Notes of Concern….
Jack Blair
THE HONORABLE HELEN SUZMAN
Another great one moves on.
While most people do not know the name Helen Suzman, those who knew her were privileged to be in her company. She was a woman who played a major role in ending apartheid in South Africa. And she conducted her fight when it was personally dangerous for her to do so.
Helen Suzman was a woman of considerable courage, an outstanding intellect, and a wonderfully engaging personality.
For a white woman to fight so hard and so openly for a policy change most of her race in South Africa opposed was not only admirable but also very brave.
Anyone who has read anything about that period in South Africa knows that people often died, more often disappeared, and regularly were locked away in prison for any activity resembling a threat to the government or the status quo.
While Helen Suzman was never imprisoned, as a member of parliament she took the incredibly courageous step of actually visiting Nelson Mandela in his prison on Robben Island where he was incarcerated for over twenty years prior to becoming the first black president of the Republic of South Africa.
A white woman visiting a black prisoner was unheard of in South Africa. A wealthy, educated and prominent white woman doing so was mind boggling to many.
For many years I chaired the board of a philanthropic organization in South Africa where my wife and I continue as trustees. The board was composed of a small group of influential South Africans and a smaller group of Americans who were associates of the philanthropist who created the foundation to help young Africans prepare for school and work.
One of the South Africans on this board was Helen Suzman. Since Mrs. Suzman was welcome on the board of any organization in post apartheid south Africa, we felt very fortunate to have her presence. Her reputation and her accomplishments greatly enhanced the work of our foundation.
I want to share three stories with you that I found to be great examples of her way of relating to people and her way of downplaying her own historic role in South Africa.
I was speaking with Helen by telephone and inquiring if she would be attending a meeting we had scheduled. She seemed inclined to miss the meeting so we went on and talked about her position on a number of the issues that were to be discussed.
As we reached the end of our conversation, she told me that she loved good Scotch. Then she asked me if there might be a glass of Scotch at the meeting! I promised that there would be and she accepted the invitation.
I later learned that Helen was well known for her affection for Scotch and that offering it greatly enhanced your chances of having her present. A glass of Scotch for Helen thereafter became a standard plan for meetings of our board.
Helen operated in what was very much a white mans’ world. So her willingness to have a drink with the fellows, to engage in banter about sports, and then to take tough positions, made her incredibly effective in getting her way on projects of great interest to her. Few politicians could work a crowd better than Helen Suzman.
On one occasion in Johannesburg Helen shared with me some of her experiences as a member of the legislature. She enjoyed making the men uncomfortable. Any time they tried to pass a controversial law that would basically adversely affect the blacks in that land, she would use her prerogative to insist that a secret ballot not be cast, that they not be permitted to simply say “yea or nay” but rather that in order to be counted all the legislators in favor of the bill needed to rise and walk to one side of the chamber and those opposed would walk to the other side.
On many occasions, Mrs. Suzman reported she stood alone while her male colleagues were gathered in great numbers on the other side, usually looking quite sheepish.
She described one such occasion this way:
“I looked across the chamber at all the gentlemen and there was a shiver running through the chamber looking for a spine to run up.”
It was her way of letting the people see what exactly was happening. It was a dramatic demonstration of one white woman staring down the rest of the white government.
At a dinner in Cape Town years later we were talking about the American political situation. Mrs. Suzman mentioned that she was an admirer of Senator Hillary Clinton.
I asked her what she found interesting about Senator Clinton and she told me that Mrs. Clinton had invited her to lunch one day a number of years ago and that she found Clinton’s grasp of world political issues to be quite admirable. They dined alone.
I wondered if she had met Senator Clinton in New York or they had dined in South Africa on one of Clinton’s trips to that continent. To this question she responded, characteristically unpretentious:
“No. She had me to her house. The big one in Washington where she lived at the time. The white one.”
It was her way of wording a response, of coining a phrase, of turning a word that made her a wonderful conversationalist and someone with whom world leaders loved to spend time.
Helen fought a long and lonely battle in the South African parliament against government repression of the country's black majority and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.
According to the AP, Suzman was recognized with 27 honorary doctorates, including ones from Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Cambridge universities. She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1989 — a rare honor for a foreigner.
I hope some of my readers will do themselves a favor and read more about Helen Suzman.
The world needs more people like Helen, people who make a difference and do so in the most wonderful and pleasant way.
At our next board meeting there will be a glass of Scotch, “neat,” sitting in front of her vacant chair.
Press reports show Suzman became her country's longest-serving legislator, pressing for changes from the benches of the whites-only Parliament for 36 years before she retired from the assembly in 1989.
For 13 of those years, she was the sole parliamentary representative of the Progressive Party, the only party to reject racial discrimination. After stepping down, she created a democracy foundation.
Helen was 91 years of age at her death.
God surely blessed South Africa with Helen Suzman.
