THE RHODESIAN SCENE A WOMAN TEACHER SPEAKS OF POLITICS IN THE CLASSROOM

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31583, 22 January 1968, Page 10

THE RHODESIAN SCENE A WOMAN TEACHER SPEAKS OF POLITICS IN THE CLASSROOM

(BY

ELIZABETH PALMER.

o South African teacher who was recently deported from Rhodesia

writing in the “Guardian/’ Manchester) (Reprinted by arrangement)

As 1. reached the immigration counter at Salisbury airport two uniformed men were waiting. “There she is.” And taking my arms they steered me away from the other passengers. In the office the senior of the two explained. “Now, young lady, we have to take your fingerprints.” His assistant, a narrow-faced young man, was busy preparing the copper plate. He was nervous and kept dropping the papers he was folding ready for my fingerprints.

The senior officer reached for my hand. Instinctively I drew away. “Just relax, will you?” 1 had not been prepared for this and’felt humiliated and outraged. Each finger and thumb of each hand is pressed on to the copper plate smeared with indelible ink and then the imprint carefully transferred to the forms. Each print is taken three times as the forms have to be filled in in triplicate.

1 looked at my stained palms. “Are you going to clean my hands?” I asked, picturing the curious stares of the other passengers. The assistant took me through to an antiseptic washroom and splashed chemical over my hands. The black dissolved. “Do you have to do this often?” I ventured. "Second person today,” was the reply, given warily, as he hustled me out to prevent further attempts at communication. Another officer took my bag and hurried me across the tarmac towards the waiting plane. . Friends who had come to say goodbye called from the balcony above. “Stay well,” I answered, lifting my hands so they would understand what had happened. Then I was on the plane, squeezing past people to the only empty seat. And then the plane was in the air. Looking down I recognised Nyatsime College outside Salisbury where, six months earlier, I had been helping with an Arts Workshop for African teachers and students. Would I ever be able to go there again or meet the people I had known there? An Undesirable Seven days earlier I had been served with a notice declaring me a Prohibited Immigrant in Rhodesia under the 1966' Immigration Act. 1 was offered a choice—detention until arrangements could be made to deport me or, for £2, a Temporary Permit so that I could “put my affairs in order.” The section of the Act under which I was prohibited ran: “Any person or class of persons deemed by the Minister, on economic grounds, or on account of standards or habits of life, to be undesirable or unsuited to the requirements of Rhodesia.” A friend put it in another way: “It’s because you do not conform.” What was the extent of my "nonconformity”? I had taught for four years in African schools and made friends among my colleagues, both black and white. I lived in what might be called the “cosmopolitan” part of town,

just across Lobengula Street, the demarcation line between black township and white city. In this area the colours had run a little and friends of any shade could visit without running the risk of being insulted. 1 also helped to organise voluntary service projects where African and coloured students and a few, rare, open-minded young whites would work together, white-washing a centre for handicapped Africans or making a garden at an old-age home. After work we would talk or sing: I have a poignant memory of a purevoiced young Jewish girl singing:— “How many years must some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free?” Special Quality Contact of this kind, un-self-conscious and on a basis of equality, is almost nonexistent and we all recognise the special quality of such moments. Granted this was conscious non-conformity to the “Rhodesian way of life” one does not do such things in Rhodesia by accident. But they were not done as a gesture: it was simply the way 1 lived. Why did people who felt as I did remain in the country after Smith’s U.D.1.? Many of us naively (it is embarrassing to remember how naive we were) hoped for swift and effective British action to bring the rebellion to an end. I remember how we listened in to the 8.8. C. on the night of November 11, 1965. for some clear directive about how we could demonstrate our opposition—only to be told to carry on with our jobs, refrain from all acts which would assist the illegal regime and help maintain law and order. ' One teacher 1 know of left the country immediately, rightly claiming that no contract bound her to serve under the illegal regime. But few people were willing or able to take such decisive action For men with families a decision of this kind is not lightly made. Others, like myself, saw the option of leaving as a privilege reserved largely for whites, and hoped that there was still something we might do by staying. Schools And Pupils At this time I was teaching at one of the two African schools offering "A” level. Our students were due to begin their final exams three days after U.D.I. We had worked with them throughout the year and knew well enough of the long struggle, the financial sacrifices it cost the families to support their children at school, the many elimination exams to be passed, and not just passed but passed with merit m oner to secure a place in a higher form. There are one million Africans of school age in Rhodesia. Of these 630,000 are in primary school: 180,000 get beyond the fifth year of sctool: 29,000 finish primary education: 12,000 receive some kind of post-primary training in secondary schools or elsewhere and there are 160 places for sixth form work. In that year 100 Africans were taking “A” level. We had 30 of them and thought their exams were important. So we stayed, we taught and, having taught, we were compromised.

