“What do you think about all that has been happening?” Arnold asked. I felt a tightening in my chest, something I was used to when asked for my opinion. I froze. I assumed my cousins and my sister could only agree that my father’s strong opinions as the family intellect were to be learned from, not challenged.
“I don’t really know,” I spluttered. “I haven’t discussed it with Joe yet.” I had recently started calling my father Joe, a first unconscious effort to distance myself. Arnold contemplated me for a long minute. I shifted on my feet, rolling them onto the outer edge and back again while scrunching my toes in discomfort as I waited for him to respond to my statement with approval.
“You know, Stephanie,” he said, with some condescension in his voice. “Joe is a very smart and knowledgeable man. But he doesn’t know everything. You have to learn to think for yourself. You are certainly bright enough.”
The ground suddenly shifted. How could Arnold be so dismissive of Joe’s opinions? I was truly shocked. At the same time, his words became the catalyst that enabled me to eventually break away from my father’s hold, even though it would take many more years to do so. What I did not give up were the values he passed on to me. He was a man passionately intolerant of racism and anti-Semitism, of injustice and inequality. Most of all, he taught me to hate apartheid, a hatred that would define my life.
4 — By the Stroke of a Pen
It was 1964, the end of the academic year at the University of Cape Town. I stood among a crush of students, vying for a spot to find my name on one of the sheets of paper pinned to the walls of the long hall. It wasn’t there. I slunk away, mortified, to avoid the inevitable questions from friends about my results. I had already stretched the three-year undergraduate degree into four years. Now I had failed too many courses to be readmitted.
I had spent most of my time at university convinced I was unequal to the academic task. I was painfully mute in lectures and seminars, blocked by an inner voice that told me I wasn’t smart enough. I was envious of fellow students who seemed to take academics in their stride. But after the initial disappointment, I realized I felt a sense of relief. No more exams! No more procrastinations as I struggled with the rigors of academia. I had to get on with life. I had to find a job.
I had one salable skill: I was a fast and accurate typist, crisply tapping out letters and words at a steady pace. A year earlier, Joe had insisted that I enroll in a summer typing course. “You never know,” he said. “One day your husband might have difficulty in supporting you and you can help out by working in an office.” My mother had worked in his. I was appalled at the notion, but I now had to admit that being a proficient typist would help me find a job.
My friend Sally Spilhaus came to my rescue. I met Sally at university. She hadn’t finished her degree either, but that was by choice. She felt stifled there and had taken a job with the Defence and Aid Fund. Now she was moving on, and she recommended me for the job. I began work in February 1965.
DEFENCE AND AID, OR D AND A as it was referred to, received funds from overseas to provide legal aid for political prisoners charged under the anti-terrorism acts. It also provided funds for the families of political prisoners who lost their breadwinners as a result of arrests, long trials, and longer prison sentences. The lawyers D and A retained honed their skills with every trial, and as a result many activists—too many for the government’s comfort—were found not guilty, received light sentences, or escaped the death penalty altogether. These lawyers were courageous. Some were imprisoned themselves, usually under the 90-day or 180-day detention regulations, which denied trial or representation. Many were slapped with banning orders under the Suppression of Communism Act, which meant they could no longer practice law.
I began working for D and A eight months after the Rivonia trial, which resulted in the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and seven others. D and A contributed funds for the defense. In his famous three-hour speech from the dock, “I Am Prepared to Die,” Mandela made it clear that, given the violence perpetrated against Africans every day, the ANC had no choice but to abandon nonviolence, which had been its tactic since it was founded in 1912. He concluded with words I would only read after I left South Africa:
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
He didn’t die. Fearing an outbreak of violence across the country, the defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment, not to death.
Some D and A board members were committed to the cause and passionate about the rule of law. Alan Paton was a board member. His book Cry, The Beloved Country was an international best seller and one of the banned books I devoured after leaving South Africa. When he came to Cape Town for a meeting I was given the task of picking him up at the airport. In preparation, I cleared my small gray Ford Prefect of the papers and accumulated debris, but I had no time to give it a much-needed wash. As I drove Paton to the house where he was staying, he turned to me and said: “Stephanie, you are very courageous.” I blushed. For such a man to call me courageous! But before I could respond, he continued: “To drive with such a grimy windscreen takes courage indeed!”
A number of the board members were, like Alan Paton, Liberal Party members, a mainly white party opposed to the ANC’s position on armed struggle but whose strong anti-apartheid positions and actions had landed many in jail or on the roster of the banned. People under banning orders were forbidden to meet with more than one person at a time; to be in contact with another banned person; to attend any gathering, political or social, including “gatherings” such as funerals; to publish writings whatever the genre; to enter educational institutions, courts of law, or offices of the media. They had to report regularly to the police and could not travel outside of their magisterial district. By the time the act was repealed, soon after Mandela’s release, over sixteen hundred men and women had been caught in its net.
Ann was one such. She was arrested for breaking her banning orders when she climbed Table Mountain to meet a banned friend. She applied to D and A for legal help.
“Our funds must go to those who have no possibility of affording legal fees,” one of the more forceful members argued, with nods of approval from one or two others. That she was white was there in code.
“But Ann doesn’t have the money,” countered another, with nods of approval from the rest. “And that’s partly due to the fact that she’s banned.” A vote was taken. Her application was approved, but not without a last word by the initial naysayer, a rather large, blustery member of the committee.
“Stephanie, please note in the minutes,” she said, turning to look at me to make sure I was taking in her directive, “that Ann should be informed that we would appreciate a donation at some point.” Then she added, “Maybe she could sell some of her used clothes to her maid and make a donation to us.”
I saw my discomfort mirrored on other faces in the room. This board member simply could not imagine that Ann, a white person, was unable to afford a maid or new clothes. I “forgot” to note this when typing up the minutes the next day. Yet how many whites took the risks she did, preferring to hide behind their big houses, their whiteness, their privilege, and ignore what was happening all around them. Ann did what her conscience dictated with little protection.
On the morning of March 18, 1966, as I sat behind my desk in the small, high-ceilinged office on St. George’s Street, where many lawyers had their chambers, there was a knock on the door. Not the tentative knock of a family member or friend of someone recently arrested. Not the rap of a lawyer coming to discuss a case. This one was thunderous. Before I could call out “Come in!” the unlocked door flew open and a bunch of burly plainclothes security police in dark suits strode into the office. They stood there looking around as if surprised that it was only me. I felt my face drain of color. “Am I being arrested?”