Danger and hope

INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 6/82 only decide if the Minister acted in good faith. In all other cases he rules on the exempt clauses in the law (those sections which set out what information is exempt from release) with the final exception of Cabinet discussions and decisions over which the judge has no say. This final exemption was introduced by the government after two provincial court cases which ruled Cabinet documents must be presented to the courts. In one particular case in British Columbia the judge ordered Cabinet Ministers to appear before the court in camera to discuss what had been said in Cabinet concerning the case. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said that this most of all worried him and he was of the belief if the Bill had not been amended then Cabinet responsibility would have been eroded. He said it would have put an undue restraint on free discussion in Cabinet with Ministers worrying over what they said might become subject to publication in court. The Bill itself calls for the burden of proof to be on the Government to show why information should not be released; has a time limit of twenty working days for the information to be produced; requires a fee of £10 for the release of the information (though a civil servant may waive this if it is felt it is being released in the public interest; with the strongest feature being the creation of an Information Commissioner to deal with complaints, and information denials. This creates a two tier appeal mechanism in the event of a denial of information. The Information Commissioner will be appointed by the Crown and directly responsible to Parliament to whom it must report once a year. The person will have quasi-judicial functions and will be able to see any information requested, enter any government premise and call witnesses. Any witness who fails to appear can be cited for contempt of court. In addition the Commissioner may then recommend release of information but the final decision rests with the Minister. If the Minister denies access despite the Commissioner's decision there is then an appeal to the Federal Court of Canada. The Information Commissioner may lodge an appeal on behalf of the applicant denied information and may also testify in the case. It is estimated that 90% of the cases of information denial will be handled by the Information Commissioner. The two tier system was originally set up (rather than a first direct review to the courts) in order not to overload the courts with cases and to save money. The final appeal is to the Supreme Court of Canada by leave.. The struggle for freedom of information has been a long one in Canada with pressure coming from all sectors of society including unions, associations, business, the legal profession, the media and parliamentarians of all parties. It has been widely acclaimed in Canada as an extremely progressive step. In Britain advocates see it as an instrument that cannot but help the fight for such laws in the UK. Peter Hennessy of The Economist, a long-time crusader for more openness in government in this country, said the passage of the Canadian Bill 'has blown skyhigh the classic Whitehall alibi for more administrative secrecy. In the past, British ministers and senior officials have been able to say what was good for Washington was not good for London because of our different democratic traditions.' Hennessy went on to point out that 'Ottawa is built on the Westminster model of Parliamentary democracy and an impartial career civil service. By destuffing itself of a n c i e n t constitutional nonsense, designed simply for the convenience of civil servants and politicians in power at any given moment Ottawa has become a beacon for supporters of a Freedom of Information Bill.' The Access to Information and Protection of Personal Information Act — so called as it also incorporates the already existing privacy act into the new law, giving the individuals the right to see their own files and make corrections of false or erroneous information — will become operational early in 1983. The government will announce the date once an Information and Privacy commissioner has been appointed. Canada is the second Commonwealth Federal Parliament to pass such a law this year, Australia having proclaimed her Freedom of Information Bill on 11 M a r c h . T h a t law b e c a m e operational on 1 October. With two laws now in place with a parliamentary system of government it has taken the wind out of the sails of those here in the UK, including politicians of all political parties, who say such a law is just not constitutionally possible. Canada and Australia have proved them wrong." Tom Riley BOOKS Protest and change in South Africa Explaining the politics of Islam Danger and hope Liz Gunner A Ride on the Whirlwind by Sipho Sepamla Longman (Drumbeat) 1982 Ad. Danker Johannesburg 1981 The Children of Soweto by Mbulelo Mzamane Longman (Drumbeat) 1982 Cross of Gold by Lauretta Ngcobo Longman (Drumbeat) 1981 Censorship is a constant threat to all South African writing, and black South African writers such as Sipho Sepamla, Mbulelo Mzamane and Lauretta Ngcobo are in the front line of writers whose work risks the censor's ban. All three of their novels were initially banned on publication in 1981 and 1982. All deal with the situation of black people in South Africa, with protest, and with attempts to change the status quo. Yet the handling of the material bears the stamp of three very different writers. A Ride on the Whirlwind is the second novel by the Soweto poet, playwright and novelist, Sipho Sepamla (See Index 4 / 1982). He shapes the book around the Soweto uprisings of 1976, dedicating it . To the young heroes of the day they who now languish in jail who ride the whirlwind abroad . . . It focuses on a group of young activists,- school students who are almost overnight thrown into the front line of revolt against the formidable might of the South African state. The unity of this courageous if at times naive and haphazard group is threatened when their leader, Mandla ('Strength') meets the cool, arrogant and reckless freedom fighter newly arrived from Dar and known simply as 'Mzi'. The younger Mandla is dazzled by Mzi's dedication and expertise. For the first time he acts without consulting his group and assists Mzi in blowing up a Soweto police