Dr. Frances Jowell
Helen Suzman: Her Fight Against Apartheid and her Friendship with Nelson Mandela

Frances Jowell - Helen Suzman: Her Fight Against Apartheid and her Friendship with Nelson Mandela

- Good evening all of you. As part of our South African series, we are delighted that Frances Suzman Jowell has honoured us by talking about her mother. I know Frances is in a completely different capacity, as a friend and also she’s a great art historian. She studied at Wits, at the Courtauld, and at Harvard. She’s an art critic and an art historian. One of the things that she’s really interested in is the 19th century revival of artists such as Vermeer. And meanwhile though, she comes from quite an illustrious family, and tonight she’s going to be talking about her redoubtable mother, who was an opposition member of the South African Parliament for over 36-years. She was passionate about human rights, passionate about the rule of law, which is something that both Frances and her husband both adhere to. So Frances, it’s such a pleasure to have you on Lockdown and welcome.

• Thank you, Trudy. I’ll start off and go straight into it. On a sunny afternoon in December 2000, my mother and I attended the opening of the new Jewish Museum. We were chatting quietly in the courtyard of the museum when Nelson Mandela arrived, and as he climbed onto the podium, we were startled to hear him call out, “But where is Helen, isn’t Helen Suzman here?” And he looked around anxiously, and as soon as he caught sight of her, he called her to the podium and he launched into a warm tribute, the quote, “The critical role that she played "in the struggle against apartheid.” But he also warned of the danger of forgetting those who acted alone in the dark hours of the struggle. And he looked at the audience severely and he said, “You all have the duty to keep her memory alive.” And then he finished on a lighted note, “This young lady”, as he often called her, although they were about the same age, “This young lady has done really well.” Adding “Helen, not only do I respect and admire you, "but I also love you.” “And I love you too”, said Helen, “I love you too, Nelson,” said Helen, and they embraced warmly. Now how to explain this loving friendship. He, born in the rural Transkei, son of a deposed Xhosa Thembu chief, and member of a royal family, whose lives, political, economic, social, in every way had been blighted by colonial rule and by the oppressive racism in the land of their ancestry and birth. She, on the other hand, born in the mining town of Germiston, daughter of immigrant Lithuanian parents who had fled the oppressive antisemitism of the old country, but then prospered politically, economically, socially in their new country in South Africa. Born within a year of each other, he in 1918, and she in 1917, they both became politically active during the late ‘40s and the early '50s.

He, as a lawyer and militant member of the ANC, increasingly committed to the extra-parliamentary liberation movement and eventually imprisoned for some 27-years, its best-known black leader against apartheid. She, initially as university lecturer and researcher of the Institute of Race Relations, and later a determined member of the parliamentary opposition for 36-years, a militant liberal committed to the downfall of apartheid. Their affectionate encounter at the Jewish Museum in 2000 took place 11-years after Helen’s retirement in 1989, and a decade after the collapse of apartheid in 1990. So to rewind briefly to those years, 1989 to '90, by then they were both internationally well-known. Helen was widely-honored for her decades of staunch opposition to the apartheid government. She had approximately, by then, 14-honorary doctorates from prestigious universities all over the world, starting in 1993 with Oxford. And you see her here with Macmillan and Sir John Maud who had been the ambassador to South Africa. And she had many international human rights awards, such as in 1978, she got an award from the United Nations. So this is the award she got from the United Nations in 1978 on the 30th-anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Now at the time of her retirement, Mandela was still in prison, as shown by his letter, next slide, please. His letter, which as you can see was sent from Victor Verster Prison. “Dear Helen, the consistency with which you defended "basic values of freedom and the rule of law "over the last three-decades has earned you the admiration "of many South Africans.

"A wide gap still exists "between the mass democratic movement and your party "with regard to the method of attaining those values. "But your commitment to a non-racial democracy "and a united South Africa has won you many friends "in the extra-parliamentary movement.” And then, “Enjoy good health, "and may your voice be heard throughout the country "free from restraints, "which parliamentary convention imposes.” Now the letter was published, it’s working now, was published the following year in an anthology of some 18-tributes to Helen called “Values Alive.” And the title alludes to her comment, quote, “It’s hard to say one has achieved anything "except I think to keep certain values alive "in this country, certain democratic values.” That year, 1990, which is when this was published, marked President F. de Klerk’s momentous rejection of apartheid and his commitment to a future democratic South Africa, and of course the release of the most famous prisoner, which was beamed across the world. Now Helen was not among the excited crowds in Cape Town when he was released, but soon after Mandela’s return to his home in Soweto, the township outside Johannesburg, she received a telephone call and a familiar voice asked, “Helen, when are you coming to see me?” And their first meeting outside prison was captured in two memorable photographs. This one unutterably tender, and the next one, jubilant. I now return to my earlier question, how to explain the affectionate and enduring friendship between Helen and Nelson throughout the dramatic reversals of South African history, and despite their differences about how best to achieve political change. And for this, I shall now consider Helen’s life and work, her family background, in short, how she came to be what she became. Five-years after Mandela’s exhortation to keep Helen’s memory alive, the Jewish Museum in Cape Town held an exhibition commemorating her life and work.

It was held under the auspices of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at University of Cape Town, which was directed by Milton Shain, whom you heard last week. And it was brilliantly researched, the whole exhibition and catalogue, by Millie Pimstone, and designed by Linda Bester. It consisted of huge panels illustrating her personal and political life with a range of images, photographs, letters, collages of newspaper cuttings, copies of documents, and was accompanied by informative texts and a documentary film that ran. It was updated and exhibited in 2015. And I should also say that for several years a replica of it travelled around the States and to about 25-different venues. Now for the family, this exhibition was a truly moving experience, because here our jumbled mixture of familiar memories were transformed into a lucid, thematic presentation of our mother’s life and work. The first section, family roots, even revealed new facts about Helen’s mother. Her mother Frieda had died shortly after Helen’s birth, and Helen knew very little about her. She didn’t know where she was born, or when she’d come to the country when she’d arrived in South Africa. And apparently she hadn’t been told anything about her. In fact, Helen was in her mid-50s when she first came across this photograph of her late father as a young man, together with a young woman who turned out to be her mother. It was the first time she’d ever seen this photograph.