Our students, perhaps because they bad had from childhood a closer acquaintance with harsh economic reality or were less imbued with our rather vague liberal ideas, saw things more clearly and showed greater courage. I On the night before exams were due to begin they slipped out of their hostels and made their way across the country, through the dark and the torrential rain that was falling, in a bid to reach Salisbury and see the Governor. They knew they were jeopardising possibly their whole future: but they also knew that unless there were seen to be protests and demonstrations, Smith would claim country-wide support for his action. Next morning they were picked up by the police outside Salisbury and brought back, soaking wet, exhausted. The authorities, anxious to keep up the illusion that the country was quiet, were quick to hush up this and other incidents, and they were sent straight into the exam rooms. A few of us had managed to get a report out of the country and it came over the Zambian news at noon—which boosted their spirits a little.

Of course, teaching Africans in Rhodesia and teaching, as I did, history and English, there were many occasions when it must have been clear that my ideas did not conform to Rhodesian Front political philosophy. With the ancient Egyptians 1 felt on fairly safe ground, but once we moved on to the Greeks it became difficult to avoid being trapped in the quagmires of democracy or knocked off balance by the volcanic eruption of Socrates. In the second year of the course we had to study the Atlantic slave trade. How can this be presented without relating it to the growing prosperity of the slave trading nations, and condemning it as one of the greatest crimes against humanity? I lacked the skill to discuss “Julius Ceasar” and avoid the question of dictatorship or the position of people plotting to overthrow a government by violent and illegal means, even though I knew Dumisani in the back row was almost certainly thinking of another government which he could see no legal means of altering. We had W. H. Davies's “Autobiography of a Superman” as a set book and when we reached the lynching scene I refused to read it with the class. All 1 could do was apologise to them and attempt to give them some understanding of the causes of racial arrogance and prejudice. Attentive Ears I did not try to avoid such discussibns when they arose: they are an intrinsic part of teaching. But in the midst of the stimulation of moments like these. I was aware that there was likely to be at least one attentive pair of ears noting my words and attitudes. Informers .are part of the Rhodesian scene; at the university they are two a penny and certainly no secondary school is free of them. It is so easy to be trapped into doing it. Almost certainly if you are African you will have been picked up by the police at some time. It is rare to escape from such an encounter uncompromised. Perhaps there was no money for school fees, or it might have been the price of being allowed to stay in town and attend school. A common method in country districts is for the police, when entering the area, to stop a man and ask him the way to someone's house. If he gives them directions he is already an “informer,” and they want more information. When the C.I.D. approached me they tried both intimidation (the threat to deport me to South Africa) and bribery (a couple of years at the University College of Rhodesia doing an M.A. at Government expense in return for information). I went to the Ministry of Education, told them of the kind of pressures that were being put on me and asked either for protection or to be released from my contract. My refusal to co-operate was part of my non-conformity and not unrelated to the manner of my departure from the country. Privileged Treatment But even at such times possession of a white skin entitles one to privileged treatment in Rhodesia. An African colleague was simply picked up during break one morning (his unfinished cup of tea left to grow cold on the staff-room table) and taken off to Khami Prison for 30 days. He was then released and took up his post again. No charge was ever brought against him. The African vice-principal of a secondary school in the Salisbury townships failed to arrive at school one day. His principal discovered him locked in a cage in the yard of the local police station, just in time to save him from being taken away indefinitely i—a case of “mistaken identity”?

We all knew such cases. We all knew people, many people. who had been deported or restricted or detained. But the people who get deported and those in restriction camps are only a symptom. The disease affects the whole nation. The whites are either imprisoned by selfinterest, locked in by fear and prejudice; or if they oppose the Rhodesia Front, rendered ineffective through isolation and lack of leadership. The Africans, their leaders either restricted or out of the country, lead an existence narrowed by lack of opportunity, by poverty, by fear —fear of losing their job, if they have one, fear of the police, fear of the ever-present informers. These are the real restrictees, and if the Rhodesian Government can afford to release some of the restrictees from the camps, it is because the whole country has become a restriction camp where there is no freedom of thought or speech, or action because the basic trust and respect between individuals, which is the foundation ot society, has been destroyed.