Ethical Record

The ISSN 0014-1690 Ethical Record

Vol. 95 NO. 7 JULY/AUGUST 1990 Editorial Clearly, in the age of perestroika, Gorbachev and (possibly) Yeltsin, little is PERSPECTIVES ON THE SOVIET to be learnt from those left-wing intellec- UNION AND BRITAIN tuals in the West who cling to interpretations of Soviet history which are THE "VIEWPOINTS" SECTION in list now being abandoned by many leading month's edition of The Record was brief Soviet minds. A full appreciation of the but stimulating. S. E. Parker's comments changes currently taking place in the on the history of the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union, and the Eastern bloc in inter-war years, and Julian Ross's cri- general, depends on our being as ready to ticism of the hereditary principle as it reject outmoded orthodoxies as are the relates to the Monarchy and the House of people .who are bringing these changes Lords, imply two very important lines about. . of thought From alterations in Soviet society to Parker, writing about Stuart Munro's those in British: Julian Ross's opposition recent talk at South Place on Ralph Fox, to the hereditary principle was expressed rightly criticises the naive view of Stalin in connection with Martin Green's arti- held by Fox and endorsed by Munro. cle "Towards a Republic" in the April This naivety was shared by several of issue of The Record. Ross is certainly Fox's contemporaries, including such right in arguing that Republicanism, eminent figures as the Webbs and H. G. which is antithetical to the hereditary Wells. It is, unfortunately, still found principle in political life, should be part today, despite the adverse comments on of any radical programme in British Stalin which have emerged from within politics. South Place is making a con- the Soviet Union itself (explicitly by tribution in that it has been providing a Khrushchev in 1956, implicitly by Gor- forum for Republican thought; in addi- bachev since 1985) as well as from the tion to Martin Green's talk, we have had detailed analyses of historians in the lectures on Tom Paine and Richard Lee. West Munro's belief in the still-surviving Hopefully, this provision will continue. myth that the Soviet Union rescued A Republican system, if it ever is Europe during World War II is cogently established, will not of course bring - attacked by Parker when he draws atten- Utopie, but it will remove a large amount tion to Stalin's aggression in Eastern of the privilege-based authority which Europe in 1939 (following the non- 'has for so lona gone unquestioned aggression pact with Hitler) and to his in this country. British society is still too refusal to challenge Nazism till the deferential,- still too uncritical of German invasion of 1941. tradition.

CONTENTS Page Coming to Conway Hall . 22 The Unsung Heroes of the First Austrian Republic—Gertrude Elias 3 Moliere: The Throne and the Altar-1. Good . 14 Namibia: Aspects of Democracy—Michael Wolfers 16

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2 Ethical Record. July/August 1990 THE UNSUNG HEROES OF THE FIRST AUSTRIAN REPUBLIC