Now the exhibition threw new light on her, because two new documents told us something about when she came to the country and when to South Africa, and when she was born. A permit issued in 1890, there was this permit issued for the David family to move from Lithuania to Latvia when Frieda was about six. And this was proof indeed that Jews were subject to travel restrictions, not unlike those imposed on the black population in South Africa. The other document was an entry in the Register of Inmates of the poor Jews temporary shelter in London where many Eastern European Jews stayed while waiting to board the Union-Castle line to sail to South Africa. Here it listed the 18-year-old Frieda, with her mother and siblings, as having set off from Libau, on the arduous village to the new country in December 1902. This was a precious and moving glimpse into my mother’s maternal origins. Now her father Sam, on the right, Sam Gavronsky, who avoided speaking with any seriousness about the old country, probably arrives about the same time as a teenager to join one of his brothers. We know he came from Klykoliai, a Shtetl on the border of Lithuania and Latvia, was one of nine-children, there were eight-boys and a sister, and their father who ran a tavern and a mill had died young. Two new documents concerned Sam Gavronsky, the one, a letter from the Draught Commission, reporting that Shire or Samuel Gavronsky had failed to report for military service, and the family was going to be fined 300-rubles. And another, two-years later, from one of his brothers informing the police that four of his brothers had left for an unknown destination abroad. This is all a familiar story.

Now little is known about their early days in South Africa, except that like many other immigrants, they travelled to the burgeoning Grand, an area where gold had been discovered two-decades earlier. Two-Gavronsky brothers married two-David sisters, and they settled in Germiston, which was a mining town where they started a business buying and selling cattle, providing meat for the mines and trading in hides. Helen was Sam and Frieda’s second child, and after Frieda’s death, the bereft family, here is Sam with the older child, Gertrude, and Helen, the younger on the left, they moved in with his brother Oscar and sister-in-law, Hansa, who was also sister to his late wife. Now Sam remarried when Helen was about nine, and they moved to a rambling house and garden in Johannesburg in the leafy suburb of Parktown. Life changed with Debbie, Helen’s stepmother, and my most loving and beloved grandmother, who was born in 1900 in England of Polish immigrant parents. They were active members of the Jewish community. They lived a traditional Jewish life observing Friday nights, celebrating high holy days with large gatherings of family and friends.

And they supported Zionists and local charities, and they attended Wallman Street Synagogue. However, religious observance was never to play an important part, really any part, in Helen’s life, although her identity as a secular Jew certainly did. Helen attended the Parktown Convent, here she has aged about 13, where she received glowing school reports and several prizes. At a precocious 16, she enrolled at the University of Witwatersrand, I’ll refer to it as Wits in future. She’s second on the left in the front row. She spent here a few carefree student years, which included two student tours to Europe, and it seems an extremely busy social life. Here she is with her father in the garden of their house on the right, and the left posing in a rather beautiful dress. And here she is alone with her dress. And these seem to have been fun-filled years, and not wholly committed to studies. In fact, I suppose a typically privileged life in an affluent white suburb. In 1937, she dropped out of university, I think she failed her last year, and she was aged 19, to marry Moses Suzman, an established physician recently returned to South Africa after some 13-years of medical study and research in England and the States. He was born in South Africa, came from a large family of five-brothers and three-sisters whose parents had emigrated from Lithuania as adults with two-children about 1890.

Now they came from Salant or Salantai, the Shtetl mentioned by Trudy the other day as the birthplace of Israel Lipkin Salanter, the founder of the Musar movement, an ethical and educational movement as developed in 19th century Lithuania, which was frequently alluded to by our father. And you can see on the left is Debbie, then my father, Mosey, Helen and her father Sam on the right looking rather portly. They sailed to Europe in considerably more comfort than all their parents had during their sea voyages to South Africa. And just a couple of happy pictures from the ship. There’s Helen, there’s another one of her diving, and they honeymooned in Europe for a couple of months. I’m not sure where Helen found that plinth, but there she is, she found one. Their cheerful home movies of Mediterranean beach resorts and of European cities give little hint of the cataclysm about to engulf Europe. Although there is some footage of the Paris Exposition Nu Vercel, the universal exhibition of 1937, which certainly showed the eagle and the swastika looming above the German pavilion. Anyway, on their return to South Africa, the increasing awareness of impending war and the heated debates about South African involvement, of course seriously impinged on everybody’s life, including theirs. For under Smuts’ leadership, South Africa entered the war on the side of the allies, the defeat of the Nazis became their most urgent political cause or political concern. Our father enlisted and went up north, and he served in a military hospital at Qassasin near the Suez Canal in Egypt, a huge-tented medical encampment surrounded by arid desert.

But for Helen, that’s when she came back, for Helen early motherhood coincided with the war years, which is probably all that prevented her from signing up. Instead, between my arrival in ‘39, and that of my younger sister Patty, she has on her lap, in 1943, she returned to university to complete her degree achieving first… I think there’s odd sounds. She completed her degree and achieved first-class passes in economics and economic history. She then worked as statistician for the War Supplies Board. After the war, she was appointed tutor and then lecturer in economic history at Wits University where she taught for some seven-years. Now, her classes consisted of a mixture of ex-servicemen and a range of promising younger students, these included future political activists such as Joe Slovo, leading member of the South African Communist and the ANC, of the Communist Party, Eduardo Mondlane, who was founder of FRELIMO, and of the Mozambican Liberation Front, who wrote the best essay, she said, that she ever marked on the poor white problem. Arthur Chaskalson, who was founder of the Legal Resource Centre, and later head of the Constitutional Court, John Maree, later head of Eskom and Nedbank, Derek Keys, chair of Gencor and briefly Minister of Finance under the Nats, Charles Feinstein, Professor of Economics at Oxford, and fellow of All Souls, the author Dan Jacobson, as well as future lawyers and UK financiers and philanthropists such as Sir Mark Weinberg and his colleagues, Sir Sydney Lipworth and Lord Joel Joffe, and last but most for Lockdown University, the international businessman and philanthropist Natie Kirsh.

