Our Lady of the Prisoners

On January 1^st of this year, one of the bravest and most determined women of modern times passed away at 91 years of age. Her name was Helen Suzman, and she was instrumental in ending apartheid in South Africa.

Mrs. Suzman, ne Gavribsky, was the daughter of Lithuanian Jews who moved to South Africa in the early 20^th century. She was born on November 17, 1917, the day the revolution broke out in Russia, in Germiston, Transvaal. She was educated at the Parktown Convent in Johannesburg and at Witwatersrand University, but initially dropped out at age 19 to marry Mozie Suzman, a neurologist. After giving birth to two daughters, Mrs. Suzman returned to University to complete an economics degree. (Edmonton Journal, Sunday Reader, Lone Progressive Stood for All, The Daily Telegraph, January 11, 2009)

It was while completing her degree that Helen became acutely aware of how apartheid operated, and what it was doing to the black South African population. The realization, and her subsequent political life, belied her privileged upbringing and the traditional role as a South-African woman at that time. Helen stated that her economics degree first "roused [her] to the discrimination" that native Africans faced and how this discrimination was instituted in the laws used to rule them. (See above reference.)

To oppose this bigotry, Mrs. Suzman ran for the opposition United Party member in the wealthy Houghton district in 1953. She won the seat, but was dismayed by the failure of the United Party to condemn the segregationist policies of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party after the latter's victories in the 1948 and 1953 elections. She and ten other UP members quit the party and formed the Progressive Party in 1959. The founding tenant of the new party was a commitment to non-racism. (National Post, January 5, 2009, White South Africa's Lonely Voice of Reason, R.W. Johnson, Johannesburg.)

In 1961 the only member of the Progressive Party to be returned to Parliament was Helen Suzman. For the next 13 years she railed at the Afrikaner Nationalist Party, denouncing their policies of apartheid, repressive legislation, police torture, and detention without trial. As the violence in South Africa increased in response to apartheid's ongoing barbarism, Suzman became the spokesperson for all liberal opposition groups, both within Parliament and without. It was at this time that she gained the sobriquet of "Our Lady of the Prisoners" as she did not hesitate to visit regime opponents, from Nelson Mandela to Jehovah's Witnesses and Communists, who had been thrown into prison.

Her resistance to the Afrikaner Nationalist Party earned Helen Suzman few friends and many enemies. In 1961, when she rose to speak in the House prime minister H.F. Verwoerd warned South Africans of Jewish descent that their actions "[have] not gone unnoticed." Members of Parliament often shouted such vitriolic statements as "Karl Marx was also a Jew," when it was Helen's turn to speak. (White South Africa's Lonely Voice of Reason, R.W. Johnson, National Post, January 5, 2009.)

Her most intractable foe was P.W. Botha, who, when H.F. Verwoerd was stabbed to death on the floor of the House by a party messenger, screamed at Suzman, "It's you who did this. It's all you liberals. You incite people. We will get you." (Lone Progressive Stood for All, The Daily Telegraph, January 11, 2009) Though he did apologize, Botha only did so reluctantly.

Helen Suzman was able to stand up to such opprobrium because she researched carefully any question on which she wished to speak and she knew her rights as a Parliamentarian. She knew that the Speaker of the House had to allow her to address the assembly and, over time, other speakers defied their party positions, and asked her to talk. The Parliament allowed her one day every year to bring forward a Private Member's Bill and she used the time to try and repeal such odious laws as the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act or to increase the minimum wage paid to black South Africans. (www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12884799)

Mrs. Suzman was most at ease in fighting for minority rights on her own. When five more Progressives were elected to Parliament in 1974, she was happy, but found it difficult to work in a team environment once again. As the opposition against apartheid grew both inside the country and in the international community, the left began to criticize her liberal beliefs. She supported capitalism and opposed economic sanctions because she believed that they would hurt the poor. Suzman felt that the one of the best weapons against apartheid was economic growth which would eventually increase opportunities for blacks. (White South Africa's Lonely Voice of Reason, R.W. Johnson, Nation Post, January 5, 2009) Her denunciation of economic sanctions prevented her from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, though she was nominated twice. The prize went to Archbishop Desmond Tutu of Cape Town, who felt that a boycott could not make things worse for the poor. (Lone Progressive Stood for All, The Daily Telegraph, January 11, 2009)

Helen Suzman retired from politics in 1989. She received 25 honourary degrees as well as an honourary Order of the British Empire, (OBE), from Queen Elizabeth. In 2004, Mrs. Suzman brought the ANC government to task criticizing Thabo Mbeki for supporting Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, his ant-white speeches, and his unwillingness to improve the lot of black South Africans. Her comments were ignored.