Trevor Huddleston, ’n bevrydingsteoloog

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’n Bevrydingsteoloog is iemand wat godsdiens gebruik om sy politieke doelwitte te bevorder. In die vorige eeu was talle sodanige indiwidue plaaslik aktief, bv Desmond Tutu, Frank Chikane, Beyers Naudé, Nico Smith en Allan Boesak. In die nuwe Suid-Afrika is hulle ruim vir hulle (dikwels onwettige) bedrywighede vergoed, bv in materiële terme of met oordadige lofprysinge. Soos ’n Johannes die Doper het Trevor Huddleston (1913-1998) vir hulle die pad aangedui. Sy boek, Naught for your comfort (London: Collins, 1956, 256p), het as’t ware as handleiding gedien. Huddleston het hierdie boek geskryf op die vooraand van sy terugkeer na Engeland. My tweedehandse eksemplaar kom oorspronklik uit die Lusaka Bookshop en het dus heel moontlik aan ’n ANC-kameraad behoort wat vandaar terreurbedrywighede beplan of onderneem het.

Huddleston beweer dat hy die meeste van sy twaalf jaar as Anglikaanse priester in Suid-Afrika (1943-1956) in Johannesburg deurgebring het, met die helfte van die tyd in krotbuurte, bv Sophiatown. "What I shall try to avoid is that most common and persistent error in all such assessments - the attempt to be impartial ... Any doctrine based on racial or colour prejudice and enforced by the State is ... an affront to human dignity and ’ipso facto’ an insult to God himself" (p 18). "Any form of racial discrimination [is] contrary to the will of God" (p 69). [Geld dit ook vir die hedendaagse rasgebaseerde "regstellings" en transformasie?] "The evil of bad housing" is volgens die outeur "a mockery of God" (p 45). Swartes "are men and women, made in the image of God ... It is God whom we insult" (p 114-115). "Racial discrimination ... is ... a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God Himself" (p 240). Die apartheidstaat was "an outrageous violation of the whole Christian doctrine" (p 153). "Apartheid is a denial of the very foundation of the Gospel itself" (p 252).

Hy meen "Christians are called to a higher obedience" en hulle mag dus dislojaal teenoor Suid-Afrika (bedoelende die regering) wees (p 20, ook p 74). "It was our aim to work in the closest conjunction with the African National Congress and the Transvaal Indian Congress" (p 189). Met verwysing na swart woonbuurte soos Sophiatown en Alexandra skryf hy: "Hell is not a bad description of South Africa" (p 24). "The boys of Alexandra are rotting away in the overcrowded yards" (p 27). Die manier om dit te verander, is "the power of the vote" (p 40). [Maar het die situasie in bv Alexandra sedert 1994 veel verbeter?] Huddleston se werkwyse was om negatiewe stories van swartes oor wittes en die owerheid te versamel en hulle dan as die waarheid aan koerante soos die Star vir publikasie oor te dra. Wanneer insidente verwag of geskep word, het Huddleston die pers vooraf ingelig. "My only weapon in such cases is publicity" (p 33).

"Apartheid ... assumes that a difference in pigmentation is a reason for exercising power" (p 252). [Dit het tydens apartheid sekerlik nie net om kleur gegaan nie. Mag swartes nou maar op grond van hulle kleur die mag hê?] Huddleston het dit teen "the depersonalisation of man ... the submerging of the individual in the mass" (p 35). [Sou hy simpatie met die plaaslike wittes hê wat deesdae toenemend deur die swart meerderheid verswelg word? Nelson Mandela het aan die einde van die Rivonia-verhoor daarvoor gepleit dat een groep nie deur ’n ander oorheers moet word nie. Sedertdien het Mandela egter niks teen die huidige oorheersing deur swartes nie.]

"In a South African city it is not merely the contrast between wealth and poverty which is obvious. It is the fact that this contrast is forced upon the African" (p 46). [Maar doen hierdie kontras twee dekades na "bevryding" hom nie steeds plaaslik en in die res van Afrika en elders voor nie? Dit kan seker nie uitsluitlik aan "the false ideology of racialism, of apartheid, of white supremacy" (p 98) toegeskryf word nie.] Was Huddleston self vry van "racialism" en "white supremacy"? Hulle het ’n skema vir kosvoorsiening aan swartes bedryf met ’n wit hoofbeampte wat spesiaal uit Engeland ingevoer is. "Every centre was supervised and run by voluntary European workers ... and by African assistants" (p 216). Hy skryf egter: "[We] know the humiliation of that paternal, official attitude which constantly assumes the African to be incapable of responsible action" (p 222).

Huddleston vertel van ’n tornado wat Albertynville, ’n swart woonbuurt, getref het. Dan volg hierdie reaksie: "The long line of shining motor cars which for hours had been streaming out of European Johannesburg to bring assistance ... Money, clothes, provisions ... came pouring in. For a week Albertynville and its inhabitants were the target for generosity in a big way ... those who were dispossessed ... received compensation such as they had never dared to imagine" (p 49). Maar hierdie gebaar verbeter nie Huddleston se dunk van wittes nie. "Man can live alongside of an evil all his life and refuse to recognise it, still less to think it is his duty to do anything about it ... there is no shock which is sufficiently strong really to arouse the public conscience for longer than a week" (p 50). By ’n ander geleentheid noem hy nie wittes se goedhartigheid, welwillendheid of vrygewigheid nie, maar hulle gewetes: "The conscience of white Johannesburg was immediately and most alarmingly stirred. Alarmingly, for the next morning I was deluged with offers of food, clothes and money for the African children of Sophiatown" (p 214).