He’s also known as Wendy’s father. He recently generously kick-started the Wits Endowment Fund, acknowledging that the university played, and I quote, “An integral role in transforming my life. "I am giving back with the hope "that Wits can have the same impact in transforming "the lives of young people for generations to come.” Now according to all reports, Helen was a popular lecturer, informative, incisive, amusing, and dare I say it, very attractive. Her lively and challenging lectures also argued for economic and social change in South Africa. She was, of course, well-versed in the controversial economic and political history of South Africa. But her political activism, her activism was first motivated by research undertaken in 1947 for the Institute of Race Relations for a governmental report, the Fagan Commission, which Colin Bundy discussed in his first lecture. This concerned the dire social and economic conditions of Africans who had poured into the cities during the war when influx control had been temporarily suspended. And what she learnt in her research, her actual personal research in the area, opened her eyes to the appalling hardship suffered by the black migrant population. And it sparked her determination to challenge racial discrimination, and to promote policies that would improve the conditions of the disadvantaged black communities.

Unlike several of the radical anti-apartheid activists, such as Ruth First, or Joe Slovo, or Leon and Norman Levy, Helen’s political commitment did not emerge from leftist nurseries of Eastern Europe, or from Bundestag convictions, or from communist ideology, or I have to say from parental influence. She was influenced by liberal academics such as the sociologist Hansey Pollock, and the pioneer anthropologist, Ellen Hellman, both were involved in establishing the Institute of Race Relations. And she was influenced by her Wits professors, Professor Julius Lewin, who taught Native Law and Administration, and Herbert Frankel, who was later a professor at Oxford. But above all, it was her knowledge of political economic combined with her own firsthand investigation, her own research into current oppressive conditions, that fired her early political indignation, and this would always be the hallmark of her authority, of her mantra to go and see yourself. She, like many others, were shocked when in 1948, at the general election, the Nationalists became the new government, although they won fairly narrowly. Not only did it include prominent members who’d been Nazi sympathisers, they advocated a policy of legally enforced race segregation in every aspect of life in South Africa, political, economic, educational, social. Now oppressive racial segregation was central to South African life from the earliest colonial times and increasingly through the first decade of the union of South Africa.

But now any glimmers of reform were totally stamped out, such as the Fagan Report recommendation that the influx control be relaxed and the permanent urbanisation of Africans be recognised. Helen became active in opposition politics. She worked locally for the defeated United Party, and became an effective campaigner. And in 1952 she addressed several mass meetings all over the country on behalf of The Women’s Action, an organisation dedicated to unseating the Nationalist Government, rather like the Torch Commando brief. At the approach of the next election in '53, she was invited to stand as an MP for the Houghton constituency. She was initially reluctant, it would mean leaving her family in Johannesburg because the Parliament sat in Cape Town, the legislature was in Cape Town, for at least six-months of the year. It would mean leaving a job that she enjoyed, it would mean leaving a beautiful home and garden for alone and peripatetic existence in Cape Town, it would mean leaving her children, we were then 10 and 13. Nevertheless, encouraged by her father, she agreed to give it a go, only half believing she would win. And when she did, she immediately offered her seat to another candidate who refused. And so shaking in her boots, off she went to Cape Town as MP for Houghton, an affluent and I suppose disproportionately Jewish constituency.

There she is in 1953. She would fly home every few weekends, and we would keep in touch by phone and letters. Our father, of course, was at home and our maternal grandparents hugely attentive. The household somehow ran itself with long-standing domestic staff, and my sister and I were busy with school and friends. Perhaps an unusual family arrangement, especially then, but to us it seemed perfectly acceptable at the time and it certainly encouraged us to be independent and to make our own decisions, which was something our mother always valued. For her, this new life in Cape Town was initially stressful and lonely, but she soon found kindred spirits among a few other MPs, and so began several lifelong friendships with political colleagues. The relentless apartheid legislation had begun early in the Nationalist Government, and the foundation laws of apartheid were already firmly established, such as the Population Registration Act, which classified people into racial groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages and of sexual relations between different racial groups, the Group Areas Act, which restricted each racial group to its own residential and trading areas. She was vociferous in her opposition to government legislation, but she also had serious disagreements with the more right-wing members of her own party, the United Party, for what she considered their wavering opposition to the Nationalist policy of white domination. In the first year, for example, when the United Party supported the Separate Amenities Act, she defied the Whip, refused to vote and simply walked out of Parliament.

These disagreements came to a head in 1959 at the party conference when she and a group of of 11 like-minded colleagues resigned and decided to start a new party. I was then still living at home in my last year at university, which itself, Wits itself, was an institution seething with student opposition to government threats to academic freedom. And I remember well sitting on the floor of our then smoke-filled living room during a few wintry though sunny days in August, listening to the dissident parliamentarians as they explored possibilities of forming a new party consulting widely with black leaders and arguing way into the night. They gradually formulated policies both to challenge apartheid, and to supplant the official opposition. They founded a new party under the leadership of Dr. Stadler, an Afrikaner, you see him here in the centre of this group. And they decided not to resign, but to return for the next parliamentary session in January 1960 as a minority opposition so as to put their case to the electorate. After finishing my degree at the end of that year, I left South Africa for postgraduate study abroad. And from then on, except for visits, regular visits back to South Africa, I relied on my mother’s weekly letters to keep in touch. Long distance calls, as some of you will remember, were rare and only for major crises. Her hundreds, I think maybe 200/300 letters over the years written on blue aerogrammes, often scribbled during parliamentary debates, were a mixture of maternal admonition, family gossip, hilarious accounts of social events, the antics of her beloved dogs, domestic trivia, but also, of course, about the onerous demands of her work both in and out the House of Assembly.

