Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 7, 2021

Terry and Barbara Bell, December 1969, with daughter Ceiren, aged three months. (Photo: Supplied)

After arriving, hot and sweaty down a dusty road through the bush, the well-built Zambian border post appeared like an oasis, but of bricks and mortar. And the reception by crisply uniformed officials was the epitome of polite officialdom. Good morning, said the senior officer as he ushered us through the door, welcome to Zambia.

But then bureaucracy and a measure to forestall corruption interfered. Without the K5 given to us by my friend at the Zambian consulate in Lubumbashi, we could proceed no further. I am sorry sir, but we do not do currency exchange, the official behind the counter responded when I offered our 50 franc Belgian note in exchange for the lesser amount of K5.

As we sat dejectedly on a bench, the senior officer told us not to worry. Sooner or later someone would arrive, travelling from Zambia back to Lubumbashi, who would be sure to exchange our note for the required K5. But soon became later and the post was preparing to shut up for the day when a sole traveller arrived from Zambia and was only too happy to exchange our Belgian currency for the K5: we were officially free to travel into Zambia.

But it was already close to nightfall and I was looking around for the most comfortable place to bed down for the night when the senior officer informed us that no overnight stays were permitted. However, he and his staff had contacted a Czech geologist working in the bush nearby and he would take us to the nearest border town, Chililabombwe, from where we hitched a single, 140km ride that night to Ndola.

The next morning I turned up at the offices of the Times of Zambia where the newspapers were again short-staffed. I was hired as features editor. That meant we would be able to fulfil our promise, especially to Barbaras parents, whom I had never met, that we would get together as soon as we reached southern Africa. Both sets of parents agreed to drive up to spend Christmas and New Year of 1968 with us.

By then we had settled in, made contact with other South African exiles and begun to discover that things on the exile front were far from rosy. Not that we had much detail at the time: that came in dribs and drabs, sometimes many years later. What we heard was that there was disquiet, bordering on mutiny, in the ANCs military camps south of Lusaka; that much of this stemmed from the disastrous 1967 Wankie and Sipolilo excursions into then Rhodesia. A memorandum was also circulating signed by seven MK fighters condemning the rot in the ANC and accusing leadership elements of nepotism and corruption.

At the same time, President Kamuzu Hastings Banda of Malawi had established diplomatic relations with apartheid South Africa and we heard that talks were ongoing between South Africa and a number of other African states. This information was at least partially confirmed in April 1969 when 14 African countries came out in support of the Lusaka Manifesto, which proposed a political talks solution to the problems facing southern Africa.

This news emerged just weeks before the ANC leadership convened a major conference in Morogoro called to review the policy, strategy, leadership structure and style of work of the movement. Officially, we exiles in Ndola were kept in the dark about much that was going on, but one of the major decisions at Morogoro was that people like Barbara and me or those classified by apartheid as Indian or coloured could be ordinary members of the exiled organisation. Since I had, since my recruitment, considered this question to be irrelevant and had acted accordingly it didnt change anything.

But we were all definitely in for a long haul. And that might mean long-term jobs. Frene Ginwala, for example, later to become the first Speaker of the post-apartheid Parliament, came to Ndola to review, with me, the Times operation before she took over as editor of Tanzanias government newspaper. Other ANC members also occasionally stopped over and we managed, generally, to keep fairly well informed while avoiding the colonial social bubble that coalesced around a series of expatriate-dominated clubs.

In any event, work on the daily Times and Sunday Times was often hectic since I not only edited pages, but also researched and wrote features, gave some help with a training course for Zambian journalists, taught a brief course on political philosophy to civil servants and coordinated a weekly radical discussion group. Our daughter, Ceiren, was born in September 1969.

A year later, with my contract at the Times having ended, I accepted the job of editor-in-chief at an Ndola-based publishing group that produced the countrys business and motoring magazines and the Zambian Medical Journal. Zambia, it seemed, was to be our home base for the foreseeable future: it was only a matter of the new contract being agreed by the government. But then came word that ANC families working in Zambia were not having their contracts renewed and were being given 48 hours to leave. Youll be next, said Qups, a school teacher comrade as he and his wife packed up to leave for Canada.

As a precaution, and on the advice of New Zealand journalist Vernon Wight, I wrote, applying for a job on the Auckland Star and received a prompt reply. I was offered not only a job, but also free hotel accommodation for a week, a settling-in allowance and $400 toward removal expenses. This was a safety net beyond any expectations: I filed it, just in case while I waited for our application to become permanent Zambian residents. Instead, the expulsion order arrived, which we were able to delay for several weeks.

Jim Thorpe, owner of the publishing company, then came to our financial rescue, handing me about six months pay in the form of banknotes in a large canvas bank bag. We had enough money not only to get to Botswana but, if need be, make it to New Zealand. ANC president OR Tambo and his close friend and comrade, Jack Simons, also confessed that the movement was powerless to help us stay.

However, rebuilding was under way on an international level. Our priority should be to settle in Botswana and establish a safe house for the ANC. Alternatively, go to New Zealand and help establish an anti-apartheid movement. An office responsible for the Oceania region had been set up in Delhi and, should we end up in New Zealand, I should file monthly situation reports via that office.

So, with all our portable belongings, a 14-month-old daughter, a dog and cat, we drove, on often unmade roads, the near-2,000km from Ndola to Gaborone where I applied for the long-vacant post of the then moribund information department magazine. The job was mine, the information chief informed me. The only formality was presidential approval. Since Barbara was not banned, her parents took her, Ceiren, the dog and cat back to Johannesburg while I waited, in a rented room, for the approval. What came instead was a blunt refusal.

At the time, the secretary to President Seretse Khama was ANC and SACP member Joe Matthews, later a deputy minister in the post-apartheid government and Inkatha Freedom Party stalwart. I went to see him. Sorry, he said, but its not just South African security. Its the Zambians as well.

I was shattered. It was close to Christmas and Barbara had also told me that Ceiren had, belatedly, started walking. Angry and frustrated, I decided on a scheme even more hare-brained than taking up a challenge to paddle a kayak from London to Dar es Salaam: in disguise, I would cross into South Africa and spend the holiday period in Johannesburg with my wife and daughter. DM

Read the original post:

OP-ED: Reflections of a Wayward Boy: Wanderings in the diaspora as exiled, stateless, brand-new parents - Daily Maverick

Category: Diaspora
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