station. As police pressure to locate Mandla and his group intensifies, morale begins to crack. Sepamla shows the psychological strains of underground resistance on individuals and the workings of informers such as Noah Witbaaitjie who collects gossip from loose-mouthed drinkers at his bar and passes it to the police by walkietalkie. Besides providing careful portraits of Mzi, the more cautious Mandla and the older generation activist, Uncle Ribs, Sepamla shows what happens to those such as Sis Ida who help the students knowing the risks and likely consequences. Indeed, Sepamla graphically outlines just how great the dangers are. His policemen — Colonel Kleinwater the stammerer Major Hall, and the infamous 'Praatnou' (Talk Now') — are distinct, finely drawn individuals, so conscientious that they will not — and know they need not — stop at anything in their methods of interrogation. How the students and the warm-hearted Sis Ida fare in detention is one of the most poignant and skilful sections of this powerful study of young revolutionaries and their ruthless opponents. Mzamane's Children of Soweto presents the events of June 1976 with the greatest immediacy possible. With an ear for the rich varieties of language in polyglot Soweto, he gives the reader snatches of tsotsitaal, the street argot of the young, together with sonorous phrases of Zulu and Xhosa. Immediacy also comes from his inclusion of the stirring freedom songs of the young marchers and organisers of this 'children's revolution'. In Book One, 'My Schooldays in Soweto', Mzamane shows secondary school students learning how to become political activists, wrestling with theory and indigestible texts in a society which can provide them with no immediate models or easily accessible sources of inspiration. In a style reminiscent of Can Themba he presents the comic pair of conscientious if frequently tipsy teachers, Phakoe and Pakade, who were seen 'whenever they passed our house from Shirley Scott's, swaying from side to side like herdboys driving wayward goats'. The comic and the ridiculous come to the fore again in Book Two, 'The Day of the Riots'. This centres on the white Johannes Venter who has to be hidden in his driver's coalhole in Soweto and is later driven to his white Johannesburg suburb in the boot of the company car. Against this near slapstick comedy Mzamane sets a child's account of a burning police station and the songs of the driver's two 41 INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 6/82 small children. The father asks in vain for the safe hymn 'Rock of Ages cleft for me', they can only offer the songs of the 'Black Power children'. It is children, Mzamane suggests, who are showing their elders the way. In the final and longest section, 'The Children of Soweto*, Mzamane focuses on the fatal shooting of a student leader called, symbolically, Muntu ('Person'). He gives a graphic, diary-like account of the activities of a group of students after their friend's death and after they have destroyed buildings which were for them 'all the despicable symbols of authority'. In spite of using a death, a wake and a funeral as its groundmotif, this section provides a positive picture of those turbulent days. The 'children of the hour' are seen as young heroes whose deeds will be recalled together with those of earlier black leaders such as Ntsikana, Dube, Luthuli and Sobukwe. At the funeral, the singing of the national anthem, the rallying cries of the older political movements and of the students show that a new and broader solidarity has sprung from the flames of Soweto. As a work of fiction, the book is at times too clogged with detail and lacks the taut structure which makes Sepamla's novel such good political art. Yet it remains an important record of those times and of the aspirations and achievements of the 'children'. Lauretta Ngcobo's Cross of Gold has a much wider sweep in time, locale and ideology than the other two novels. Whereas these concentrate on Soweto in 1976, Ngcobo spans earlier political events, from the miners' strike of 1946 to the Sharpeville shootings of 1961. In her broad sweep of locale, she rests briefly in Botswana, includes location life and devotes a significant section of her novel to life in rural Zululand. Her theme is revolution. We witness the slow but sure growth of revolutionary consciousness in the young Mandla Zikode, a rural boy who endures imprisonment, the degradations of farm prison labour and then the poverty of Sharpeville. Unlike Mzamane's gregarious and chatty students, Ngcobo's central character is a lonely figure who for a large part of the novel observes and learns, but in a passive, suffering way. Only when he is away from the location and the city, resting in the deceptive peace and beauty of his rural home, is he able to face up to the challenge of life as 'a vessel of revolution'. Ngcobo's first-hand knowledge of urban and rural South African life enables her to give the reader a dense collage of the humiliation and agony experienced by many black South Africans. But in this her first novel she packs in far too much detail and too much talk. She fails to sustain the expectations 42 created in a brilliant and economical opening chapter where a lonely mother waits on the Botswanan border for her two sons. The amount of detail and explanation that the exiled Ngcobo includes in Cross of Gold raises the crucial question of audience and readership for these three novels. Did Ngcobo write assuming her book would be banned — as indeed it has been? How different is it for being aimed primarily at a nonSouth African audience? The way in which censorship successfully dislocates a whole literary tradition is evident in the fact that works of earlier black South African writers such as La Guma, Abrahams and Temba are to this day largely unknown, unread and undiscussed in their own country. For a book to be banned means (even if a few copies circulate) that it cannot appear on a school or university syllabus and cannot therefore be read when many are at their most receptive to new ideas and influences. Recent news of Sepamla's successful appeal against the banning order on A Ride on the Whirlwind is of tremendous importance for South African writers and readers. It provides a fresh impetus to the growing strength of black writing within the country. It means also that there is still hope for fiction as an art form in the present renaissance of South African literature." Exploring Islam Anthony Hyman Faith and Power. The Politics of Islam by Edward Mortimer. Faber and Faber. 