And I’m sharing some of these with you now, which gives you a glimpse into her personal feelings and views. The cheerfulnesses took on a particularly sombre tone after March 21st, 1960, when the police fired on a peaceful protest against the past laws organised by the Pan-African Conference. It was of course the Sharpeville massacre that shocked South Africa and shocked the world. And during this, the emergency that immediately followed her letters became a litany of horror about the killings, the ensuing unrest, the draconian emergency regulations. And these were all an ominous herald of things to come. Just going to show you them in Parliament, I don’t know if you can see, there’s something hiding. Anyway, she’s right at the back. It’s somehow hidden, there’s something over my screen so you can’t see her, but she is there. The Government banned several organisations, the ANC, and the Pan-African Conference, the PAC Congress, and hundreds of people were rounded up and imprisoned without trial, leaders were banned, some political activists fled the country, others went underground, and these included several friends. The Government, then headed by probably the most intimidating of Nationalist leaders, Hendrik Verwoerd, insisted that law and order was paramount. But her response was one of defiance, reacting to government threats that anyone opposing the harsh, wide-ranging security laws would be deemed an agitator.

She wrote to me, “I am quite determined to say what I want to say, "and to hell with intimidation. "Law and order be damned, "if you don’t hear from me for a few weeks, "you’ll know I’ve been sent to the salt mines. "Love and kisses, Ma.” She used her parliamentary privilege both in and out of Parliament. And this first emergency marks the start of her abiding concern for political prisoners and the first of her prison visits. This was to Pretoria Central where the detainees held during the emergencies were held after Sharpeville. She wrote to me in May 1960, “What worries them terribly is they will be forgotten "and left to moulder there for an indeterminate time. "And at the moment I’d say "their fears are pretty well justified, poor devils. "No sign of the Government bringing them to court or trial, "it’s too bloody for words. "The wretched African prisoners can now be kept indefinitely "according to a new regulation. "God, Francy, this is worse than anything I ever feared. "And to me it is quite amazing "that the vast majority of people,” I suppose she means white people, “just carry on blindly with hardly a thought "of what is going on. "The prisoners are as brave as anything, "and I shall do everything I can to help them. "But of course the main thing, the only thing which matters "I cannot get for them, and that is their liberty.” There were continuing protests and unrest in the country, again as Colin Bundy so wonderfully described, and the Government ratcheted up oppressive laws giving itself increasingly broad and unaccountable powers, all of which were opposed by the fledgling Progressive Party.

And the the fledgling Progressive Party are all huddled in the bottom right of the screen. There’s something over overlapping on my picture here. They opposed almost all, or tried to oppose, all the new regulations. And early in the next session, for example, Helen clashed with the Government alleging that South Africa was fast becoming little different from an occupied country. And now I’m quoting from Hansard from her speech in Parliament, “The average African cannot move about in the country "in which he was born. "His political organisations are banned. "He has absolutely no voice "through the normal political channels. "His leaders are banished without trial, "his economic grievances cannot be voiced "through the usual channels. "Their trade unions are not recognised. "What sort of freedom is it that these people enjoy?” By this time, the Government had held a successful referendum for South Africa to become a republic. And the Republican cabinet refused to tolerate such opposition. The Minister of Justice, Vorster, declared in September '61 that the Progressive Party was, quote, “Undermining the foundations of our existence "in South Africa and should be wiped out.” He added, “The annihilation of the Progressers "is one of the reasons why a general election "becomes necessary.” And thus provoked, the Nationalist Government called a snap election for 18th October, 1961. Now the Progressive Party was barely two-years-old, and this was to be their first attempt to persuade the electorate of their viability as an effective opposition. They fought 26-seats of which 11 were MPs standing for reelection, actually 12.

Helen had a team of enthusiastic supporters and they ran a brilliant and efficient campaign. They had public and house meetings, posters on trees and on lampposts, personal canvassing, tracking down voters, postal votes, transport to the polling stations, and so on. Remember, there was no television in the country, and of course no social media. I skipped a term at university in London and returned to help with the campaign. It was a fraught but an exciting time. And here is the result as conveyed by a brilliant political cartoon. It’s a little Suzman leaf, everything else swept away, for Helen was the only Progressive to hold her seat, albeit by a majority of just over 500. Now we celebrated the victory, we the family, but with a mixture of elation and trepidation. How would she, how could she, cope alone? On her return to Parliament alone, Verwoerd sneer that he’d written her off to which she replied defiantly, “The whole world has written you off.” It was the start of 13-years alone, seven of which she was the only woman, in a totally hostile Parliament in which she received threats, insults, and accusations from both Government and opposition benches. From now on, she had to express her party’s view on all important legislation. She had no Whip to inform her of the agenda, no colleagues. And to give some idea of her workload during her first session in 1962, which lasted just over 100-days, she made 66-speeches, she moved 27-amendments, and asked 137-questions on all sorts of subjects. She had to attend Parliament day-in and day-out to be sure that she was there to respond to all important bills. And this at times took a personal toll, as you can imagine. She wrote wryly to me, “I have 17-amendments to the bill on the order paper.

"I can move all of these, and divide the House too, "so the bells will toll merrily tomorrow. "However, that is the end of my weekend at home, alas.” Initially she sometimes wrote to me in despair about feeling lonely and depressed and without a soul to talk to. But at other times she expressed feisty outrage about her parliamentary colleagues. “Meantime,” I’m quoting from her letter, “Meantime, this bloody place gets worse and worse. "How the English speaking electorate "can return these morons as their representative "is beyond me. "As for the Government, Verwoerd, Vorster, and Botha "and other horrors, they are completely sure of themselves "and any protests will bring hideous reprisals.” And these hideous reprisals, of course, were enabled by a series of draconian laws that established detention without trial, and gave the security police huge and unaccountable powers, beginning with the Sabotage Bill in 1962, which gave the police arbitrary powers to place people under house arrest. Helen compared this to the wide powers taken in Hitler’s Protection of the People decree, and to the most abhorrent features of totalitarianism. She addressed several meetings, this is a protest in Johannesburg, but in many other cities she travelled around, and they were crowded and very angry meetings. And one of the charming non-parliamentary responses to her opposition to the new law was a telegram from a former Nazi supporter, Robey Leibbrandt, who telegramed, “Mordecai alias Karl Marx, "the father of modern communism was a Jew.” The following year the government introduced the 90-days detention, which allowed detention without trial, without the declaration of an emergency, it also included the notorious Sobukwe clause, which allowed the continued detention of a prisoner after completion of sentence. And of course these were ratcheted up in '65 to 180-days, and then by the Terrorism Bill in 1967.

