Eulogy for Marius Schoon and a question

Is it healthy, sometimes, to hate?

I was sitting with Mom in Matumi by the fire and Mike was with us and Mike was telling us how he forgave his stepmother while she was dying and he felt liberated by it. While she died he prayed and in praying and forgiving he was released.

At this point, Mom broke in:

'Do you think I forgive the Nazis for what they did to my grandmother? Do you think I forgive the people who jailed me and who jailed our friends?'

Very angry now, she said. 'Sometimes it's healthy to hate.' And she turned to me and asked. 'What do you think love?' And she waited, a little apprehensively, for my answer. Would I support her?

Now Mike and I have a close relationship. He has taught me so much over the course of my life, though our meetings have been few and far between. But I looked at Mom and said:

'Yes, Mom, I agree with you, sometimes it is healthy to hate.'

And since then I have been thinking about what she said.

Hugh Masekela interviewed on the TV yesterday, said: 'Well yes, we may have forgiven, but we will not forget.'

Primo Levi, the most profound and insightful chronicler of the holocaust did not forgive either. He looked long and hard at the behaviour of the SS and the Germans and Austrians and their collaborators and understood them and judged them. To judge someone and understand their behaviour is not to forgive them.

In the Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi quotes a letter in which a correspondent of his recounts the complaints of a German cleaning woman about the treatment of her soldier husband in the context of the Nuremberg trials:

'...the women put down her fork and interrupted aggressively: 'What is the point of all these trials they're having now? What could they do about it, our poor soldiers, if they gave them those orders? When my husband came on furlough from Poland, he told me: "Almost all we did was shoot Jews, shoot Jews all the time. My arm hurt from so much shooting." But what was he supposed to do, if they had given him those orders?'...I discharged her, stifling the temptation to congratulate her on her poor husband fallen in the war...So there, you see, here in Germany even today we live in the midst of such people.'

Should we feel sorry for such people? Do they deserve forgiveness?

Then think of film after film portraying the US Soldier as the victim in war after imperial war. The poor US soldier suffering in Vietnam. The poor US soldier suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan. Film after film portraying the perpetrator as victim and muddying the waters of history. Film after film showing how sad and pitiable it is to be 'forced' to kill and rape and maim, and decades of 'liberals' from Kubrick to Cloony demanding forgiveness for their murdering grunts.  

And it was in this context that I read Fiona and Hugh Lewin's eulogy to Marius Schoon. I am looking back into my parents' life and they had many many very close friends, but Marius was a friend that went right back to Witz university. When Dad and Mom were in Cape Town in 1959, because Dad was on a Journalism course, Marius was there too.  They were in their early twenties. And later, on they met up again in the late 1980s and in Joburg in the 90's Sherry and Marius and Mom and Dad were close:

This document was sent to my father after Marius's death and I have asked Hugh for permission to reproduce it to honour a friend of my parents - it's very moving. But also, I want to ask a question. Do you think it is healthy sometimes to hate?

I also think it is important to ask this question in the light of the results of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, which completely exonerated the victims today. It incensed me to hear the BBC interviewers suggesting to the relatives of the victims of the British state that they should forgive. It is always the perpetrators and their representatives that demand forgiveness when they are finally found out. 

Marius - 13 February 1999 - Braamfontein Crematorium

  
Fiona Lloyd and Hugh Lewin


Welcome to all - thanks for coming and please be seated - explain procedure:

NB afterwards at the Wilsons.

Strange and wonderful to think: only two weeks ago, I was sitting with Marius and discussing, in true Schoon style, this ceremony. Typical of the up-front, no-nonsense, get-to-the-point Schoon: this is what the funeral's going to be. He wanted the best for his family, his comrades, his friends. So that's what you've got: his service, his farewell - and how rich and suitable. (And thanks immediately to Tim Wilson who has finally found, on Marius' instructions, his true vocation in the struggle: organiser of funerals. Thanks for this one, but long may you, hereafter, remain unemployed.)

[Ask choir to sing first of Marius' requests - Ou Boereplaas]

So, yes, Marius, we salute you. Not so much in a spirit of sadness and loss, but more one of celebration, and re-dedication to your ideals - as you put it, the flag you chose. You're actually a pretty amazing character, aren't you? In life, you gave us so much; in death, you've taught us so much about what it means to be alive.

He asked me to talk about prison. It's at times like this that we're reminded - and need to be reminded - of the peculiar place that prison has played in our history. Where else has PG (prison graduate) been such a mark of distinction, such a badge of honour? And, of course, it's a great honour for me, however sad, to be here today as Marius' praise-singer.

Prison. 

Marius and I were together in the sort of situation which, fortunately, no married couple has ever to go through. We shared cells or lived as neighbours for most of my seven years (he had 12, remember) - so I talk of Marius as my real china, my china-plate/mate, my brother, my very close comrade. Because prison reduces most things to basics: you're stripped, you're deprived of all protection, all comforts, except that of friendship, and so all your frailties, all your shortcomings are exposed, laid bare. Very few escape that harshest of questions: how did you push your time? How did you survive the boop test? Marius was great. The term he often used -and of which he was the greatest exponent: staunch. Was he loyal? Was he unselfish? Was he resolute in the face of adversity and harsh treatment? Yes, staunch. Did he buckle or complain? Did he think about himself before others? No - he was staunch. Marius was a struggler, a real struggler. He was staunch. That, in a word, was Marius. Staunch. Always.

So let me today give you some other voices, of those who were also with him. It's a special band of brothers this - comrades, colleagues, fellow bandiete, who have, this last week, gratefully sent messages from across the waters, or nearer at hand.

John Laredo, 5 years

"I first met Marius when he and his cousin Paul and I were students at Stellenbosch in the early fifties. I remember having political discussions (what else?) with him in what was set aside as the newspaper room where we read the dailies standing at a long lectern.

Our paths didn't cross again until we met in prison. Bram Fischer, Marius and I were  singled out by the vagaries of prison authority as being suitable conduits for prison policy announcements. This was because we were the three persons whose first language was Afrikaans.  It made no difference to our lives because few, if any, of the announced policy changes ever amounted to a hill of beans.

I didn't see Marius again until I paid a visit to Johannesburg in 1996.  I was touched by the warmth with which he greeted me. His death hits me . Neither Marius nor I were believers, so we can say in a humanist way: "Nog 'n siel verlaat gods akker".

Denis Goldberg, 22 years

It is the nature of prison life that you get to know your prison comrades very well indeed. I came to respect Marius for his courage and conviction that what we were doing was right and proper ... I know the emotional conflicts we all shared, especially our deep desire to be with our children, and our wish to make better the lives of all our country's children. I know from my children the conflict they felt between pride in their Dad and upset because Dad wasn't home when they needed him. I can only say that as long as inequality exists, there will be people like Marius who believe that putting that right is the most important thing in anyone's life because it enriches the life of us all. I was enriched by knowing Marius so well. Our country was enriched by his life. Be proud, my friends and comrades.

Dave Evans, 5 years

Marius has a deeply honourable place in the heroic band of Afrikaner radicals who - facing excommunication from their own community - put their lives on the line in the struggle against apartheid. His courage was unflinching, his commitment to non-racialism and socialism unwavering: they saw him through imprisonment, persecution and personal tragedy. A good comrade in prison and out, he was clever and cultivated and his blunt speech and sometimes abrasive wit never quite concealed the innate generosity and loving heart to which Sherry, Fritz and many friends can well testify. His early death was undoubtedly hastened by the strain of the struggle, but his qualities will survive in those who knew him and share his uncompromising vision for now and the future.

Raymond Eisenstein, 7 years

The Marius I remember best is the one I knew before politics and prison. We first met in the summer of '58 or '59.  It was a warm Cape Town evening and he was wearing a pair of white shorts and a T-shirt.  I remember Jan Rabie, the Afrikaans writer, was also there, recently back from Paris. We spent the evening talking about France, writing and the state of Afrikaans.

After that, I met Marius in Jo'burg at parties, cafes, mainly in Hillbrow, and once or twice on campus.  In those days, Marius was part of a happy, non-racial, bohemian crowd and at one time, he even ran an 'underground' bookshop! The shop, on Bree Street, was frequented by an assortment of characters including intellectual drunks, rising African writers such as Nat Nakasa, and some political activists.  Whenever I visited, Marius and I would share a beer and rebuild the world while others browsed.  I wonder if many books, if any, were ever sold!

These carefree times ended with Sharpeville, the State of Emergency and the Terrorism Act.  Marius went into politics with open eyes and an open heart. He had a clear vision of what he wanted to accomplish and was not frightened of the consequences of his beliefs.
 
Jock Strachan, 3 years, then again 18 months

The most important thing I learned about prison life is that the punishment of it all, the hell on earth, comes from a bad attitude towards the shrunken community in which you now live.  All of us there came from the world of intellectuals, where one's persona is the thing to present to the world, to advertise, the substantial thing in one's life and one's success.

But Marius realised early on that in a time of such stress, and danger, personality is not the important thing; character is. Think carefully, decide what duties you have towards the community of very pronounced and difficult personalities, and then fulfil those duties, over the long long years, no matter what discipline this takes.

It is for such strength that I remember Marius.  I never knew him out of prison.  But I remember that inside there was a core of determined men holding the morale of us all together, and Marius was one of them.

Paul Trewhela, 2 years

I wish Marius was around to pick up the recognition he's getting now. I feel anger and immense pity at the terrible episodes in his life. He was so earnest in his commitment. I think in many ways Marius was a pioneer in developing a new relationship between Afrikaners and Africa - and his achievements and his difficulties will be all the more appreciated in the future. May Sherry and Jane and Fritz walk very tall.

Dave Kitson, 20 years  

[whose phone was out, so he's only now sent this message].

When Marius first arrived in prison, I thought he was from the lunatic fringe. But in the course of our life together in prison, he became a man and a stalwart. In fact, he generated enough respect in me for him that, though I'm now almost an octogenarian, I flew down from Harare last night to pay my respects to him.

[And there he was in his dark suit, slightly bent: Joseph himself.]

I would like now to sing a song which I know Marius will remember - and I know he'll forgive me if I screw it up: he always made a point of demonstrating, by participating in singing sessions, that he was magnificently tone deaf. But this was a song, first introduced by Jack Tarshish, which resonated with labour camps and the international struggle, and which the Irish will, no doubt, claim as their own. Whatever its origins, it became firmly ours at Pretoria Local, and expresses much that is Marius.

Peat-bog Soldiers (last verse changed to: FREEDOM, dear, you're mine at
last .)

Thereafter:

Message from ANC, from Mac Maharaj
Patrick Fitzgerald, on Botwana and MEDU
Colin Buckley (long-time English friend) reads Memories of CASA (by LMS)

[Another song from the DBSA Choir]

Pethu Serote talks about Mazimbu Sheena McCambley (friend of Sherry's) reads lovely Seamus Heaney Theuns Potgieter talks (in Afrikaans) about life at the bank Sherry mentions all the family and says Thanks Beyers Naude leads prayers, in Afrikaans and English, and commits the body While choir sings Hamba kahle Umkhonto Jonas Gwangwa on trombone leads singing of National Anthem

- and all gather at Wilsons for lunch and cold Castle.

More than 350 at the ceremony, packed full inside the Braamfontein Crematorium, with lots standing outside. Cabinet represented by Mac and the Asmals; plus Zanele Mbeki; and virtually everybody you'd imagine: all the Naidoos, George Bizos, Nadine Gordimer, Sheila and Mark Weinberg, Rica Hodgson, Amina Cachalia, Esther Barsel, Henry Makgothi, Ruth & Ilse Fischer, Ruth Muller, Hillary Hamburger (ex-Kuny), Colin Smuts, Lipmans, lots from media . and the rest.

---------------------

Marius Schoon

The life of Marius Schoon, the anti-apartheid activist who died in Johannesburg last Sunday, was as much a statement of the sacrifices made in the struggle for democracy as an indication of some of the cruel ironies of post-apartheid South Africa.