Text of a Lecture given to SPES on November 12, 1989 -

by GERTRUDE ELIAS

THE FIRST AUSTRIAN REPUBLICwh ich emerged out of the rubble of World War One lasted only 15 years—from November 12, 1918, when the troops—famished and in rags, returned from the battlefields, until March 1933—when the clerical fascists declared martial law and abolished parliamentary democracy— paving the way for the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938 It is naive to assume that the West didn't care for what was happening in Central Europe. They cared very much. That's why the Americans had planted their most promising secret agent Allen Dulles, who later became the head of the CIA, into Vienna during the first world war. British television programmes are the very opposite of well-documented information. Whenever they produce a programme about Austria they concentrate on the days of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, when the autocratic emperor would wave his white-gloved hand to his loyal subjects, and the waltz king Johann Strauss pretended that the Danube is blue. From these good old days we are taken straight to Hitler's "triumphal march into Vienna", unaltered as they found it in the Nazi film archives, and culminating in the horror of the holocaust, because for reasons of their own, they had made Austria the whipping boy for most Nazi crimes. This unsavoury subject must always be dealt with by a rabbi—though most Vien- nese Jews were uncompromising apostates; the post-Hitler era seems to demand it in this way, and so we have to listen to legends about the unalterable forces of history, which have made the Jews, and the Jews only, carry the cross of persecution since the days when the Almighty had evicted Adam and Eve on a trumped up charge from the Garden of Eden. The Austrian labour movement which had fought heroically against fascism since the 'twenties received little credit from emigre writers in post-war literature. Famous Austrian writers like Stefan Zweig or Franz Werfel expressed no sympathy with the workers who had been fighting in the suburbs of Vienna to stop the onslaught of fascism. The very opposite was the wrathful voice of indignation of Karl Kraus, humanist, pacifist, satirist, the true political conscience of the time. An indefatigable fighter against hypocrisy and corruption, he published his own journal Die Fackel (from 1899 until 1935) in which he wrote everything the papers were trying to hush up. My father was born in Vienna in 1870, and was brought up by his widowed mother, a seamstress by trade who sewed up the elaborate underwear worn by the luscious full- bosomed ladies of the Hapsburg Empire. She was a maniac for cleanliness and her service to humanity was to grab unwashed little street urchins, immerse them in an old barrel which had originally served to hold pickled gherkins, scrub and delouse them, give them a chunk of whatever food she had in the house and send them home. Ethical Record, July/August 1990 3 There were many who regarded her as a saint, but others were outraged when she gave in to her innate radicalism and, without authorisation of the family, cut off little girls' locks, when non-violent means to exterminate the vermin seemed to her inadequate. My father started work at 10.delivering rolls for his uncle's bakery at six every morning before going to school. At 18 after finishing grammar school, he won first prize as Austria's fastest shorthand writer, a feat which landed him a job as a stenographer in Parliament, which enabled him to pay his fees at the University to study law. His work in Parliament wasn't time consuming. Sessions were often suspended for weeks to avoid embarrassing debates about such matters as the shooting of striking workers by the army, which happened not infrequently in the eastern provinces of the monarchy. Leaders of the Social Democratic Party were often kept in prison, particularly when an election was to be held. It was a period of violent class struggles against the autocratic regime, which excluded workers, peasants and the middle class from any influence in government. Only in 1907 was general suffrage won by the people (women were still excluded). In 1914 war broke out, and my father was called up for the army. After messing about reluctantly with rifles and bayonets he was transferred to Bratislava, a small gar- rison town on the Danube, where we joined him. It was in the winter of 1916. Crippled soldiers were selling matches on street corners, and women in black veils were walking about like ghosts. Bratislava was typical of the multi-national Hapsburg Empire. The native population were Slovaks who were doing all the menial jobs for the Hungarian landowners and the Jewish corn merchants. Official proclamations were printed in German and Hungarian, but the Slovak language wasn't included, because these people had any- how been kept illiterate. We were billeted into a fascinating old house in the centre of the city where my parents were spending the whole night in fighting bed-bugs, the ubiquitous co- inhabitants of all bedrooms of the Empire, from the lush brothels in Lemberg (now Lvov) to the ominious palace of Sarajevo. The bed-bugs were the real enemies of the people but the fight for public hygiene wasn't rewarded with medals and promotion. There was fierce fighting going on in Galicia (now Poland) where Austrian and Russian soldiers were forced to slaughter one another; the former for the Emperor, the latter for thc Tsar. Galicia was one of Europe's most promising oil producers but the oilfields had already been appropriated by an Anglo-German-American consortium long before the war. Poverty stricken peasants were evicted from the big estates and entire families had to take to the road to make room for the oil prospectors. Sometimes my mother would send me for a walk with Zemka, the daughter of the housekeeper who took me to the gypsies who were camping on the other side of the Danube. Zemka spoke only Slovak which I didn't understand, but I loved her because she was kind and wore a colourful national costume. She was hardly 15, but her hands were already completely sore from doing all the scrubbing and laundry work without the rubber gloves which we use today. There was no ending to toil and drudgery to keep a house clean and nothing but caustic solutions to scrub floors until the skin broke and the wound festered.The lack 4 Ethical Record, July/August 1990 of concern for domestic workers, who were expected to be on duty from six in the morning until ten at night, was criminal. When they complained they were beaten as if they were in a penal colony. During the 1919 revolution in Hungary they fought courageously, and ladies of leisure had for a while to wash themselves the nappies of their offspring. It was towards the end of the war, when my father came home outraged as I had never seen him. "Today they were shooting 15 and 16 year old army recruits on our barrack square, because they were crying for bread. Mere children, shot dead by officers of our own unit in the name of discipline" he burst out. Though there was a strong movement both among the forces and the civilian population for ending the war the butchery paid still dividends. The 1917 revolution in Russia had a stirring effect on the Austrian troops. Entire regiments fraternised with the Russians. Sailors mutinied. Revolutionary soldiers' councils demanded an ending of the war. In January 1918, the metal workers struck for bread and peace, and the police made only weak attempts to bring them back to work. In November 1918 the revolution broke out and the ramshackle Habsburg Empire fell to pieces. The war was over. Huge crowds were marching through the streets sing- ing the Internationale. I still see my father rushing in shirt sleeves in the wintry cold into the streets, determined not to miss a minute of the great event. War profiteers who had enriched themselves stacked their suitcases into their cars and set off for Switzerland as fast as they could. In Vienna there was famine, and more people were to die from undernourishment and the flu than had died in action. 1919 In 1919, while the victorious allies were holding the peace conference in Paris, a revolution in Hungary (junior partner of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy) interrup- ted their deliberations and they decided to dispatch a delegation of five Foreign Office men to Budapest to take things in hand. Led by General Smuts of South Africa, they stopped in Vienna to inspect the famine, itself the result of the blockade which had been organised to contain the revolution in Central Europe. They put up at Sacher's, Vienna's most exclusive hotel, world famous for its(1) cuisine, where they ordered for themselves a sumptuous dinner, unaware of the waiters' good connections with the press. Smuts, having only been used to black illiterate servants, had no first-hand experience of the politically conscious working class in Vienna, and had to admit that the feast was a gross error of taste. Smuts's next step was to organise help for the Hungarian feudalists by marching Romanian troops into Hungary. So, in connivance with the West, the first fascist dictatorship—complete with anti-Jewish legislation—was set up in August 1919. It was the beginning of the "white terror" when officers' commandos unleashed merciless massacres of communists, peasants in revolt and the left-wing intelligentsia. They even assaulted Jews who had been living peacefully for centuries on the Austrian frontier. until the Austrian Republican Defence League made an end to it. Smuts, who had been an ardent Zionist(2) and co-author of the Balfour Declara- tion, was suspected of having advised these measures to induce Jewish immigration to Palestine, where the Arab rebellion against the British was building up. It had no effect. The rich Jews remained the allies of the fascist feudalists: and the left-wing militants went through hell, whatever their background. The real victims were the landless peasants who remained in conditions of semi-serfdom. Ethical Record, July/August 1990 5 In Vienna the famine went on for quite a time. Children were dying like flies. Aus- tria's greatest painter Egon Schiele and his wife Edith died within a few weeks from one another, the victims of undernourishment, and like thousands mown down by the flu. In 1920 came help. Eglantyne Jebb, a British socialist, a Welshwoman to be exact, and Elis Wagner of Sweden organised the "Save the Children Fund" to feed five million starving children all over Europe Thousands were invited tp Sweden, Holland and Norway to recuperate from the consequences of the famine. It was a huge operation, chiefly carried out by socialists and quakers. Remarkably enough, official histories of the period omit these magnificent feats of internation solidarity (Arbeiter Zeitung: Vienna, April 5-29, 1919). I too had been affected by TB of the ear gland which made half of my face swell, and pus ooze from an open sore that didn't heal. My mother took me to an army hospital where wounded soldiers with blood-stained bandages were squatting everywhere. Many nurses were themselves disfigured from another type of TB which ate parts of their face away. They looked like lepers, and likeleprosy it was caused by malnutition which reduces resistance to infection. It was the Most appalling sight and I was afraid I might end like these poor women.. For two years I had my head in bandages and mothers kept their children away from me, afraid they might get infected. Finally in 1920, ultra-violet treatment came into use and my wound healed within a short time. At long last I could start school. The other Children knew one another, while I was a newcomer and for the first time in my life in a crowd of children. A skinny girl sat next to me. During the break she asked me if it was butter or rnarge I had on my bread. "I've never tasted butter" she said "Please let me try yours, just a bit." Reluctantly, afraid I might catch some infection, I agreed. I didn't want to hurt her, I knew what it feels like to be untouchable. "No, it's just marge, like mine" The said disparagingly. But she was satisfied that my father was not a black marketeer ,and we became friends. It was obvious that she was consumptive, and a year later she was dead. The Post-War Years 1922-23 Poverty in Vienna was rampant. The inflation made people with small savings des- titute overnight. Streams of American tourists came to buy up everything: antiques, pictures, jewellery, villas, hotels and entire industries. Industrialists dismantled their factories and sold them to foreigners to prevent the Austrian workers from laying their hands on their property. By 1923, Austria had become a colony of international high finance. People demonstrated against the high cost of living and attacked expensive foodshops which catered only for rich tourists. The people remained passive. "We are tired of shooting at hungry people" said a policeman in Vienna.