Helen accused the Government of undermining the fundamental principles of the rule of law. And I quote, “Of which one of the most important "is that an individual should not be held by the state "unless he has been duly charged "before a proper court of law, "unless he has been properly tried openly, publicly, "and objectively by an impartial court of law.” She called for a division in the House, and as the United Party opposition streamed across the House to vote with the Government to her horror, she found herself alone in a sea of empty green benches, in solitary opposition to the entire House of Assembly. Now this received huge publicity in the English press, which was always very supportive of her. And this prompted the humiliated United Party to ensure that rules were changed to prevent her calling for a division unless she was supported by three other MPs in future. Now what of Mandela during these early '60s? During these years he was active in the ANC organising protests and strikes, travelling abroad for support, and military training. And on his return, he went underground, known by some as the Black Pimpernel. He was, however, intercepted and arrested in August 1962, accused of inciting a strike and illegally travelling abroad.

He was sentenced to five-years imprisonment, and sent to Robben Island, but not for long because a raid in July 1963 in a farm hideout in Rivonia near Johannesburg, just outside Johannesburg, implicated him in plans for armed insurrection. He was brought back to Pretoria, to Pretoria Prison, to face this more serious charge with several others at the forthcoming Rivonia trial that took place in '63/'64. He was, as you know, later sentenced to life imprisonment. Now Mandela’s first meeting with Helen is always dated, or almost invariably, to 1967, the occasion of her first visit to Robben Island. However, Mandela recalled his first encounter with her, an encounter is how he described it, as having taken place four-years earlier in 1963 in the Pretoria Prison. As he later recounted, he was in his cell consulting with his advocate, Bram Fischer, leader of the banned underground Communist Party, about the forthcoming Rivonia trial, which was due to start in October, when a woman passed in the corridor. And I’m quoting Mandela, he wrote, “Bram got up and whispered almost in reverence "as a woman passed in the corridor, 'That’s Helen Suzman’.” And Mandela commented, this was significant coming from a man whose political views would not normally lead him to respect a liberal. I can imagine her bustling briskly down the corridor, her high-heels clicking on the stone floor on her way to visit other prisoners, totally unaware of having been observed by Mandela and Fischer.

But I wonder whether Mandela knew that earlier that same year, Helen’s opening gambit during the no-confidence debate, shortly before the 90-day Detention Bill had been announced, had been to tell the House defiantly, the House of Parliament, that members of Parliament and the wider world should know what black leaders were saying. And she then read from Mandela’s closing speech at his previous trial, just before he was sentenced to five-years. Mandela’s speech was not a contrite appeal, but a powerful political statement. He refused to accept the authority of the court, and he said he was determined to follow his conscience in defiance of immoral, unjust, and intolerable laws, which he had not contributed to in any way, had no say in. He warned that, and I’m quoting now, “That the Government, by resorting continually to violence "will breed in this country "counter-violence among the people "until ultimately, if there is no dawning of sanity, "if there is no dawning of sanity "on the part of the Government, "the dispute between the Government and my people "will finish up by being settled in violence and by force.” And what I have on the screen is actually from Hansard. As a banned person, Mandela could not be quoted, but since whatever is said in Parliament under the principle of parliamentary privilege, anything that was said and was published in Hansard could indeed be quoted in the media, which indeed it was in the “Daily Mail” and other papers. And this was an early example, one of many, of how Helen used her parliamentary privilege to subvert restrictions on free speech and to undermine the Government in the very institution that made its laws. I’ve never found out at that stage how she got the forbidden text. Even Mandela’s lawyer, the late Bob Hepple, didn’t know.

When she sat down to the jeers of other MPs, the next speaker congratulated her sarcastically on her new leader, Mandela. Thus by the early 1960s, although they hadn’t met personally, they were moving in a shared political universe, but from two different planets. He, from the militant extra-parliamentary liberation movement, she as a militant solitary representative of a parliamentary opposition party. They would not meet personally until 1967. Mandela may or may not have been fully aware of her vigorous opposition to current legislation, or that she had quoted him earlier that year, ‘cause I think he was in hiding at the time anyway. But it was certainly acknowledged by another black leader, Chief Albert Luthuli, who was a banned Nobel Prize winner, and was then the leader of the ANC. And in '62 he wrote to congratulate her, “On the gallant fight you are putting up "almost single-handed against the Nationalist Party.” And the following year, after being the only MP to oppose the 90-days Detention Bill, he praised her for her heroic and lone stand, adding, “In moments of creeping frustration and tiredness, "please pick courage and strength in the fact "that thousands of South Africans, "especially among the oppressed section, "thank God for producing Helen, "for her manly stand against injustice. "Forever remember, you are a bright star in a dark chamber "where the lights of liberty of what is left "are going out one by one.” Helen’s letters to me often confirm moments of frustration and tiredness. She wrote of the sheer grinding work, and at times the burden seemed too much. I quote, “I alternate between a sturdy determination "to fight these devils to the bitter end, "and a longing to crawl off somewhere quiet and peaceful.

"The thought of leading a fairly normal life again "is too gorgeous for words.” And other times though she expressed sheer exasperation, “I’ve really had a bellyful of these maniacs,” or, “I really can’t go on and on saying the same damn things "year-after-year to the same damn blockheads.” However, her contempt for both the Government and the main opposition, combined with her deep concern for the misery and suffering caused by the apartheid policies continued to spur her determination to oppose every apartheid law. And so she did go on saying the same damn things to the same damn blockheads, which prompted one Nat MP’s heartfelt complaint, “When she gets up in this House, "she reminds me of a cricket in a thorn tree "when it’s very dry in the bushveld. "His chirping makes you deaf, "but the tune remains the same year-after-year. "In her fight for the Buntu, the honourable member "sings the same tune year-after-year.” Or P.W. Botha’s more chauvinist objection that she was, quote, “In the habit of chattering continually. "If my wife chatted like that, "I would know what to do with her. "There’s nothing that works on my nerves more "than a woman who continually interrupts me. "She’s like water dripping on a tin roof.” Now I’m just showing you her in Parliament a few years later, but I think this is a joint setting. She’s in a little red circle in the middle, and I’m just showing it to you to show you what a chamber of horrors it was. It looks to me as if it’s both houses sitting together. Now that she had so many opportunities to speak, and this has to be said, was owing to the fairness of the Speaker of the House, H.J. Klopper.

