A compelling account of the Treason Trial
Joseph, one of the accused, completes the telling of the story
IF THIS BE TREASON Helen Joseph Loot.co.za (R164) KWELA
REVIEWER: SUE TOWNSEND THIS account of the Treason Trial was initially banned and re-released in 1998 with a foreword by Walter Sisulu. Kwela have now re-issued it again this time with a foreword by Benjamin Trisk, the son-inlaw of Isie Maisels, QC, who led the defence team in the trial, the charge being High Treason.
Helen Joseph, herself one of the accused, writes in her author’s note: “The dramatic story of the mass arrests of 156 people… has already been told… by Lionel Forman, one of the accused. By October 1959 he was dead, and so his follow-up book on the trial itself was never written.” Subsequently, ES Sachs, Forman’s co-author, asked Helen to complete the task.
What we have is based on the diary that she kept covering the last year of the trial, from March 1960 to March 1961. The book is dedicated to her fellow Treason Triallists, the defence team, all those who provided funds and to all those who carried on the struggle “side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty”.
A fitting book to be reviewing in the the wake of South Africa’s Day of Reconciliation.
Joseph carefully sets out the background to the Treason Trial, a summary of the chronology of the trial itself followed by the expanded story based on her diaries and her recollections of both life (?) in jail, being transported each day to the court in Pretoria, in a converted synagogue.
The bus ride from Johannesburg to Pretoria soon became a pivotal part of life as it brought the 30 triallists together for the hours it took each day.
On March 23, the judges stopped Bram Fischer in mid-argument for the case to be dismissed, and they left the court to deliberate. For six days, they waited for the verdict. Joseph describes how she spent the time frantically busy tying up loose ends in case the decision went against them.
The Judge President took 40 minutes to read the judgment. And then the wonderful words: “You are found not guilty and discharged and you may go.”
Jubilation! Joseph quotes The Minster of Justice in Parliament on May 12, 1959: “…the trial will be proceeded with no matter how many millions of pounds it costs.”
In fact, more than half a million pounds was the total cost, but the cost in human suffering is not quantifiable.
So the question remains: What treason was there? Is it treason to strive for freedom and justice? Is it treason to ask that black and white should live together?