1982 £5.95 (paperback) 432 pp. 'Instant, warmed-up orientalism' is how Edward Mortimer assesses his own and other journalists' reporting to the Western public of the Islamic Revolution in Iran from the autumn of 1978 — recalling that he had not paid serious attention to Islam until this recent date. Such modesty, though it may seem unlikely coming from a leader-writer of The Times, is evident throughout the book. Here we do not have the ringing tones and judgments of The Times leaders, linked as they must be to that venerable institution's conviction of moral certainty and superb objectivity. Mortimer appears to be, somewhat inhibited also by his general agreement with the wellpublicised strictures of Europeans writing about Islam by Professor Edward Said, (Orientalism, 1978, and Covering Islam, 1981). The inevitable result of this combination of modesty and guilt is caution. Mortimer carries along the reader in exploring the politics of Islam not by infectious enthusiasm or new insights, but by sober and objective analysis and reporting on the main themes of the subject. The book tackles a vast and complex subject, starting with a long historical introduction, and going on to six case studies on 'Islam, State and Nation in the Twentieth Century'. The choice of countries is Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Soviet Central Asia — countries. which form the historic heartland of Islam — and includes the general theme of Arab nationalism and the Muslim Brotherhood movement. By far the most detailed and illuminating is the section on Iran — hardly surprising in the light of Mortimer's own personal experience. The popularising nature of the venture is apparent not only in the style but also in the breadth of topics touched in the book. Much of the history is of the first decades of the twentieth century or earlier, ably summarised and relevant to the present though it often is. Potted history based on reliable secondary sources is not perhaps what the author intended, or is indeed best at. Where he allows himself liberty to think for himself and speculate on the present situation in the Islamic heartland, Mortimer excels. He has assembled a great deal of information, and communicates it in this book to an ideal reader of the 'general public'; someone interested in or curious about everything — even Islam — but not overmuch; someone who, perhaps, even reads The Times, without, however, retaining a distinct memory of articles about the Middle East. Mortimer and his publishers are undoubtedly right in aiming at this large public, which would benefit by reading this carefully balanced book. The subject is an important one, and its treatment here eloquently reveals how disparate, divided, and ultimately unique are the different Muslim .countries analysed in the book. Islam has a different significance in each, evidenced in history, politics, geography, culture, social and economic structures. The political interpretations of Islam are legion, and even the traditionalist interpretation of fundamentalist Muslims, though dominant conspicuously since the Iranian Revolution, has many different prophets, and many challengers still from Liberal, left-wing and conservative Muslim circles. Mortimer's is a sceptical conclusion, at least in so far as it treats Western (and indeed Muslim) notions of Islam as a geopolitical force. Islam as such is regarded as neither a menace to the West nor as a potential ally against — or with — Soviet communism. Mortimer writes: 'Islam is a political culture: it often provides the form and the vocabulary of political action. It can greatly s t r e n g t h e n p e r s o n a l commitment to a cause. But it is not in itself a sufficient explanation for the commitment, or a sufficient content for the cause.' There are certainly some readers who will not be satisfied by this conclusion. Is Islam nothing more than a political culture? Has Mortimer sidestepped some important issues which deserve fuller treatment? He has rightly stressed the interaction of Islam and nationalism in the political culture of the region covered. In each of these Muslim lands, a different form of Islam is asserted, varying according to the genius of the history and culture of the peoples. Islam is shown to be a mode of political expression, rather than a dominant, monolithic factor in Muslim societies. Islam has always been identified by Muslims with so many mutually contradictory ideas — from freedom, revolution, tolerance and progress to tradition and the status quo — that its very breadth has made it virtually useless as a tool for analysis. This book follows previous surveys by Westerners of trends in the Muslim world, from Gibb's Modern Trends in Islam. 1947, Cantwell Smith's Islam in Modern History, 1957, and on through many others to G. H. Jansen's elegant (and somewhat uncritical) Militant Islam in 1979. Such 'fact books' differ fundamentally from the approach of the novelist V. S. Naipaul, who gave a remarkable account, dark and sombre, gloomy but poignant, last year in his book Among the Believers, an Islamic Journey. Naipaul too came only recently to be interested in Islam, but he has hardly gone to such pains reading or trying to understand intellectually the travails of Muslim societies. It is Naipaul's natural shrewdness and intuition which guide him through the lands of Islam, aided by his gift for clear exposition, conveyed with wit and a streak of malice. Naipaul gives lively portraits of individual Muslims in their home settings, and only through this gallery of individuals does he attempt to explain the impact of ideas in the Muslim world. Often however Naipaul's intuition is incapable of grasping more than the hollow elements of an alien culture, yielding a caricature of Muslim society. Poles apart as the books of Mortimer and Naipaul are, yet both authors profess to be more interested in understanding Muslims as people, rather than the abstract - force of Islam; or, more accurately, they seek to explain Islam by showing how individual Muslims behave. Their approaches are different but complementary, illuminating many dark corners of a subject where outsiders' apathy and ignorance, quite as much as prejudice, reign supreme."