And the next shows her speaking to Klopper. Although he was a hard line Nat, and didn’t agree with a word she said, he nevertheless ensured that her rights in the House were respected and that she would get time to speak whenever she wanted, and this was vital during her solo years. Now, Helen always wrote her own speeches, which were meticulously researched, armed with fact and with her own firsthand evidence. Her office staff consisted of a secretary and a researcher who helped with her questions. Now these hundreds of questions year-after-year, they could be about forced removals, past law offences, detentions, bannings, police brutality, censorship, every possible aspect of life, these questions, and their answers, informed the outside world, both abroad and in South Africa, of the cruel realities of apartheid and its enforcement. One irate minister accused her of asking so many questions simply in order to embarrass South Africa abroad, to which she famously answered, “It’s not my questions that embarrass South Africa, "it’s your answers.” In 1966, at the next election, after her next election, the “New York Times”, the correspondent then was Joe Lelyveld, who was also mentioned by Colin Bundy, reported that she represented more people than all parliamentarians put together, 'cause although officially representing a white constituency in Johannesburg, she took on a far wider constituency, millions of voteless citizens, the excluded black population of the country, and especially so during the 1960s and the early '70s, when their leaders were imprisoned or exiled, and their political organisation banned, and black resistance all but crushed.

And those of you who heard Colin Bundy earlier today, he discussed how black resistance emerged from the early and mid-'70s. Now besides opposing every stage of every apartheid bill, Helen also year-after-year introduced a private member bill on a wide range of issues, the repeal of the Immorality Act, the repeal of all statutes to do with detention without trial, abolition of migratory labour, free and compulsory education for all, trade union rights, and so on and so on. And in 1969, after her proposal to consider the abolition of the death penalty, she wrote to me, “By the time the United Party "and the Nats had finished with me, "you’d have thought I was in favour of murder, rape, treason, "sabotage, child stealing, kidnapping, armed robbery, "and housebreaking with aggravating circumstances.” Identifying Helen with the promotion of violence was a typical tactic and led to a stream of threats and abuse. She was called an agitator, subversive, treasonable. And it included P.W. Botha’s hysterical accusation of the assassination of Verwoerd in 1966, “It’s you who did it, it’s all you liberals, "you incite people, now we’ll get you, "we’ll get a lot of you.”

Her solitary years for all their trials and tribulations and stresses were to prove worth the effort, when in 1973, the election returned five Progressive MPs, actually became six, there was a by-election, which over the years in its successive forms took over as the main opposition, and which the Democratic Alliance is now its descendant. Helen was nevertheless left with the portfolios of justice, prisons, and Buntu administration, which would all be crucial during the turbulent years of increased black resistance after 1976, after the Soweto revolt, and during the 1980s. Through her parliamentary career, Helen also dealt with what she called… I’m sorry, there she is on the front bench, and there are the Progressives who came in in 1974. Throughout her parliamentary career, Helen dealt with what she called, “The sad harvest of the seeds of apartheid”, from her desk at home and from her desk in Parliament. She was inundated by hundreds of letters, by phone calls at all hours of day and night. She always had a listed phone number, and by people who simply turned up at our front door for help. She responded to everyone, regardless of their political position, as can be seen in her archive at Wits. She didn’t always succeed in helping, but she always tried.

And the daughter of one long-term political prisoner had said, “She was always there for us.” There were some calls and letters she did not reply to, such as threatening midnight calls, phone calls, which she answered with a sharp whistle hoping to break their eardrums, I think. And she answered, yes, with a shrill whistle down the line. And as for the plentiful anonymous hate mail, vitriolic, anti-Semitic, pornographic and sexist rants, these she popped into a bulging file labelled fan mail. One hostile letter to which she replied with some relish was from the head of a right wing women’s organisation called the Cuppy Commando. She reminded Helen that her Afrikaner ancestors had trekked across the mountains with their Bibles to civilise the natives. And what she asked, accusingly, “have yours ever done?” To which Helen replied politely, “Dear madam, my ancestors were busy "writing the Bible.” Now beside responding to correspondence and phone calls, she also used her position, her privileged position, to gather firsthand evidence about the cruel consequences of apartheid, visiting areas and individuals out of bounds to others, and supporting communities resisting the Government, such as here at Lime Hill with Father Desmond Cosmas, whose book “The Discarded People” documented the misery of the resettlement areas where the aged, the disabled, the widows, women with dependent children, and other so-called superfluous Bantu were simply dumped. The wretched settlements or squatter camps where shelters were brutally demolished by the police, as seen in this aftermath after a dawn raid, or political activists banished to remote areas such as Winnie Mandela during her banishment to Brandfort, and here after her return to Soweto, where they are together inspecting schools in the townships, or Mamphela Ramphele, partner of the murdered black consciousness leader Steve Biko, when she was banished to La Linea for seven-years where she ran a clinic, and here is Helen with her friend, Anne Bernstein, visiting Mamphela.

She also gathered evidence about conditions in the townships or interceded with the police. Here she’s observing or restraining police action, and she visited communities threatened with removals under the Group Areas Act such as here, the Okasie. She attended trials and witnessed the seething anger at mass funerals, which became demonstrations of political protest. And she once advised the members of the cabinet to go and visit the black townships to see how their laws affected ordinary people, and to see the intensity of black resistance. But she added they should only do so if heavily disguised as human beings. At one funeral at Mamelodi in December 1985, she was invited to address the crowd and she stood up and said, “The killings must stop.” Let’s see if this works on.

• [Reporter] When blacks here mourn their violent dead, they call for their heroes, black leaders in jail and one white woman. In this cauldron of anger and grief, Helen Suzman looks as if she’s stepped out of an Edwardian garden. But she’s tough, she’s fought racial injustice all her life and she’s still fighting.