(3) Not only Britain, but France too had trouble in her colonies, and she invited unemployed ex-servicemen to join the Foreign Legion to help in putting down the rebellion in the Rif in Morocco.(4) My father had set himself up as a poor man's lawyer and his clients were often out of work and out of pocket. In exchange for legal advice they brought us radishes and cucumbers from their allotment. My mother, though she sympathised with his left- wing politics, couldn't reconcile herself to the fact that he would never acquire a clien- tele among the rich who had taken a great dislike to hint. Her ally was my father's brother Uncle Joseph, who was a rent collector and administrator for one of Vienna's biggest brewers, and multiple landlord with 6 Ethical Record, July /August 1990 hundreds of tenants. My father's activities on behalf of the tenants association were a chronic thorn in the thigh of my uncle, and his boss threatened that he would fire him unless he curbed his brother's political activities. My father didn't care two hoots about the brewer who wasn't satisfied with controll- ing the priceOf beer, but even tried to exercise control over the souls of the people who were in his pay and their next of kin. The brewer took a strong view on the "leprosy- of freethinking which had spread alarmingly among the workers. And he knew that nobody in our family had ever visited a church or a synagogue. As a man without pre- judice, he supported both on the ground that, even if one is not a believer onself, one does it to give a good example to others. Although a Jew himself, he put in his lot with the anti-Jewish clerical fascists, always shoulder to shoulder against the working class. Uncle Joseph wasn't bothered by con- flicts of conscience, and to avoid trouble with his boss he would have worshipped anything anywhere. Illusions of Power: the first Welfare State The years 1923-26 witnessed an unprecedented spell of achievement. The socialists were in control of Vienna and of all industrial towns. They built magnificent blocks of flats for workers with swimming pools. creches, libraries, cultural centres and playgrounds. They calculated that socialism would gradually and peacefully conquer the world but they underestimated the anger of the rich, who could not see why they should be taxed to build these "citadels of socialism-, as they referred to the workers' new homcs. The hoardings of Vienna were plastered with political posters dealing with all aspects of the workers' struggle: equal wages for women; free abortion; warnings against alcoholism and calls for solidarity with all the exploited. Vienna had become the paradise of the left-wing poster artist. There was no place in the world where one could better nurse one's illusions that socialism was on its way to victory than in Vienna. Two-thirds of Vienna were members of the Labour Party; 80% of the workers were unionised; all major plants operated a closed shop, controlled by shop stewards. Visitors from all over the world—including the Duke of Windsor—came to admire the miracles of Vienna. Only some warned that, as long as we hadn't defeated the enemy, all was built on sand. July 1927 With the economy on the way to recovery we were taught to believe that we could expect a period of calm. But surrounded by fascist dictatorships (Hungary, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania) things didn't look as good as the posters on the hoardings with the caption "Austria will remain an island of freedom in a sea of fasci sm" were promising. And yet, the workers were hopeful. They felt protected by the Republican Defence League, and the rifles they had saved from the lastwar. Alas, they were not the masters in their own house. The banks, the judiciary, and defence was in the hands of the opposition. Attacks on workers had actually started in 1919, when the police fired at a demonstration killing 17 people. Between 1923 and 1925 five left-wing activists were assassinated by fascist thugs, who were never tried.. The socialist leaders made noisy speeches in parliament. Soon they were referred to as "sheep in wolves clothing." Ethical Record, July/August 1990 7 In July 1927, an attack on the workers, unprecedented in violence since the days of the monarchy, was unleashed by the police and the judiciary. It started in January, when during a peace march in a small village, the marchers were passing a building which belonged to a reactionary ex-servicemen organisation, who were firing from a window at the demonstrators, killing a crippled war veteran and the nine-year-old son of a railway worker. The workers were outraged, and on the day of the funeral which was attended by thousands, they downed tools for a quarter of an hour. In July the hearing took place in a packed courtroom in Vienna. The jury acquitted the two fascist assassins. Within a few hours shop stewards all over the country organised protest meetings against the infamy of such class justice. The power workers decided to turn off the electricity for telegram and telephone lines next morning. A delegation of workers called at the head offices of the Arbeiter Zeitung (the organ of the SD party) demanding that the paper call instantly for a demonstration. The editors remained however evasive and said they had to consult with the party leaders. The demonstration ought to have had the protection of the Republican Defence League (RDL) which was an arm of the labour movement specifically created for such pur- poses. But the head of the RDL failed to comply, and instead informed the head of the Political Police, a social democratC.) to prepare for action. Without the support of the party leadership the workers decided for a peaceful march to the Law Courts when they were suddenly attacked by mounted police with sabres. Within minutes the pavement was covered with blood. The workers could only defend themselves with bricks and wooden sticks from a nearby building site, but the police opened fire with dum-dum guns which had been issued for the occasion. Exasperated, the workers tried to storm the Law Courts, but police had already taken up position inside the building. The workers then began climbing up the building throwing burning paper through the windows. The police inside the building were terrified and, discarding their uniforms, ran into the street to save their own lives. All escaped unharmed. Many were even saved by workers who felt the police were just men working for their living. More and more demonstrators arrived outside the Law Courts. waiting in vain for the Republican Defence League to come to their aid. Instead more and more police on horseback rode into the crowd who were trying to escape as fast at they could, with the police hot at their heels firing at them from the back, killing 90 men, women and children, and wounding more that 600. The culprit was not merely the fascist Presi- dent of the Police Dr Schober who had ordered the police to fire, but the SD leaders who made no provision to prevent the massacre. At the SD Party Congress in the autumn of 1927, the leadership got away with their blatant betrayal of the workers, and only a handful protested, arguing that according to the party programme "the workers had the right to meet force with force".These dis- senters, which included Max Adler, the father of "Austro-Marxism" and theoretician of the party, were ostracised by the unrepentent party bosses. After this tragic event the SD Party became more and more split into the leadership and the rank and file, who felt they had to rely on themselves in future. Ironically enough, Dr Pollak, a social democrat and head of the Political Police, was decorated for his services by the arch-reactionary near-Nazi Police President Dr Schober. 8 Ethical Record. July/August 1990 The Big Crash: October 1929 1929 was an ominous year. A turning point of events far afield. Not only had there been another fascist attack on the miners of Styria, with people killed and wounded, and the government refusing to confiscate the weapons of the assassins, but something far worse had happened which was the first sign of the approaching crisis of the 'thirties. It was the big Wall Street crash with its chain reaction all over the world. It exposed the interlocking of US capitalism with the economic systems of all countries. Austria's biggest bank crashed and had to be taken over by the international Rothschild group. Germany was equally affected by the withdrawal of all short-term American loans on which her post-war prosperity had been floated. The ensuing depression brought entire industries to a standstill. Unemployment soared. Hundreds committed suicide. Mass unemployment was, above all, the poisonous soil on which Nazism fed. It may even have deliberately been organised for this purpose. Political charlatans, sooth-sayers and psychologists made headlines. The Viennese psychologist Alfred Adler coined the term "inferiority complex" as if it were something born with us, not a reaction to a man-made calamity. Freud speculated on "the death wish" and analysed the dreams of wealthy American neurotics who were flocking to Vienna, where they could live practically for nothing. In Austria the unemployed received dole-money for a limited period; after that they had the choice to let their families starve or join the Heimwehr, the private army of Prince Starhemberg, the leader of the clerical fascists and owner of 13castles. He paid the men 50 pence marching money per day and hot sausages and free beer. Their main job was to harass the labour movement by provoking incidents, working into the hands of the police. But 1929 was also the year when the budding Nazi movement was receiving enormous funds to finance their campaign(6). They printed newspapers, posters, handbills galore to indoctrinate the people. Hitler acquired a fleet of modern cars and moved into a luxurious apartment in Munich. The Storm Troopers (SA) were equipped with smart brown shirts and boots (made from American leather) to kick people. In due course they were also supplied with explosives to terrorise their way to power. But the Austrian workers had no intention to join the mercenary gangs of fascist leaders, nor were they recipients of donations from the Holy See. They were determined to fight for their right to work, and in mid-January 1933,two weeks before Hitler was made Chancellor in Germany, hundreds of thousands from all industrial districts in Austria, came marching on Vienna with banners "against Hitler and Hunger". This was not the idea of the Social Democratic Leadership but of the foundry workers in Styria, led by the heroic anti-fascist Mayor of Bruck, Koloman Wallisch. The march appeared like a socialist victory parade. A year earlier, Wallisch had Made a name for himself when he forced an unwilling government to suppress a fascist coup in Styria, the centre or heavy industry. He had been notified that some 40 truck loads of arms had illegally been sent to Austria from Italy to supply the Austrian fascists with arms. The delivery of munitions contravened the peace treaty and was therefore labelled "scrap iron" and addressed to Fritz Mandl, Austria's munitiOns king and friend of Mussolini. Ethical Record, July/August 1990 9 Mandl tried to bribe the leader of the railwaymen's union Herr Koenig to let the arms reach their destination, but Koenig refused to play. The fascists had to take the trucks by force, grabbing the arms which had in all events been procured for their use. The consignment consisted of howitzers, machine guns, rifles to last 500 men for a campaign of several months. The matter was hushed up by the government to avoid embarrassing the Western powers, and no action was taken against anybody except against Koloman Wasllisch, one of the bravest and most vigilant anti-fascists,•who was hunted like a dog, tortured and hanged. His grave remained a place of pilgrimage for the Austrian working class. Koenig, the incorruptible leader of the railwaymen's union, was also on the hanging list, but escaped. On January 30. 1933 the Prussian General Field Marshal von Hindenburg decided to make Hitler Head of State in Germany. Wall Street, after four years of gloom, registered its first boom. Hitler, in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, ordered at once general conscription. This promised fat profits for the armament industries. On February 27, the Nazis set the Reichstag (Parliament) on fire, which meant the abolition of parliamentary democracy, and the inauguration of the rule of terror.

