Ann Bernstein
6 January 2009
column
Johannesburg — AFTER the 1961 general election, Helen Suzman was the only member of her new party re-elected to Parliament. Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd gloated triumphantly, saying to her: "I have written you off." She replied: "The whole world has written you off."
For the next 13 years, the Progressive Party in Parliament consisted of a lone Suzman. Through this "trial of fire", she became SA's greatest parliamentarian. At a time when Parliament represented white voters alone, the MP for Houghton used the privileges and influence of the institution to represent the interests of millions of people who did not have the vote. In the 1960s, white support for apartheid grew and repression of the black majority led to indefinite detention without trial and other infringements of individual rights. In this environment, Suzman had the imagination to see the opportunities the parliamentary system provided to fight for human rights.
As an MP, she had access to cabinet ministers, senior government officials and sources of information not available to the public at large. Through questions to ministers, she was able to establish the facts of how the apartheid system was operating. From the bizarre workings of race classification to the numbers of people forcibly removed from the last holdouts of black freehold ownership in so-called "white" SA, it was Suzman's probing questions that provided information apartheid's critics could then use to rally opposition.
In 13 years, she placed more than 2262 questions and made 885 major speeches on almost every conceivable subject. In her last parliamentary speech, she proposed the first ever motion of censure on a judge, who had imposed a derisory five-year suspended sentence on a farmer convicted of beating to death a black worker who had accidentally run over the farmer's dogs. Her motion failed but the judge was transferred from case work.
Throughout her 36 years in Parliament, and even after that, Suzman was inundated with requests for assistance from desperate people: will she intervene with the minister for a family who had been "endorsed out" of urban areas; will she find the son grabbed by the police and not seen since; will she help a family affected by the Group Areas Act ? No plea went unanswered.
Suzman used her position in Parliament to work with and for extraparliamentary organisations, communities under threat from the state, prisoners, detainees, students and others, all of whom benefited from the assistance that only an MP in apartheid SA could provide.
She was determined to guard against the tendency of "becoming cloistered in the House -- of forgetting the outside world". Her strategy of "getting out to see for herself" was a brilliant tactic. Despite the potential dangers, she attended the funerals of black activists whenever invited to do so, to express support and in the belief that her presence might have a restraining effect on the police.
In a period in which more than 100 laws and regulations restricted press freedom to report what was happening, parliamentary privilege ensured that any issue discussed in the House could be reported. Through Suzman's special relationship with the media, she provided a conduit for the public spotlight to fall on government actions, institutions or political events . Without her, much in that terrible period would have been censored or passed unquestioned or unnoticed by the larger audience she was able to address from her parliamentary base.
Suzman's role in Parliament enabled her political party to expand and consolidate a base of support among white South Africans for human rights and a nonracial approach to the country's future. The importance of this should not be underestimated, for it consisted of a national organisational structure, a parliamentary foothold of some size (in time) and a core of support among hundreds of thousands of white voters. This liberal constituency could mobilise behind the long-awaited change of heart by Afrikaans leadership and enthusiastically endorse the release of Nelson Mandela, the unbanning of the African National Congress and constitutional negotiations.
Suzman's reputation was built not through grand philosophies or inflammatory speeches. Her effect and fame were the product of sustained, grinding hard work. She had to pull apart every one of the apartheid laws and the inevitable security restrictions that came in their wake. She had to stand alone in a hostile sea of 165 other MPs, critically analyse their proposals and gouge their confidence through a rapier wit and an overarching command of the facts. For 13 years, she dined alone in Parliament with no fellow MPs to discuss tactics or approach.
She took strength from the support she had outside an isolated white Parliament. Through her wit and irreverence, Suzman fearlessly cut through the assumptions of a racist, male-dominated culture, where subservience to hierarchy prevailed. She did so with style, humour and grace, underpinned by always "doing her homework" so that mistakes were rare.
Her phenomenal record is SA's legacy, which will be best served if more politicians follow her example -- of public service, hard work, commitment to human rights, rule of law, sensible economics, individual dignity and freedom. This will require a reinstatement of the system of constituency representation and direct accountability to voters, which will ensure that when laws are passed, legislators think through their effects on voters, who can "throw the rascals out" at the next election.
Ann Bernstein is executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise.
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