• We must make it clear to the Government that these disastrous confrontations between the people of the townships, the police and the army must stop. The killings must stop.

• She continued to say, “The Government must lift "the state of emergency, release political detainees, "remove the army and the riot police "from the country’s black townships, "if peace is to be restored, "and if progress is to be made towards solving the problems, "the country’s problems.” Now Helen always insisted that any progress towards solving the country’s problems would involve consulting with black leaders, many of whom, most of whom were either exiled, but most of them in South Africa were in prison, whom she had met during her visits to prisons. Because as I said before, she took up countless cases of ill-treatment and campaigned always for improvement in the prisons. She organised access to music in the Pretoria Prison, getting permission to instal loudspeakers, provide record players and records. She pleaded for clemency for Bram Fischer, and many prisoners from across the spectrum have acknowledged her efforts. The Afrikaner poet, for example, Breyten Breytenbach wrote, “The prisoners both political and common law "consider her as our lady of the prisoners. "She is indeed a living myth among the people "inhabiting the world of shadows.” But it was in this context that she and Mandela finally met in person.

• [Reporter] …mourn their violent dead.

• Sorry, this machine is rather whimsical. It was in this context that she met Mandela in 1967 in the maximum security prison on Robben Island, four-years since he glimpsed her in the corridors of Pretoria Prison, and she had quoted his censored speech in the House of Assembly. This is a picture of the quarry at Robben Island with the prisoners breaking stones. News had begun to leak out about atrocious prison conditions on the island, and Helen was eventually given permission to visit in February 1967. Mandela recounts how shortly before her arrival, before she arrived, the prisoners noticed a lull in the bullying and a brief respite from their backbreaking work in the quarry. Mandela himself was abruptly moved to a cell at the end of a corridor, but the prisoners agreed that Mandela should be their spokesman. And so the first prisoner she saw said, “Please go straight to Mandela”, which she did. They greeted each other politely, they shook hands. Helen noticed he was tall, and had unmistakable air of authority, while he noticed that all five-foot two-inches of her came through the door, that she was remarkably confident and utterly unfazed by her surroundings. And without further ado, she asked about the prisoner’s welfare, and noted down his complaints in a small notebook, inadequate food and clothing, lack of facilities for studying, absence of newspapers, backbreaking hard labour in the quarry, lack of visits, but worst of all was their warder, who was sadistic, harsh and bullying and who sported a swastika tattoo on the back of his hand. Helen promised to take up all these matters with the Minister, which she did immediately on her return from the island.

She threatened the Minister of Justice with publicity about the warder, and within a few weeks received a grateful message from Mandela that the warder had been transferred. She took up all other issues as well, and conditions gradually improved. Her visit was recognised as a turning point. Mandela later wrote of this visit, “It was an odd and wonderful sight "to see this courageous woman peering into our cells, "and strolling around. "She was the first and only woman to grace ourselves.” And in 1990, Neville Alexander, a political activist who was on Robben Island, imprisoned there for 10-years, wrote of her first visit, “Had she not come in February 1967, "there’s no saying what might have happened.” As for Mandela, I’m just going to get out of this quarry. And this was Helen in the early '80s. As for Mandela, she subsequently visited him whenever she could get permission, about eight-times. And the next visit was seven-years later. But in 1980 she saw him, had many long talks, he was moved to mainland prisons, and she continued to visit and see him there to intercede with the authorities to improve conditions. They had long talks about personal and wider political issues. And Helen recalled that their most in-depth political conversation was in 1986 when he told her he was in favour of negotiation, which she reported to the press.

Now, this was at a time, as Colin Bundy explained today, of emergency regulations, black resistance and violent confrontations. And little did they know, or perhaps Mandela had an inkling, that just four-years later, the Government and the ANC would indeed embark on a negotiated settlement, and that the dawning of sanity at last, of which Mandela had spoken in 1963, was at last coming to be. Now, although Helen had retired from Parliament, she was appointed to two crucial positions in the new South Africa. She was a member of the Independent Electoral Commission that organised the first election, important election, vital election in 1994, and to the Human Rights Commission. And these years also marked negotiations for the new constitution, culminating in a historic ceremony on December 10, 1996, when the Constitution Act was signed into law. It took place at Sharpeville, the site of the infamous massacre in 1960. Helen was planning to drive herself there, but was invited to accompany Mandela in his helicopter. On arrival, and before signing, they together laid a wreath and unveiled a plaque commemorating the Sharpeville victims. Her parliamentary colleague and party leader, Colin Eglin, considered this a demonstration of his respect for Helen and the role she played in the fight against apartheid, a sensitive and powerful tribute of one great South African to another. And the following year I was fortunate to be in South Africa when the President Mandela awarded her the Order of Merit, together with three other struggle honorands, Mandela’s close friend and colleague, Walter Sisulu, Beyers Naude, a courageous Afrikaner dissident, and Professor Richard van der Ross, an educationalist and anti-apartheid activist. Mandela explained, “I’m honoured to bestow this award "on four distinguished citizens of our country.

"In deciding on three of them, I followed my head. "In the case of the other, I’m afraid, I followed my heart. "I shan’t tell you who that other person is, "but she gives me a lot of trouble.” Helen had never ceased to keep a sharp critical eye on governmental policies or enforcement even in the new South Africa. And she took up cases of injustice, spoke up when she perceived shortcomings of governance or threats to the democratic principles underlying the new constitution, equality, human dignity, and the rule of law. And she warned against any government claiming all levers of power, and of the danger of a political party putting its interests above the interests of the country. She was always incensed by the lack of opposition from the South African Government to Mugabe’s dictatorial and murderous regime. And in 2001, she proudly added a new honour to her long CV, which was declared an enemy of the state of Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe. And on the occasion of her 85th birthday, Mandela could not resist alluding to her continual vigilance in his affectionate message. After praising her contribution to South African public life, he wrote rather ruefully, “Now looking back from the safety "of our non-racial democracy, "we can even feel some sympathy "for the National Party members "who shared Parliament with you. "Knowing what a thorn in the flesh "of even your friends and political allies you can be, "your forthright fearlessness must have made life hell "for them when confronted by you.” But on a more serious note, he wrote to her on her behalf, and of Graca, this was in 2006, couple of years later, that his most vivid image of her was as a true friend of political prisoners in the apartheid era.