Austria: March 4, 1933 In Austria the banning of democracy was achieved by a more subtle operation. It was carried out by Dr Hecht(7), a highly-placed civil servant who, although a Jew, was the eminence grise of the catholic clerical fascists, who were the ruling party. The strategy had, of course, been well prepared, and it was only a question to find the right moment for going into action. It so happened that five days after the Reichstag Fire on March 4, 1933 Dr Hecht seized the right moment to make use of an old emergency measure, not applied since 1916, which entitled the government in wartime to rule without the consent of Parliament. The farce was enacted during a morning session, when just prior to a parliamentary division, a socialist deputy had to yield to an urgent call of nature. This unfortunate incident lost him his vote and permitted the government to abolish the constitution, dissolve Parliament and rid itself of the opposition. Considering what ominous consequences the events in Germany were going to have on the whole world, it appears more than sinister that these events could never be discussed in the Austrian Parliament with its large proportion of socialist members. In the interest of "security and stability", democracy, was thrown overboard and, liberated of their parliamentary opposition, fascist emergency laws were issued; martial law was declared; the Social Democratic Party, the trade unions and the workers' paper were banned, the Republican Defence League dissolved and piess censorship imposed, while the police was given the right to break into workers'.clubs and homes to search for arms. Prince Starhemberg, the owner of 13 castles, was given a free hand to march young peasants from his. estates through Jewish districts blarring out 'Jews back to Palestine', a country which they had never heard of before. Nor did the JeWs take much notice of them. They were just wondering why they, were making Zionist propaganda. As a youngster Prince Starhemberg took part in iiitler's beerhouse putsch in Munich; five years later, after the Germans invaded Austria, he &migrated with his friend Fritz Mandl, Austria's armament king, Jew, friend of Mussolini, to the Argentine, 10 Ethical RecortJuly/August, 1990 where they set themselves up in the arms business and as experts in fascist know- how.