Toe die Stadsraad van Johannesburg sopkombuise instel, "the people had decided to boycott them" (p 55). Huddleston erken: "A great deal of money is given by the European congregations to the missions" (p 68). Maar in Huddleston se oë kan wittes blykbaar niks doen wat hulle of die regeringsbeleid aanneemlik maak nie: "Nor am I prepared to concede that the motives which inspire such policies have any quality of goodness about them" (p 247). By hom is daar "the desire to identify myself with the African people in their struggle for human rights and personal freedom" (p 74). Verswelging kan help om hierdie ideaal te bereik: "African families - thank God - are large as a rule" (p 88).

Die outeur erken dat die "pre-fabs" wat vir die behuising van swartes gebruik word, ook in Europa aangetref word. "The houses are sufficiently strong to last for generations" (p 53). Huddleston het dit teen die eendersheid van die huise. "Variety is a characteristic of the human being" (p 124). [Inderdaad, ons is nie almal eenders nie.] Hy verwys na HF Verwoerd se beleid: "It is a policy of gradual development through mother tongue and own environment, to bring the natives to literacy and usefulness in their own circle" (p 53). [Word moedertaal onderrig en kulturele uitlewing in eie kring, bv eie woonbuurte, deesdae in dieselfde mate aan wittes gegun?] "Tribalism [by swartes] ... the white man has done his best to smash" (p 53-54). Maar die teenoorgestelde word gewoonlik beweer, naamlik dat stamverwantskap tydens apartheid bevorder is om swart mag verdeeld te hou. Elders skryf Huddleston: "Dr Verwoerd believes ... tribalism is more important to African development than the Christian ethic" (p 139).

Huddleston ken die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis maar swak, want hy beweer "the Malan Government was returned to power in 1948" (p 187). Van iemand beweer Huddleston: "She is ... buried alive ... For she cannot do the work that she is trained to do" (p 146). [Weens rassediskriminasie kan dieselfde van talle wittes in die nuwe Suid-Afrika gesê word.]

In die laaste hoofstuk bevraagteken die outeur hierdie stelling: "The Christian must never use force" (p 231). "Christ Himself used force - to drive the moneychangers out of the Temple ... Our Lord was not averse to using a weapon in order to bring home the truth" (p 234). Om sulke Bybeltekste te ignoreer, "is to mutilate the Gospel itself" (p 238). Wat sal gebeur met "all who do not care for or concern themselves with the suffering of their fellow-men"? (p 238): "Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire" (p 238). "It will always be the duty of the Church to proclaim that this world is God’s world and that infringements of His law will bring their own terrible penalties" (p 239). "The truth of the Gospel ... that truth is revolutionary" (p 252). "Christian love is ... revolutionary in its force ... God was directly concerned ... in politics" (p 238-239). Die Rooms-Katolieke Kerk leer, gegrond op die geskrifte van Thomas van Aquino, dat "when Government degenerates into tyranny the subject has a right to resist. The only point in dispute is whether the Government in South Africa has degenerated that far. In my opinion, with regard to the African people, it certainly has" (p 234). Hy praat van "to take by force the citadels of prejudice" (p 237). Wat hy bepleit is "to challenge the evils of racial discrimination in South Africa with weapons more effective than words" (p 241).

Die outeur skryf van "South Africa’s Iron Curtain" (p 153) en die apartheidsbestel word talle kere met Nazi-Duitsland geassosieer. Huddleston het homself blykbaar as ’n messiasfiguur beskou. "I used to spend my evenings bathing the small ones and wrapping them up in their warm blankets" (p 109). "The Sophiatown child is the most friendly creature on earth, and the most trusting" (p 132). Hy verwys na die "unending joy of African friendship" en noem daarna sy "taking the monastic vow of chastity" (p 212), maar "one had been given all back a hundredfold ... There were, as always, ten or a dozen little African piccanins clinging round my cassock" (p 213).

Een van Huddleston se skemas was om ’n swembad vir swartes in Orlando te bou, moontlik gemaak deur aalmoese van wittes. Toe reeds is daar voorgegee dat alle wittes private swembaddens of maklike toegang tot openbare swembaddens het, gevolglik skryf hy van swartes "enjoying for the first time in their lives one of the pleasures that white Johannesburg had always taken for granted" (p 223). Hy vertel van ’n swarte wat ’n trompet by hom kom bedel het. "Hugh was fourteen then, more than usually attractive ... the eyes of innocence and childhood which I love. I had always found him hard to resist" (p 225).

Hier flikker gevaarligte vir Huddleston wat beweer het dat hy die graagste met kinders en jeugdiges werk. Na sy terugkeer uit Suid-Afrika was hy deel van die Britse Anti-Apartheid Movement. Hy en Desmond Tutu was vriende. In John Allen se biografie oor Tutu, Rabble-Rouser for Peace (London: Rider, 2006) word verwys na "an episode in 1974 in which Huddleston had a nervous collapse after being accused of sexually harassing two schoolboys in London" (p 44). Hoe radikaal hy in die politiek was, blyk uit sy "recommending the virtues of hatred" (p 331).

Na sy aftrede het Huddleston te midde van ’n groot ophef vir ’n kort rukkie na Suid-Afrika teruggekeer om glo hier te kom sterf. Kort daarna is hy sonder veel publisiteit terug Engeland toe. Sy as het in Sophiatown ’n tuiste gevind. In sy geboortedorp in Engeland, Bedford, is daar ’n borsbeeld van Huddleston met hierdie inskripsie: "No white person has done more for South Africa than Trevor Huddleston - Nelson Mandela." Dit spreek boekdele van laasgenoemde.

Johannes Comestor

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