The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The breakfast club

    By Flavius on Mon, 12/09/2013 - 11:43am |

    Perhaps  10 years ago listening to an interview with BishopTutu, the host asked him whether Mandela ever saw Helen Suzsman now that they were both retired from active politics.

    He laughed and said "Every Sunday morning he phones her and asks whether she's thinking of making pan cakes today."

    A nice memory

     

        

     

    Comments

    I did not know much about her, only her name. You made me look her up, thank you for that. Sounds like a wonderful character; from Wikipedia:

    An eloquent public speaker with a sharp and witty manner, Suzman was noted for her strong public criticism of the governing National Party's policies of apartheid at a time when this was atypical of white South Africans. She found herself even more of an outsider because she was an English-speaking Jewish woman in a parliament dominated by Calvinist Afrikaner men. She was once accused by a minister of asking questions in parliament that embarrassed South Africa, to which she replied: "It is not my questions that embarrass South Africa; it is your answers".

    Here are some things from her 2009 obituary in The Guardian, not only was she an English-speaking immigrant of Jewish heritage, but she was taught by "papists":

    Born Helen Gavronsky in the Witwatersrand town of Germiston, of Lithuanian immigrant parents, she was sent to Parktown convent school where, she says, she was taught by rote by the nuns, which endowed her with a very good memory. The nuns also taught their pupils to be bad losers, which Helen thought was excellent training for politics.

    and

    She possessed four qualities in particular. Firstly, she was completely fearless, confronted though she was by some of the most menacing and odious politicians of any parliament ever. Secondly, she seemed to have more energy than anyone else - she often attributed her physical health to the fact that she never drank wine, only whisky (although she missed Harold Macmillan's "wind of change" speech in the South African parliament in 1960 because she had infectious hepatitis).

    Thirdly, Helen had an unfailing sense of humour, sometimes lovely and light, at other times cutting and caustic. Fourthly, she pursued with extraordinary tenacity the principle that should be inscribed on her tombstone - "let right be done".

    She seemed to regard the ministers with whom she fought as denizens of some primeval forest. Without this humour, she could never have survived. She described how government MPs used to bleat "Mau Mau" when she stood up, or shout "go back to Moscow/Ghana/Israel". In her autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms, she notes, whimsically: "I came from none of them."

    Diversity, it's such a good thing.....


    by artappraiser on Mon, 12/09/2013 - 12:34pm

    Thanks.

    It's nice to think of two old campaigners who had paid their dues ,eating pancakes on a sunday morning


    by Flavius on Mon, 12/09/2013 - 1:21pm

       I always thought it quite tepid for her to say that South Africa was merely "embarrassed" by apartheid. Stronger language was required. She was mistaken to oppose sanctions against South Africa; they were effective.


    by Aaron Carine on Mon, 12/09/2013 - 4:25pm

    Your view on sanction is certainly  arguable. By which I mean that it has to be considered and may be right. But I would want to hear Suzman's position.

    In general I think  punishment is over rated as a tool to change behvior.To this extent .Punishment works as a way to eliminate undesirable behavior but not to create better behavior to take its place.

    Suzman must have known her South African neighbors well and would have had useful views on what would be required to move them in the direction of being willing to consider the blacks as their neighbors. Perhaps not sanctions.

    Not at all relevant but I have one South African memory. I was visitng a factory there.My guide was the Production Manager.A non Afrikaans, i;e. of British heritage.He complained bitterly that the Government forced him to hire unqualified rural Afrikaans to replace his black workers. "All I'm allowed to do is have them  sweep the floor."

    We turned corner and came upon a black operating a drill press.  I looked at the Production Manager who stared back and said: "he's sweeping the floor."  

     


    by Flavius on Tue, 12/10/2013 - 11:06am