“You attended trials and inquests, "you showed solidarity with those who died in custody. "You helped to arrange legal representation. "You visited Winnie and the children in Brandfort "in the darkest years, "and you stood up to help when we most needed help, "and we salute you.” The following year, my mother celebrated her 90th birthday. We all celebrated with her, but just over a year later, she died at 91. And within hours of her death, this is in 2009, on New Year’s Day, and within hours of her death, we were besieged by the media, tributes poured in from all over the world and every corner of the country, and from every shade of political opinion. The response to her death was overwhelming. And we were intensely moved by the hundreds of personal messages of condolence we received, many acknowledged she’d helped them personally. Nelson and Graca, his second wife, were among the first visitors to the house after Helen’s death, when he cradled Helen’s first grandchild on his lap, something that Helen sadly had not had a chance to do. And he reminisced fondly about his many exchanges over the years with a certain young lady, how she’d often told him he should serve a second term of office. But he disagreed because he hoped to be an example to other leaders in Africa. But he added, sadly, they did not listen to me. The official government response was overwhelming. President Kgalema Motlanthe asked for flags to hang at half mass on the day of a funeral, but that wasn’t the end of it. For then to our astonishment, it was rumoured and widely broadcast that a state funeral had been declined by the family.

And this confused rumour even inspired a cartoonist’s pen, which depicted Helen as modestly refusing special treatment even as she ascends to heaven with a little message, “Hamba kahle, Mama,” travel well. In fact, the private family funeral became a very public event. Mourners were filmed and photographed and jostled by reporters and photographers, even at the graveside, was attended by several leading political figures representing a range of political allegiance. You see here, for example, President Motlanthe on the left representing the ANC Government, behind him is former President de Klerk of the Nationalist Government, on the right there’s Helen’s colleague and party leader, Colin Eglin, and behind him Arthur Chaskalson, President of the new Constitutional Court. And peering from behind the coffin is Mandela’s longtime lawyer, George Bizos. Several ANC officials were pull bearers, and leaders of all the opposition parties came to pay their respects. And there were many political activists, former political activists, or political prisoners who now had important roles in the New South Africa. A few weeks later, her political legacy was honoured in the National Assembly. A motion added that since her retirement, she stood full-square behind the ideals of the Constitution and stood without fear or favour for human rights and civil liberties in South Africa.

Leaders from all parties spoke in support of the motion, each from a different perspective, but with unusual unanimity in that argumentative chamber. Tony Leon, who 20-years earlier had succeeded Helen as Member of Parliament for her constituency, described how she had inspired him and many young liberals. The chief ANC whip, a leader of the 1976 student uprising in Soweto, emotionally recalled how he and his comrades could always rely on her to trace imprisoned friends and to publicise atrocities. And that she had been, I quote, “One of the shining examples and part of our own resistance "even while serving in a parliament we opposed.” And a week later, she was singled out by President Motlanthe as a truly South African who represented the values of our new parliament in the chambers of the old. Shortly after we had a wonderful memorial celebration at Wits, Justice Dikgang Moseneke recalled his first encounter with Helen on Robben Island, where he’d been imprisoned from the age of 15 to 25, when except for his mother’s occasional visits, Helen was the only woman he ever set eyes on. Crucially for him, he added, “She pressed for the prisoner’s rights to study, "to which he partly owed his present condition.” The main speaker, Tutu, castigated political leaders, current political leaders, for their arrogant misuse of power, reminding them that power was for service. And he praised Helen as one of the heroes of the struggle.

In short, Helen’s death seems to have inspired an extraordinary, if brief, unity in the fractious politics of South Africa. A reflection too of her close friendship with Nelson Mandela, and also of their mutual respect and affection. Several months later, when her tombstone in West Park Cemetery was unveiled, it was engraved with the famous passage from Deuteronomy, “Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.” Thank you. Sorry, I’ve gone on a bit long. Who was one of her constituents until emigrating, and also from Germiston, and they worked for Helen when she was still on the faculty at Wits and thereafter, that’s nice. Mike Milloway attended a lecture in '80s. She began by saying, “I know the Special Branch must be following me. "In fact, I saw this big dog enter the theatre. "I was in Helen’s class at Wits for three-years, "and she remembered me immediately.” Thanks. Josie Adler, this is a long question. “All her arduous and astounding years "in political and public life, "she made parliamentary challenges with questions "about forced removals, detentions, deaths, "passport removals, banning, "countless people sought her aid, which she never refused.” Judith Briggs, right. Judith Briggs was her secretary in Johannesburg, not in Parliament. And the South African Police. The South African Police refused to call late at night to arrest a farmer who was secretly burying a black man he’d killed. They said he did not know the way of the farm, and they did have a car.

At midnight, Helen phoned the South African Police Commissioner who got the police to attend. The man was sentenced to nine-years in jail. Another arranged in the '80s, the Sandton Council arranged for police raid to remove squatter shacks out of Alexandra. Helen phoned the Mayor, Army Generals and the police and the operation was called off. Yeah, that was typical. Yes, she was considered for a Nobel Prize, I think more than once. I know when she was interviewed, she always just said, “I’m just doing my job.” So she doesn’t exactly promote herself as much of a heroine as Nelson is a hero, that’s nice. “Your mother’s conscience of South Africa, "do you think she was influenced "by the prophets of the Bible?” She was very influenced by history, she really cared about fairness and justice. I don’t think the Bible had much, she didn’t really read the Bible much. She was not really religious, but she had great principles about fairness and protecting people, and also the rule of law and the way governments should run. I think that’s it.

• Again, Frances, that was absolutely awe-inspiring, and what a mother, what a woman. She must have had an incredible impact on your life, because you and your husband are also great seekers of justice and truth. Yeah. So again, thank you so very much.

• No problem. As I say, I went on too long, but I started late.

• No, it was riveting, believe me, it was wonderful. Thank you so much, and see you very soon. And goodnight everyone, and thank you all, and thank you, Emily. God bless, bye.