The Fatal Year The final blow against the republic and the workers began on February 12, 1934 in Linz, an industrial town which had always been in the forefront of the struggle. Armed police broke into the workers' club, ransacking the place in search of arms. The workers resisted, and phoned instantly party headquarters in Vienna to call for a general strike, but the leaders failed to comply with their requests. In this way they enabled the government to send troops by rail to Vienna and other industrial centres where action against the workers was to be taken. The troops had hardly reached Vienna when they were ordered to launch a massive assault on all working-class districts with heavy artillery and gunfire, a massacre that went on night and day. Dozens of workers' apartment blocks were destroyed and the dead and wounded were counted in their thousands. It was a massacre of a civilian population such as Europe hadn't witnessed since the days of the Paris Commune. On February 18, everything was over. The wounded were trying to hide in the sewers to escape being captured by the police. Sewage workers were guiding doctors down to dress their wounds. Many were trying to reach the Danube through this underground network of canals and corridors where small craft waited for them to take them down the river to Czechoslovakia. The workers had fought with unparalleled heroism and with inadequate arms against the heavily-armed forces of the executive. 19,051 socialist and communists were rounded up and imprisoned without trial. Foreign journalists were refused access to prisons and a smokescreen of censorship was imposed on the country. Nobody knew what had actually happened. All one saw was that the once wonderful workers' flats, including the Karl Marx Hof, were a shambles. The families of the men who had fought were treated like outlaws. They were denied dole money and advised to go begging for alms to the church. This was an additional humiliation because many of them had become free-thinkers in protest against the Catholic Church's support for the rich and mighty. Money which came from Quakers, socialists and the international Rote Hilfe had to be distributed in deepest secrecy. The Austrian workers who had built up their welfare state were thrown to the wolves after all socialist municipalities were taken over by reactionary officers. It was the end of an epoch. Socialism had to go underground. The leaders fled to Czechoslovakia where they kept on publishing their journal, many even unrepentant of their betrayals and mistakes.

The End of an Epoch My father who had been in the thick of these events was badly shaken and died within weeks. He had his office in one of the districts which had borne the brunt of the fighting where everybody was in the front-line of the attacks, while the inner city and the smart suburbs were not affected. It was pathetic to see people coming in tears hoping they could talk to him. Women with children whose bread-winners had disappeared were sitting at his bedside, wondering what they should do. They were afraid to ask the police for the whereabouts of their menfolk. People simply didn't know where to turn for advice. Ethical Record July/August 1990 11 Vienna had turned grey. People were whispering when they met in the street. The smile had gone. Some fortunate members of the Republican Defence League had managed to escape to Czechoslovakia with their weapons and flags. They received a heroes' welcome from Czech workers, whose solidarity helped them on until a large contingent were invited to settle in the Soviet Union. They were welcomed by thousands of people in Red Square, who applauded them for their valour. They found them jobs and treated them as brothers in socialism. This was in 1934. Within two years Stalin's witch hunt against foreigners under- mined the whole social fabric in Russia, and tens of thousands of anti-fascists who had found a refuge from Nazi barbarism, and who had given their technical know- how to build factories for the Russians, were deported to Siberia or shot dead in prisons. Nobody knew their whereabouts By 1937, when the terror had reached its peak, many of those who had a chance left and went to Spain, where they carried on the fight. Julius Deutsch joined the International Brigade but his son, who stayed in Russia, was never seen again. Innumerable people were suspected of carrying on sabotage: Austria's eminent organiser of social medicine and hygiene, Julius Tandler, who helped to expose many acts of sabotage, was ultimately also removed, after having pointed out that the windows and balconies of a new hospital for lung diseases were all facing north.

