Going Home - Doris May Lessing [114]
I know of various people who have been allowed into the Federation on condition they took no part in politics, and I decided that I was likely to be such a case; also, I understood very well that the Federation was trying to prevent me from returning without having to suffer the moral inconvenience of putting it plainly.
I therefore arranged for a solicitor to go with me.
On arrival at Rhodesia House, and having given in my name and that of my solicitor, I was requested to go first and by myself. But I ignored this and took my solicitor up with me.
The official began by saying that he had been asked to tell me that if I wished to make any further trips to the Federation, I should first please make an application to him.
At which I pointed out that as a British citizen I had a right to enter as I liked, unless special provisions had been made against it. To which he returned: was I planning any further trips shortly? I said that that probably depended on what he had to tell me.
And now he exclaimed, with that engaging naïveté which makes contact with Partnership so rewarding: ‘You’ve forced my hand! Actually even if you did make application, you would not be allowed in.’
I asked if I had been declared a Prohibited Immigrant.
He said that I had, by Declaration in Council of the Governor-General.
Against which, of course, there is no appeal, as he pointed out, very shocked at the idea that one might question the orders of a Governor-General.
(But for the honour of the Federation I must say here that this deep and supine respect for high officialdom is confined to small officialdom. The best characteristic of the white citizens is their lack of respect for traditional authority.)
I suggested, trying of course to annoy the man, that the position was, in fact, exactly similar to that in the Union of South Africa, which also refuses to give reasons when it deports or prohibits a person. But he did not seem ashamed at the comparison.
On the date of this interview, the position in the Federation is as follows:
A State of Emergency has been in existence in Northern Rhodesia for nearly three weeks. The African Mineworkers’ Union ran a series of small protest strikes, very well organized and disciplined, against the creation of the African Salaried Staffs Association, the stooge union. But the companies refused to negotiate. Then bitterness broke out in a different form: the miners decided to go to work without their identity bracelets and their leg-guards, as a protest against colour discrimination: the Africans feel this as a humiliation, as the white miners do not have to wear them. As The Times put it: ‘White miners do not have to crawl about on their hands and knees underground.’
The miners were not allowed to go down without their identity bracelets and leg-guards.
The companies called this a strike; so did the Press in the Federation, and many of the newspapers here.
But to the miners, and to anyone concerned with the principles of trade unionism, it was a lock-out.
But these details of conflict do not matter: it was bitterness and frustration on one side, and the desire to weaken the union on the other.
For two weeks there was a deadlock. Then a State of Emergency was declared. Troops and police were flown in from Southern Rhodesia: for the purposes of preserving white supremacy Federation is truly a Federation—but trade unionism is kept strictly territorial, and union officials are not allowed to move from territory to territory. Meetings of more than five people were banned. Press censorship was imposed. Planes hovered above the compounds to spot any gathering of miners in order to direct ground troops to break them up.
Tanks were paraded, and tear gas used against crowds of protesting women. The women had their babies on their backs, as is customary.
Because of the Press censorship, exact details are not yet known, but here is an item from the Rhodesia Herald of September 14th: