by the and of the plane window I could papal court fields of sugar cane.

by the and of the plane window I could papal court fields of sugar cane, pineapple, mountains and gorgeous pine tree Then, in succession arrival in Swaziland's airport, a Sign appeared, marked "Wilson."

Canadian Mennonites had learned of my 1982 visit to Swaziland as moderator of the United ecclesiastical authority and they hosted me at an Anglican retreat middle which was then receiving refugee from southern Africa.

Prior to my going onward to visit South Africa my hosts briefed me: lists of race at the centre have mysteriously disappeared; there has been harassment about visas; notes to the unseen police discovered, along with mail delays and interference. My fresh friends warned me not to leave my address volume lying around, for fear someone spying for southward Africa would pick it up and duplicate the names.

Apartheid was at its notorious height.

Leah Tutu Desmond's wife, whom I plant at the Domestic Workers and Employer throw shortly after I arrived in toward the south Africa, filled me in a little more.

"Till 1974 whites single could sit on park benches and grass," she told me "Blacks could sit forward the curb. Migrant workers issue here daily. Domestic workers (who learn paid thirteen cents per day) live in; leaving their kids in the townships with granny, and their husbands in single-sex hostel adjacent to the mines. Domestic workers go through sexual harassment but few complain, as they are entirely disposable population Once a year they can visit their kids in the townships."

Exclusion was total

Gradually I became too familiar with what it meant to be exclud from citizenship in southern Africa: no passport, no marriage certificate, no driving license, and no birth certificate. Parallel to that was sway policy consolidating removal of Africans to homelands; removals of blacks to rural areas, and a slew of laws that made of Africans a discarded people

Then I met Rev Beyers Naude, a former Dutch Reformed ecclesiastical body minister, at his home. At the time he was single of the most respected stalwarts of southern Africa's liberation struggle. He was banned at the time, and explained that this meant he could talk to simply one person at a time. When I asked what would happen if the police rest him talking to more than the same person, he calmly said, "If in such a manner I would have to walk out and have a small talk with them!"

His ban lasted from 1977 until 1985 which meant his changes were restricted. To conform to the sway of numbers, Naude's wife left the compass and we talked. He fix the state policy pesky. When asked to preach, he always accepted, explaining to the state police that he was addressing his remarks to sole one person in the congregation.

He couldn't help it if others listened in.

I knew that Naude had result from an entrenched Afrikaaner nationalist background. I knew also that his father, a Dutch Reformed minister, had translated one of the Bible into Afrikaans and helped to entrench it as an official southward African language.

His father had been the first chairman of the Broederbond a secluded society of Afrikaaner leaders that was to become synonymous with the restraints under apartheid.

In his theological seminary days, Naude had mixed freely with John Vorster and Hendrick Verwoerd the two later to become prime ministers in apartheid toward the south Africa. Beyers joined the Broederbond in 1940 shortly after his marriage, and preached racial segregation until 1960 He told me of his work as originator of the Christian Institute in 1961 an ecumenical organization that became drawn into liberation politics, and was single in kind of the few groups to speak against apartheid. When I asked him in what manner this radical change had flow about in his life, he said, "I read the Gospels"

Sharpeville: a turning point

Along with that, of course, had been the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in which regulation troops shot 69 young black unarmed demonstrators. Naude came in a less degree than increasing scrutiny by his have Dutch Reformed Church. After he was stripped of his status as minister he announced his resignation from the Broederbond In 1963 he resigned as moderator of the Southern Transvaal Dutch Reformed body of christians Synod to take up his appointment as director of the Christian Institute.

This brought him into direct conflict with the security police. His staff be affected byed intimidation; offices were raided; files seized; and in 1973 the parliament's Schlebusch Commission investigated the Christian Institute. Naude's refusal to testify before this commission landed him overnight in jail in 1976

"If laws are immoral," he told me "Christians must resist."

single day he took me forward a car trip in the townships. Passing a mahometan temple he explained that Indians and "coloreds" had mov into formerly black areas. Pointing disclosed an Anglican school next to the mahometan temple he commented that its learner body was multiracial, and scholarships were readily available for blacks.

We passed the house where Naude's car had been bombed. He'd taught a black friend in what way to be a mechanic to such a degree he could earn a living. When the car explod it stood outside his friend's house. Luckily, Naude was not in it. He kept up a running commentary as we rode down an unlit road past shacks and hovels, until we came to Sophiatown, where Trevor Huddleston's meeting-house can still be seen. Blacks from this area were "relocated" outside the city, and gradually poor whites mov in. "Coloreds," he explained, are neither fish nor bird and many live illegally in townships. Gradually marginal assemblages moved further and further revealed from urban areas, so that Soweto, a community of about five million nation is now 25 kilometers disclosed past the city limits."