1934-38 Austria lay in fetters. The left had gone underground. Now Hitler set out to des- tabilise the country. Bombs blew up bridges, railway lines and power stations. In July the Nazis attempted a coup, murdering the clerical fascist Chancellor Dollfus who had led the attack on the workers. Though the left didn't mourn him, the clerical fascists got alarmed and demanded the execution of the assassins, and the imprisonment of large numbers of Nazi activists. This enraged Hitler and he imposed a 1000 mark fine on all Germans who were trying to spend their holidays in Austria, to hit her tourist industry. Dollfuss was succeeded by Dr Schuschnigg, his Minister of Defence, who had hanged nine members of the Republican Defence League. including Georg Weissel, the heroic commander of the Fire Brigade, Koloman Wallisch and Karl Munichreiter, a severely wounded cobbler, who couldn't even stand on his feet and had to be lifted up to the gallows. Political apathy and press censorship reigned the country. It seemed the right moment for Hitler to increase his pressure on Austria, and in February 1938 he sum- moned Schuschnigg to Berchtesgaden, ordering the instant release of all Nazi prisoners and the appointment of two leading Nazis as Ministers of the Interior and of Defence. Unless his demands were met. German troops would march into Austria. This was a new style of inter-state relationship for which Schuschnigg was not yet prepared. He returned to Vienna, but didn't have the courage to inform the public of the mortal danger the country was facing. The press too was afraid, and lulled the public into false hopes, by stating that there was no danger of a German annexation "because the allies would not stand idly by if Hitler tried to occupy Austria." It was not only the left which could read between the lines that the situation was dangerous and needed prompt action. Socialists and catholics decided to act jointly to 12 Ethical Record, July/August. 1990 halt a German invasion. Old enemies pledged to forget their differences and sent a delegation to Schuschnigg imploring him to stand firm and demanding that he mobilise the army, the catholic militia and the Republican Defence League: the country was in danger. Schuschnigg didn't consider the offer and sent them home. It was evident that he was terrified of a popular uprising which the police might not be able to control, and any co-operation with the left seemed to him a risk he couldn't visualise. As a last resort he hurried to Berchtesgaden to implore Hitler to give the Aus- trian people a chance to decide themselves for or against annexation. Hitler knew that he could never win if a plebiscite were held. And so he mobilised the First Hundred Thousand mechanised unit for his triumphal entry into Vienna. But the great war machine had begun to creak and finally broke down near Linz. There was a petrol shortage and a large part of the tanks of the Second Army Division ditched themselves and began to block the road. According to foreign diplomats at least 30 or 50 tanks were found lying helpless and paralysed between Linz and Vienna. The Wehrmacht was anything but invincible. If they hadn't had the promise that the Austrian army would not resist the invasion, they would have been finished. If the Czechs had mobilised their air force, they could have knocked out Hitler's hardware before they had reached Vienna. World War Two might never have taken place. But the Czechoslovak Government too had promised that they would not interfere. In return Hitler promised "that his troops would at no time go within 15 kilometres of the Czech frontier." On Sunday hundreds of thousands of Nazis imported from the provinces and from Germany to swell the enthusiasm, waited in Vienna for the Fuhrer, who was caught in a mess and had to postpone his arrival for Monday evening. To the amazement of the world the conquering hero cut short his triumphal celebrations and without making a speech returned by air to Munich the day after his arrival. For security's sake 63,000 Austrian anti-Nazis had been rounded up and put behind bars to prevent an incident against the invaders. The invasion was lucrative: Germany seized Austria's gold reser- ves, her oil and heavy industries, iron and magnesit mines—the biggest in Europe— and hydro-electric plants; and cannon fodder for the next war. Notes Arbeiter Zeitung (Vienna) April 5. 29. 1919. 2 Leonard Stein: The Balfour Declaration (London). 3 Louis Fisher. 4 Ncue Freie Presse March 21, 1920 6 Hitler's Secret Life by Glenn B. Infield, p. 19-25. Hamlyns 1979. 7 G. E. R. GetBe: "Fallen Bastions". Gollancz. 1939. - Appendix Facts and figures of Austria during World War Two: 016.7 million inhabitants 580.000 were killed on active service. Thc following figures present the anti-Nazi resistance during thc war: of 70.000 Austrians who fought in thc resistance 16,493 were murdered in concentration camps; 9,687 were murdered in Gestapo prisons; 2.700 were executed; 6,420 died from exposure in prisons; 97 women were decapitated for high treason; 3.665 women resistance fighters were gassed. And 65,000 Jews were killed. Percentage of Nazi votes in 1932: Germany 37%, Austria 10.5%. Unemployed young people in Austria: 150,000 (Neue Freie Presse 28.2.1929. Thc paper recommends emigration io overseas essential). Sources: Archives of the anti-Nazi Resistance Vienna I. Wipplingerstrasse. Old Town Hall. Bruno Kreisky: Zwischen den Zeiten. Wien. 1987; G. E. R. Gedye: Fallen Bastions, Gollancz. 1939: Peter Ruemer DrRobert Hecht and the Destruction of Democracy in Austria 1980. Vienna; Robert St. Jungk: Franz Werfel Fischer Vienna 1987; Glenn B. Infield: Hitler's Secret LUC. Hamlyns 1979; Louis Fischer: Men and Politics 1941 Sloan NY. Ethical Record, July/August, 1990 13 MOIAERE, THE THRONE AND THE ALTAR Text of a Talk to SPES on March 4. 1990 by J. GOOD MOLI ERE WAS BORN INTO III E COMFORTABLE MIDDLE CLASS in Paris in 1622, his father holding the hereditary post of royal upholsterer. Like most Frenchmen of the period he lived and died at least a conforming Catholic. Instead of following his father into the family business or finishing his law studies he went into the Theatre at the age of 21, founded his own company with an actress slightly older than himself, went ban- krupt and was jailed twice for debt, largely as a result of church disapproval of the Theatre, then spent 13 years touring the French provinces before returning in triumph to Paris, conquering both the town and the court with a succession of comedies dealing with the follies and vices of the age. The King, Louis XIV, at Versailles and elsewhere employed Moliere as an official provider of court entertainment, was for years on a footing of friendship with him and even became godfather to one of Moliere's children. As a consequence. Moliere became involved in the tensions and conflict between the Throne and the Catholic Church. The Theatre was suspect to the Church and Moliere was drawn into the King's quarrels with the ecclesiastical factions, i.e., the Jesuits, the puritanical Jan- senists and the "Devots" of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, a secret society. Although he went from triumph to triumph with popular comedies and farces in Paris at the Pal ais Royal and at Versailles, Moliere also felt compelled to write more ambitious plays which exposed the abuses of institutions such'as the medical profession of his day, the marriage market, the fashionable salons, the aristocracy and, most dangerous of all, religion. The historic tensions between the French Monarchy and the Roman Church took sometimes the form of Gallicanism, the name of which arose from the insistence of strong kings like Louis XIV on having a voice in the appointment of French bishops and in Church matters generally. This rivalry of Throne and altar influenced Louis's relations with Moliere. To complicate the issue the young King's mistresses often provoked Church hostility and comedies like "The School for Wives- and "The School for Husbands-, which delighted the King, were seen as attacks on the sanctity of marriage. But it was "Tartuffe", the satire on religious hypocrisy and worldliness, which provoked the most violent hostility and even hatred towards Moliere which did not cease even with his death. MI the religious factions, Jansenist "devots", Jesuits, the secret Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, the official Roman Catholic Church itself, although often bitterly opposed to each other, united in their campaign to maintain the Royal ban on any public performance of "Tartu ffe". Moliere gave private readings of the play in aristoc- ratic houses, badgered Louis XIV at Court and visited him during a military siege, and even won over the Papal Legate. It took five years of political manoeuvring, but the King did finally lift the ban and it was the King's representative who appears as a deus ex machina at the end of the play to unmask the religious hypocrite. Moliere's "Don Juan", main source of Mozart's "Don Giovanni", was openly rationalistic and provoked such ecclesiastical hostility that it got only two performan- ces and could be published uncut only in Holland. What gave particular offence was that the play was a comedy: Don Juan does not repent at the end of the play and there 14 Ethical Record. July/August 1990 was uproarious laughter as he descended into Hell accompanied by his servant Sganarelle's cry "what about my wages?" Moliere tried to mollify his opponents by himself acting the role of the servant who warns his master that he will come to a bad end and who voices all the best known arguments for the existence of God, including the "final cause- one about the origin of the world and who made it. A scene in which Don Juan gives a louis d'or, a gold coin, to a poor man with the words "I give it to you for the love of humanity- inspired a debate on whether that represented an alternative to giving "for the love of God." At the Jesuit College where he was educated, Moliere was interested in the humanist philosophy of Epicurus as interpreted by Lucretius in "De Natura Rerum-, which Moliere wanted to translate into French when he was a student. Lucretius, who dis- pensed with the idea of divine intervention in nature or human life, was considered an atheist. In the five plays in which Moliere satirised the medical profession of his day he suggested that nature was the best doctor and that mind and body in nuenced each other. Like Shaw he mocked bogus science and naive "scientism". And Louis XIV, as long as Moliere's influence with the King lasted, backed the playwright. In his plays about the marriage market, in which fathers disposed of their offspring tyrannically for economic or social ends, in his send-ups of the ari'stocracy in the persons of the silly "marquesses- of many light farces, as well as in classic high comedy satire on the cynicism and insincerity of high society in the "Misanthropist-. Moliere had the King's support for about 15 years, in the face of accusations that the comic dramatist was the "devil in person", and of clerical demands that he be arraigned or even burnt for offences against Christian morality. When Moliere died after the fourth performance of one of his greatest plays, "Le Malade Imaginaire-, a comedy about a gullible hypochondriac exploited by doctors, in which the dramatist took the main role himself, the clergy got their revenge: they denied him burial in consecrated ground. Moliere's widow had to plead with the King in person and he agreed to overrule the clergy's decision. But the "Sun King" stipulated that to avoid scandal the interment would have to take place at night and in secret.

