Vale Helen

I tried to get this published under my real name, but it wasn't wanted. So, at last, this blog gets to fulfill one of the original reasons for its creation, as a fall-back for work rejected elsewhere.

Suzman's Legacy

I wonder how many of the people enjoying the cricket from Sydney realise it probably wouldn’t be happening without a woman who died on New Year's Day. Once again I'm reminded that "It is never a tragedy when an old (wo)man dies", but it is certainly a time for reflection.

Helen Suzman is not nearly as famous around the world as Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu. That's fair enough - they were the legitimate leaders of the black majority. She represented a minority within a minority; the whites who wanted justice. And while she faced death threats and sacrificed plenty, you can't compare her suffering with Mandela's decades on Robben Island.

But as a trailblazer for the future she is perhaps even more significant than either of these great men. Mandela will probably be one of the last leaders ever to legitimately institute a campaign of violence against tyranny, and have to deal with the questions of when and how to turn it off. Tutu, as a religious leader against oppression, is also representative of a great tradition whose peak may well have passed.

But Suzman, the parliamentary activist, who used her position as a platform to give a voice, and credibility, to those struggling outside represents a movement whose time has come. Ingrid Betancourt, Wangari Maathai and our own Bob Brown are current examples but there will be many more. Some, like her, doing time as the sole representative of the cause in large parliaments.

Suzman was not the first in such a role, William Wilberforce being her most famous predecessor. However, her position could hardly have been starker – the sole anti-apartheid activist for 13 years in the South African Parliament as well as the only woman and only Jew. Outnumbered 160-odd to one she demonstrated that courage and wit can shake the conscience of a nation, and by the time she retired she left a healthy parliamentary opposition which would be crucial to bringing about the end of Apartheid.

Suzman was not a Green (I've never heard of her even mentioning the environment, and her economic views were center-right). However, she is particularly relevant for Green parliamentarians because, like them, she stood up both for the minority who elected her, and for a much larger constituency who could not vote. Non-Green readers may assume I'm referring to non-human species here, but I think a more relevant analogy is with future generations.

Anyone who believes electoral politics is an important part of social change will regularly be frustrated by cynics who adore lines such as “whoever you vote for a politician will be elected” and “if voting changed anything they’d make it illegal”. Yet Suzman, operating in perhaps the most twisted version of a democracy in the world of her day managed to lay the foundations of a better nation in a way that would have been utterly impossible if the constituents of Houghton hadn’t stood by her with their votes. The government tapped her phone, issued her with death threats, rejigged the boundaries of her constituency and she kept coming back.

In the process she legitimized the idea forming in some white South Africans’ minds that Apartheid was wrong, as evidenced by the steady growth in support for her Progressive Party and its successors. Perhaps equally importantly, she demonstrated to the black majority that not all whites were against them, and that there might be hope for change not written in blood. Meanwhile, by exposing the most egregious examples of Apartheid’s obscenities she achieved many small changes which benefited numerous individuals’ lives. And when change finally came, she used her moral authority to draw attention to the failings of the Mbeki regime.

One of the key factors in Suzman’s success was her pointed use of language, so upon her death I'll raise a toast to the woman who could tell a government minister he needed to “go about your constituency, heavily disguised as a human being”. May we often see her like again.