Schoon, 61, was the essential struggler: Afrikaner dissident, long-term political prisoner, then long-term exile, he survived the parcel-bomb that killed his wife and daughter in Angola, then finally returned home with the exiles, with a new wife and growing son, only to succumb rapidly to lung cancer just two months after testifying against the man who applied to the Truth Commission for amnesty for the parcel-bomb murder. Few people have faced such diversities of fate with such equanimity and unbending strength: Schoon did, right to the end, with a mischievous smile, stern argument and smokey cough.

I met him for the first time in Pretoria Prison in late 1964, where we had begun our sentences for protest sabotage. I had seven years as a political prisoner, Schoon had 12, for an attempted attack on a Johannesburg police station, largely the work of an agent provocateur. His co-conspirator problems continued: his fellow saboteur soon turned state witness in the trumped-up 1965 case against Harold Strachan, whose articles on his time in prison exposed the appalling conditions under which we were being treated. It was not a good time to have unreliable friends, but the incident brought out Schoon's prime quality: an unbending loyalty to "the cause" (that of a socialist future for South Africa) and the continuing struggle, of which prison was certainly a part.

Prison is a stripping-down process, removing any soft exteriors and protection - and it quickly separates the selfish from the unselfish; those who think only of themselves, from those who think first about how to support others, strengthen the group. Schoon was one of three Afrikaners in our group: John Laredo, who had been at Stellenbosch University ahead of him; and the aristocrat of all Afrikaans verraiers (traitors), Advocate Bram Fischer, leader of the defence team that saved Mandela and the Rivonia trialists from the gallows. These three were particularly resented by our warders, yet the nasty pettiness which was angled their way never swayed Schoon from his determination to "push his time" well, never to complain on his own account and - his priority - to support Fischer, who died of cancer while still a prisoner.

Eventually released after 12 years (political prisoners received no remission of sentence), Schoon was banned: made his own jailer, restricted to his home between 6pm and 6am, not allowed to follow his profession as teacher and not permitted to meet other banned persons - which was a problem, as he met and fell in love with Jeannette Curtis, student and trade union activist, also banned. Undeterred by the inherent dangers, they took the apparent path to safety and skipped the border into Botswana, where they settled into a joint job and the frenetic life of just-across-the-border exiles.

But it was the 1980s, when PW Botha's government thought nothing of crossing borders to propagate the "total onslaught" against all enemies of apartheid. The Schoons were warned that they were targets, so, with daughter Katryn and baby Fritz in tow, they reported to the ANC centre in Lusaka and were redeployed to Lubango, Angola.

On 28 June 1984, Marius was out of town when Jeannette collected the post and took it home to open. She was watched by six-year-old Katryn. Marius later described how he had been flown home as quickly as possible, to find his wife and daughter splattered across the walls of the flat. Two-year-old Fritz was found wandering outside the flats, physically unharmed, though he has spent years recovering from epilepsy.

Schoon and son moved to Tanzania, to Zambia and to Ireland, where he married Sherry in 1986. And, finally, to the new South Africa where, in a rather unlikely move, he became development officer with the Development Bank, former pillar of the Bantustans.

Resolutely, persistently, Schoon sought his ex-wife's murderers. His suspicions were confirmed when, as part of the process begun by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, former Security policeman Craig Williamson admitted responsibility for the bombing of the ANC headquarters in London, the death of Ruth Slovo in Maputo - and the killing of Jeannette and Katryn Schoon in Angola.

Schoon instituted a civil action against Williamson, seeking damages, primarily on behalf of his son. The case was postponed, pending the application by Williamson before the Truth Commission for amnesty, on the grounds of his admission of responsibility for the three actions. The hearing began at the end of 1999 in Pretoria. Again, the ironies: sitting alongside Schoon was Eugene de Kok, the convicted political hitman, assisting the opponents of Williamson's application by correcting Williamson's evidence.

Schoon testified at the hearing in November 1998. He looked haggard, haunted and - this will be his abiding image - he resolutely refused to back down, in the reconciliatory context of the Truth Commission, from his demand that justice be done, properly, in the case of the murdering policeman. His final gesture was an angry one, dismissing the "obscene suggestion" from Williamson's lawyer that the two meet during the tea-break "to reconcile".

Shortly after that encounter, Schoon was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. He died peacefully, content after a long phone-call from President Mandela, hailing him for his contribution to the struggle.