News from the BHA The errors,and terrors of fundamentalism are the most dangerous issues facing Britain's non-religious youth. young Humanists decided at a British Humanist Association conference, held in London on May 5. The conference—for younger BHA members—brought together young people from around the country who are committed to a nonrreligious moral lifestyle. During the day they explored the positive _effects of Humanist morality on personal and social . topics, and examined how young people. can make a difference in improving society:.. „ . . . Conference organiser Adrian Bailey said: "It's time more young people stood up. and said they don't believe in God but are deeply concerned about individuals and society. This conference is the first step in creating a nationwide young Humanist network to spread the Humanist message.-

Ethical Record, July/August 1990 15 Fundamentalism was voted the biggest threat to tolerance and reason, but young Humanists are also concerned about the lack of non-religious counsellors at educational institutes. Only chaplains and other religious ministers are available at universities and polytechnics, and are paid by the institute, but there is no non- religious alternative. The youth campaign will kick off with a petition in support of writer Salman Rushdie, and a series of meetings around the country will be held to gain public sympathy for the fight against fundamentalism. Further information from: Meredith MacArdle, BHA Office, 071-938 4791 or Adrian Bailey, 0793 485289 (home).

NAMIBIA: ASPECTS OF DEMOCRACY Part I of Talk gieen by Michael Wolfers on Sunday. May 6, 1990 IT IS REMARKABLE THAT THE NAMIBIAN PEOPLE have only now been able to celebrate independence, rather than in the early 1960s with the main wave of deco- Ionisation in Africa. Namibia suffered, as you know, the double misfortune of German colonialism and South African occupation. • If a quick run-down of dates will not be too confusing, let me summarise the main phases in a century of colonial history: German missionaries were active in South West Africa from the mid-I9th century. In the 1870s the British Government and the Cape Colony authorities showed interest (Britain for example took possession of the deep-water port of Walvis Bay on the Atlantic Coast in 1878). In 1884-1885 Germany concluded "treaties of protection" with some of the Nami- bian ethnic groups. Germany used a whole series of tricks to expand its colonial penetration. The period from 1893 to 1903 was marked by expropriation of the land and cattle of the southern Namibian peoples. The Herero and Nama rebellions in the south took place from 1904 to 1907. Substantial German settlement came in the years from 1907 to 1915, with a diamond boom from 1909 on discovery of diamonds in the Namib desert near Luderitz Bay. In the First World War, small detachments of German forces in Namibia came under attack by the Union Defence Force from South Africa acting under British orders. South African military rule was in operation until the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The German settler community remained. The Union of South Africa made it clear that it hoped to incorporate South-West Africa into the Union. In the face of considerable doubts, especially from the United States, South Africa was on December 17,1920 allowed control under a Class C Man- date of the League of Nations. This gave South Africa power to administer and legislate over the territory as if if were part of the Union. It also put South Africa under an obligation to promote the material and moral well-being and social progress of the inhabitants. 16 Ethical Record. July/August, 1990 The purpose of the mandate system was to expropriate a German colony renounced by Germany in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Other German colonial possessions, such as Cameroon and Tanganyika mandated to Britain and France, acceded to independence in the 1960s in tune with major shifts in British and French colonial policy. Namibia was left out of the process because it had the misfortune to be subject from the 1920s to a South African colonial administration. The South Africans, picking up where the Germans left off, encouraged white immigration into the territory and grabbed more land from the African population. The United Nations Charter came into force in 1945 and the General Assembly began meeting in 1946 on a general assumption that the UN should assume the respon- sibilities of the League of Nations. The mandate system was modified into trusteeship. South Africa took the opportunity of the holding of the first General Assembly to demand incorporation of Namibia into South Afriba. This was rejected. South Africa refused to place Namibia under the trusteeship system. Petitions from the Namibian people to the UN voiced strong objections to incorporation into South Africa. A long and complex legal battle followed: 1950: an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice ruled that: the 1920 mandate remained in force; the UN had succeeded to the League's supervisory power; South Africa was not competent to alter the international status of the territory.. South Africa refused to recognise the opinion. In 1960, Ethiopia and Liberia, as members of the former League of Nations. applied to the ICJ for a binding judgment against South Africa. In 1960 also came the formal constitution on April 19 of SWAPO—this national liberation movement was formed out of more narrowly-based political pressure groups of the late 1950s. 1966 was a decisive year for many of the protagonists. On July 18, 1966 the ICJ refused to give a ruling, on the technical ground that Ethiopia and Liberia had no locus standi in the matter. This apparent exhaustion of legal remedies was crucial to SWAPO's strategy. On August 26, 1966 SWAPO proclaimed armed struggle for the liberation of Namibia. Oh October 27, 1966 the General Assembly revoked South Africa's mandate and under UNGA Resolution 2145 assumed sovereign respon- sibility for Namibia. The ICJ did eventually, on June 21, 1971, give an advisory opinion that South Africa was under an obligation to withdraw its presence from Namibia; by then the key plat- forms were the UN and the battlefield. The ICJ opinion strengthened anti-colonialist determination in Namibia. In the next decade armed struggle went alongside diplomatic and legal pressures. Angola's independence on November 11, 1975 increased the pressure on South Africa and enhanced the prospects for SWAPO's military campaign against the illegal occupation of Namibia. On January 30, 1976 the Security Council declared that "in order that the people of Namibia be enabled to freely determine their own future, it is imperative that free elections under the supervision and control of the United Nations be held for the whole of Namibia as one political entity.- The Security Council was to meet by August 31 of that year to review South Africa's compliance. Ethical Record, July/August 1990 .17 The Security Council formula did not take. Five Western members of the Council (Britain. Canada, Federal Germany, France. United States) formed a so-called "Con- tact Group" to engage in talks with South Africa and SWAPO towards an agreed transition process to independence. The proposals emerging from the efforts of the "Contact Group" were embodied in a letter of April 10, 1978 to the President of the Security Council. and the Security Council Resolution 435 of September 29, 1978. The package provided for a United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) for up to 12 months to assist "free and fair elections under the supervision and control of the United Nations." The "Contact Group" proposals were ostensibly agreed by South Africa, in a formal acceptance by Prime Minister Vorster on April 25. 1978. This acceptance was followed within a few days by the worst single atrocity on the Namibian people ever committed by South Africa: the killing and wounding of over a thousand refugees at Kassinga in Atigola, and the kidnapping of several hundred for years of detention in Namibia; all this in a single day on May 4, 1978. South Africa span out and delayed action on Namibia for at least another 10 years with a series of pretexts: quibbles over the size of UNTAG forces, SWAPO bases and the like. The playing for time was to allow the promotion of bogus internal elections in Namibia for a puppet regime that had little local and no international credibility. South Africa seized on the pretext of the presence of Cuhan military forces in the People's Republic of Angola to delay implementation of the Namibia settlement proposals. In the early 1980s the doctrine of "linkage" between Namibian independence and withdrawal of Cuban military forces from Angola was propounded through collusion between .the United States government, which declines to recognise the Angolan government, and South Africa. Angola's government was ready from at least as early as 1984 to unblock the dif- ficulties. The United States continued to underwrite South Africa's intransigence. The eventual failure of South Africa's military forces to sustain occupation of southern Angola has led the apartheid regime to withdraw from Angola and Namibia. South Africa's unsuccessful siege of Angola's Cuito Cuanavale in the latter months of 1987 brought heavy losses in the South African forces. The death toll of white soldiers made the war against Angola increasingly unpopular with the white electorate. The combined efforts of Angolan and Cuban forces pinned down the invaders. It was a time for change: as the major players, the United States and the Soviet Union, agreed in 1988. In this context the relatively minor players—Angola. Cuba. South Africa—began negotiations in London on May 3, 1988. These, with various reprises, culminated in a tripartite agreement signed at the UN in New York on December 22, 1988. They would seek UN implementation of the Resolution 435 independence process from April 1, 1989. Angola and Cuba would implement a bilateral agreement for "redeployment toward the North and the staged and total withdrawal of Cuban troops from the territory of the People's Republic of Angola". 18 Ethical Record, July/August 1990 The 'electoral process beginning on April 1, 1989 had a bad start with a tragic episode emerging from conflicting interpretations of the various international agreements. In brief, some of SWAPO's freedom fighters, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), believed they could be "confined to base" inside the country just as South African Defence Force (SADF) personnel were. They crossed the border from Angola to Namibia for the purpose. On April 1 they appeared openly in northern Namibia in search of UNTAG posts where they could report. South African official sources described the crossing as "large-scale armed incur- sions" and breach of cease-fire commitments. The UNTAG contingent had been reduced from an original scale of 7,500to 4,650 soldiers and 500 police. Only a few were in place in early April. South Africa's representative in Windhoek and the UN Secretary General's representative in Windhoek met to discuss the situation. By great misfortune Britain's Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was on a visit to an advance guard of British signalmen for the UNTAG operation. She attended the meeting and is understood to have argued against SWAPO. The South African Defence Forces were released on a manhunt that left some 300 PLAN members dead, and a handful of survivors seeking shelter with UNTAG positions. This initial brief renewal of one-sided military operations was resolved after an indication of April 8, 1989from SWAPO's President, Sam Nujoma, that PLAN personnel would report with their weapons to UNTAG assembly points. On April 9 came the Mount Etjo Declaration by Angola, Cuba and South Africa that SWAPO troops within Namibia should have freedom of passage to withdraw to Angola. By about May 19, 1989South African forces were again confined to base and the peace process could continue. Subsequent events came in sequence with a tendency to lag behind the original timetable. The airlift of exiles returning under the aegis of the United Nations High Com- missioner for Refugees(UNHCR) to participate in the election began and ended late. Within the programme nearly 42,000exiles benefitted from the opportunity for volun- tary repatriation. The disbandment of the colonial counter-insurgency killer squads in Koevoetcame late and in an incomplete fashion. The first real improvement in the political atmosphere came on Jun 18, 1989. The SWAPO election ltadership arrived at Windhoek Airport in a chartered flight from Lusaka via Luanda. It was a deeply mov- ing occasion: for political activists returning home from 10, 20 or nearly 30 years absence from home, land and family; and for their counterparts who had kept the internal opposition alive despite colonial repression. By July the election process was more or less back on timetable. The official election and voter registration campaign could open. SWAPO's election manifesto was launched on July 2 at a rally of more than 20,000 people in Katutura, the black township close to Windhoek. Ethical Record, July/August 1990 19 The manifesto called for "an independent, unitary, secular and democratic state whose territory includes the 1,124 square kilometre area of Walvis Bay and all the offshore islands (the Penguin Islands) between the Orange River and Walvis Bay." Freedom of conscience and religious worship would be enshrined in the constitution. The core of SWAPO's economic policy was "to bring about a balance between just economic returns for the Namibian people and reasonable profits for foreign and local private investors." The first phase of the campaign till mid-September saw voter registration by the administration and campaign rallies round the country by SWAPO's election team • (and of course other parties and interest groups). On September 14, Nujoma returned from exile; he had arrived on board an Ethiopian airliner, piloted by Ethiopian- trained Namibian pilots, and "kissed the tarmac of the soil he left in 1960.- He had returned in time to register to vote as registration had been due to close on September 15. SWAPO's director of elections, Hage Geingob, complained to the Administrator- General, Louis Pienaar, of under-registration of potential voters in northern Namibia. The registration period was extended a further week to September 23. When regis- trations had been checked, the administration announced a final total of 701,483 elig- ible voters (about half the estimated population of Namibia). As Namibia is nearly four times the size of the United Kingdom and about nine-tenths the size of Nigeria, you can see that the electorate is tiny. Quite small manipulations can have a marked effect. The second phase of the campaign till early November saw a nationwide speak- ing tour by Nujoma. Field workers conducted education drives to explain voting procedures to the electorate. The vote was open to those aged 18 and above. On a crude estimate, between a third and a half were illiterate. To qualify to be on the ballot paper, a party had to deposit 10,000 Rand and furnish the signatures of 2,000 registered voters in support of its application. Something like 55 parties and factions were whittled down by this requirement. Six alliances and four parties were shown as 10 registered contestants on the ballot paper when details were proclaimed on October 13. The poll was held from November 7-11 to elect 72 members of the Constituent Assembly. Each of the contestant parties submitted a slate of candidates in order of priority. Seats were allocated by modified proportional representation in accordance with the number of votes recorded nationally for each registered party. I shall summarise the peculiar formula for determining the number of candidates of a registered party to be declared duly elected. The total number of votes recorded for all parties was divided by 72 to provide a threshold quota. Each party's votes were divided by the quota to allocate seats. Some votes for each party would then be left over. Shortfall seats left would be allocated "on the basis of one candidate each to an equal number of registered parties, being those registered parties having the greatest number of unallocated votes." You will not be surprised to hear that the registration and counting processes were highly computerised. The total number of valid votes counted was: 670,830. Seven of the 10 contestants gained places in the Assembly. The main winners were SWAPO with 41 and the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance with 21. The main task of the Constituent Assembly was to draw up a constitution of Namibia, adopt that constitution by a two-thirds majority of its total membership, and determine the date of independence when the constitution would come into force. 20 Ethical Record, July/August, 1990 SWAPO had a clear 57.3 majority on an approximately 96% turn-out of voters, and a 10-seat majority in the 72-member Constituent Assembly. You may well have seen and heard comment on the fact that SWAPO's showing fell short of a two-thirds majority required to adopt the constitution as a whole. It is worth mentioning that the two- thirds requirement was an afterthought. If the election had been conducted immediately after the 1978 plan was agreed, a simple majority would have sufficed. The stiffer two-thirds test was introduced in the so-called "1982 principles- in a letter of July 12. 1982 form the "Contact Group- to the UN Secretary-General. The point is that by the late 1970s South Africa had security assessments that SWAPO would win 60% of the votes in a free election in Namibia. Within an hour or so of the final tabulation of results on November 14, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative. Martti Ahtisaari, certified that the electoral process in Namibia had at each stage been free and fair, and that it had been conducted to his satisfaction. I think the UN presence inhibited but did not prevent South African interference with the progress toward democracy. The campaign was marked by intimidation and violence against the civilian community, notably in the north where SWAPO was particularly strong. by disinformation campaigns. forged leaflets. etc.

