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Father Michael Lapsley: What Apartheid Has Done to All of US, Black and White Father Michael Lapsley: What Apartheid Has Done to All of US, Black and White http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.acoa000756 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Father Michael Lapsley: What Apartheid Has Done to All of US, Black and White Author/Creator Lapsley, Michael Contributor Mhlambiso, Thami Publisher American Committee on Africa Date 1991 Resource type Interviews Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa, United States Coverage (temporal) 1976 - 1991 Source Africa Action Archive Rights By kind permission of Africa Action, incorporating the American Committee on Africa, The Africa Fund, and the Africa Policy Information Center. Description Apartheid. Thami Mhlambiso. President De Klerk. Violence. Sanctions. Format extent 4 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.acoa000756 http://www.aluka.org Father Michael Lapsley: Father Michael Lapsley: What Apartheid Has Done To All Of Us, Black and White 4. Just two days before African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela sat down for his first round of talks with South African President F. W. De Klerk in May 1990, Father Michael Lapsley received a parcel bomb planted in a religious magazine. That bomb blew away both of his hands, one eye, and shattered his ear drums. That sophisticated device of death carries the almost certain hallmark of the South African regime. Father Michael Lapsley, an Anglican priest and prominent anti-apartheid activist for over 15 years, was put on a state assassination list and made the target of this bomb simply because he was speaking the truth about apartheid. His personal story is one of struggle against apartheid and a continuing faith witness for justice in Southern Africa. In October 1991 Father Lapsley toured the U.S. to tell his story. Standing before religious audiences, with both of his hands now replaced by hooks, Father Lapsley 's shattering experience is a compelling sign that apartheid has not ended. While he was in New York, Father Lapsley was interviewed by Thami Mhlambiso of United Nations Radio. We print below excerpts from that interview. Thami Mhlambiso: Tell us of your pastoral work in South Africa which I assume brought you into conflict with the law. Michael Lapsley: I was a university student at the University of Natal in Durban in the mid seventies and at the same time I was chaplain to two Black university campuses and one white university campus. In 1976, I was the national chaplain for Anglican students when Black school children were shot in the streets of South Africa, and I spoke out against the killing of children. Shortly after that I was expelled from South Africa. When I lived in South Africa I was a pacifist, so I used to say to young Black students:"You should not use guns to achieve your rights." That was acceptable within the law in South Africa. And I came to see that pacifism in South Africa, according to the State, was supposed to be for Blacks. But of course when the white state used and uses violence against the people they call it law and order. Thami Mhlambiso: So what is the situation today? We hear talk of government reforms, initiatives by the government of De Klerk. What is the situation in South Africa today? Michael Lapsley: Well, I was back in South Africa for the first time in fifteen years July of this year. I was able to be there because I was given indemnity. In a strange kind of way they had forgiven me for their sins. And I asked the question, "Who will forgive them for their sins?" I saw that many of the laws which apartheid was built upon like the Land Act, reserving 87% of the land to five million whites, had been removed. The Group Areas Act that had divided the suburbs was removed. Acts like defining people at birth according to race had changed. These are very significant changes, but I also came to see that those laws were a mechanism to shape and create a certain society, a monstrous society. And when you remove the legislation the society that you have created remains in place. I also traveled in the Transvaal, the Cape, Natal and to squatter camps. I saw people living under a piece of tin, under a piece of cardboard, and there are millions, a greater number than the entire white population. I saw that for those people they remain jobless, homeless, landless and most importantly voteless. I think that the world has to be clear that in South Africa today people yet do not have the vote. We cannot say that apartheid has ended when the majority of the people remain voteless in the land of their birth. It is important for the world to keep the pressure of sanctions up until we have indeed achieved a democratic society. But I also think it is important to say to Western nations, all of whom have benefited from apartheid, that when we do have a democratic society, when we do have a one person, one vote then it will be a great moral responsibility for Western nations to be part of rebuilding South Africa. It will be meaningless to have Nelson Mandela as our president if the lives of the majority of our people do not change. And the people who have benefited from that system have a moral responsibility to help us in rebuilding our country for the interests of all the people of South Africa. Father Michael Lapsley with RAN Coordinator, Aleah Bacquie. Thami Mhlambiso: Now from your observation, is the atmosphere conducive to free political activity in South Africa? Michael Lapsley: My impression in South Africa firstly is that President De Klerk and his government are much cleverer than they are good. They have successfully hoodwinked large parts of the world by having an open policy of moving towards negotiations and at the same time a secret policy of funding death and organizing death squads and pretending to the world that this was what was called black-on- black factional tribal violence. What we have actually seen is the violence of the state continuing to be unleashed on the people of South Africa. And in a sense what they have done is fed the racism in white western culture to make the people believe that this has nothing to do with the state. The way President De Klerk is operating we can see he is an enlightened racist, but nevertheless he is a racist because he struggles for the interests of white people not for the interests of all South Africans. So this ongoing violence of the state against the people does not create a good climate for negotiations; it creates a climate of fear. And it is difficult for people to conduct normal political activity. But I think it illustrates how urgent it is that we get to all party negotiations and that we have an interim government. President De Klerk has illustrated by his two track policy of talking and at the same time of funding and organizing death against the people that he cannot be trusted. So we need an interim arrangement, a transitional government representing all political parties that will preside over the process of negotiations. I don't think there will be peace in South Africa until we have a legitimate government and the army and the police begin to be, for the first time in the history of South Africa, the protectors of the people of South Africa rather than the historical oppressors which they remain up until this time. Thami Mhlambiso: Some have said that it might take at least fifteen to twenty years for people to overcome apartheid and have it lifted from their minds, especially the whites of South Africa. Michael Lapsley: I believe myself that we could have a democratic constitution in three years. That would take us to base one of what it means to be accepted as a civilized nation. I think it will take us a hundred years to create a truly human society in South and southern Africa to deal with those structures of evil that have permeated our lives, and to deal with the heads and hearts of all of us Black and white. Apartheid has dehumanized us; it has appealed to the basest aspects of ourselves as human beings. We have to work on those structures; we have to deal with what is in the heads and hearts of all of us. It is a deep and a long process, because when you have removed the structures of racism you have not necessarily removed it from the heads and hearts of human beings, nor what it has done to whites in terms of them thinking themselves superior, or what it has done to Black people with continuous messages that they are inferior.
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