn, the African Sisulu, Yusuf Dadoo, Dennis acquitted after years of Rusty (Lionel) Bernstein is as far as it goes. His fervour National Congress. Goldberg and in particular his anguish. became a Communist is entirely for South Africa. In the South Africa of old, wife Hilda, who was such a Iand an ANC adherent be such a political animal was prominent figure on the South cause, like Joe SIovo, Ronnie unusual. He was prepared to Paying tribute African political scene. Kasrils and others, his In old South forgo the blessings of being an In his foreword to the Jewish background inspired endowed white man to whom to his fellow book, well-known journalist him to detest racial oppres Africa such a all the doors of privilege were and biographer Anthony sion and to ally himself to the political animal open. Ultimately, he did so. warriors Sampson, heaps praise on the victims of an unjust society. Memory Against Forget Bernsteins and goes on to say: This may well be so, but was unusual ting is a powerful narrative of The book is a touchingly “This book convincingly there is no such acknowledge a man devoted to a struggle honest autobiography. It describes how their humanity ment in his newly-released As it happens, Bernstein’s against oppression, injustice depicts his life from childhood and sense of outrage drew autobiography. particular bete-noir would and what he perceived to be to political awareness, includ them into a movement which By his own account, he appear to be Percy Yutar, a Jew the menace of capitalism, in ing a stint in the army during would soon require extraordi drifted naturally into left-wing who served the apartheid gov the quest for a society based the war, ajid follows his devel nary courage and self-sacri politics and what he terms ernment slavishly by prosecut on the Marxist principles of opment as an activist for a fice, with no prospect of mate “scientific socialism”.

Load more