The Special Representative's immediate certification of the result was a reflexion of the enormous financial commitment through the UN system to the election process, and should not be taken at its literal face value. Aspects of the process were less than "free and fair" but were not such as to overturn the general. thrust of the result. South Africa invested much effort in seeking to prevent what turned out to be inevitable. The way was open for the convening of the Constituent Assembly at Windhoek's Tintenpalast on November 21, 1989. The Assembly met under the acting chair- manship of Sam Nujoma and elected Hage Geingob as substantive chair. In the afternoon plenary session of the opening day, SWAPO's Secretary for External Relations, Theo-Ben Gurirab, proposed the adoption of the "1982 principles- as the framework for discussion of the proposed constitution. The proposal was accepted by acclamation. Thc principles include a requirement that Namibia be a unitary, democratic state under a constitution that can be amended only by special procedures. with an executive, legislative and judicial branch, periodic elections by secret vote, a declaration of fundamental rights, and protection for the rule of law, the public, police and defence services and local government. They have been incorporated into the agreed constitution on which Namibia came to independence in March. The concluding part will appear in the September 1990 issue.

CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURE Thursday, September 20 at 7 p.m. ALEX COMFORT—SCIENCE & RELIGION Please tell your friends about the 1990 Lecture, and it is hoped that Alex Comfort will also answer questions

Ethical RecOrd, July/AUgust 21 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Humanist Centre, Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Telephone: 071-831 7723/242 8032

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS COMING TO CONWAY HALL HUMANIST CENTRE Sunday (morning) Lecture (Free—collection) (Afternoon) Foruins and Socials (Free) South Place Sunday (evening) Concerts (tickets £2.00), All the society's Meetings, Forums, Socials and Classes are held in the Library (unless otherwise indicated) Concerts are held in the Main Hall JULY Sunday July 1 at 1 I am Lecture: Staff Cottman: George Orwell as I Knew Him. Staff Cott- man, at 17, spent time in 1937 fighting alongside Eric Blair (George Orwell) in the Spanish Civil War. recalls his friendship, as well as the context of their commitment to a democratic and inter- nationalist-supported Spain 52 years ago. at 3 pm Forum: Nicolas Walter. Was Tolstoy a Rationalist? Nicolas Walter considers Tolstoy's beliefs in terms of his and our time, and takes on board that he is assessing perhaps the greatest writer who has lived, and one of the greatest human beings. Tolstoy's ever amazing empathy, and his sense of guilt as well as of community, enter into the theme. Sunday July 8 at 11 am Lecture: Martha Black:James Joyce and George Bernard Shaw. A consideration of two giants, with little apparently save a childhood acquaintance with the Liffey in common. Martha Black challenges our usual stock of assumptions about world literature. at 3 pm Forum: Paul Derrick: What is the connection, nowadays, between the Labour Party and 'Socialism'? Paul Derrick searches for the link in terms of what is now declared Labour Party policy, between what is offered and the 'socialism' which is still popularly associated with the Labour Party. . Sunday July 15 at 11 am Lecture: Bill Liddell: Poll Taxes and Revolt-14th Century Insights. Dr Liddell is a former Appointed Lecturer of the Society, who teaches history at the Department of Extra-Mural Studies, Birkbeck College (formerly London University's Extra-Mural Department). He is above all a local historian and medievalist, of universal sympathies. He has chosen a topical theme, which the experiences of six centuries ago illumine afresh. at 2 pm SPES Policy and Programme Committee—open to all members. 22 Ethical Record, July/August 1990 Sunday July 22 at I I am Lecture: Professor Arthu r El li ngton: Understanding the Psychic: A Different Paradigm. Professor Ellington is an applied scientist who has spent many years in studying aspects of the paranormal. He believes the key to evaluating evidence proceeds from asking how we can know anything at all. at 3 pm No meeting. Sunday July 29 at I I am Lecture: David Caplin: Science and the Changing Face of Europe. Dr David Caplin of Imperial College, London University, is concerned at the continuing nuclear spectre, even as the cold war seems to crumble before our eyes. He has a scientific and humane perspective which allows for the promise, as well as the dangers still haunting Europe and all our small planet. at 3 pm Forum: Ellis Hillman: UFOs and Yeti—More Things in Heaven and earth? Ellis Hillman looks at unknown objects which have been often reported, in the sky as well as in the wilder parts of our earth's land surface. August

Sunday August 1 at I I am Lecture: Professor Neil Jenkins: What is Modern Humanism? The co-author with Alfred Hobson of the recently published Modern Humanism (Dene Books, PO Box 1UT, Newcastle upon Tyne NE99 I UT: £2.50—copies also available from the Society) shares his insights into a world both "natural and man-made- which we seek to shape and are bound to. at 3 pm Forum: Victor Howard: The British Battalion in Spain. Dr Howard is a Canadian literary critic and historian, based at Michigan University, whose biography of Norman Bethune, and forthcoming study from a military standpoint of the experience of the British Battalion during the Spanish Civil War, have led him to impres- sions and tentative conclusions of real originality. His talk com- plements in theme other 1990 lectures on Ralph Fox (Stuart Monro's text is in the April Ethical Record), Cauldwell and Orwell and also earlier lectures by Jim Firth on the 1930s. September Sunday September 16 , at 2.15 pm Annual Reunion of South Place Ethical Society, with guest speakers from the British Humanist Association, Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, Humanist Housing Association, Pro- gressive League, and Rationalist Press Association. Keynote address: Barbara Smoker (National Secular Society). Ref- reshments. Entertainments including music from Jenine Elton (of Angels on Bicycles fame

Ethical Record. July/August 1990 23 WORLD TO WIN OR DESTROY 1935-1991 Tuesdays 6.30-8.30 pm,.commencing September Nicholas Hyman in conjunction with The Department of Extra-Mural Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London

Twenty Meetings dealing with the Rise of Fascism; the Failure of the League of Nations; the Second World War—Total War and Genocide: Nuclear Matters from Hiroshima to Chemobyl; United Nations; British Foreign Policy Options after 1945; Suez 1956; the Falklands Question; Southern Africa; Israel and the Palestinian Question; the Soviet Union and the United States—real peace after the cold war?

20TH-CENTURY DRAMA, A HUMANIST APPROACH Mondays 6.30-830 pm, commencing September 24 Jim Herrick In this 10-week Course the dramatists considered (involving both reading from the plays and discussion of their context) are Brecht, Miller, Beckett and Caryl Churchill.

CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURE 1990, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 at 7 pm ALEX COMFORT—SCIENCE & RELIGION Further details in September issue

This will be a Lecture of permanent value to all enquiring men and women, to stand with the 1988 Lecture, A. J. Ayer's The Meaning of Life and the 1989 Lecture Christopher Hill's History and The Present (texts available still at £1.50 each)

Please tell your friends about the 1990 Lecture, and it is hoped that Alex Comfort will also answer questions

* Tickets, season tickets and information from: Honorary Concerts Committee Treasurer, Miriam Elton, Toad Hall, Copperkins Lane, Amersham, Bucks HP6 5QF. Telephone: 0494 726106.

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