A salutary look back at the ‘mother’ of 60-year-old Black Sash
SHEENA DUNCAN Annemarie Hendrikz
Tiber Tree Press
REVIEW: Sue Townsend outset that I was a member of the Black Sash and a colleague of Sheena’s, running the Cape Town advice office in the 1980s.
Be that as it may, it is salutary to look back, as Annemarie Hendrikz has done, at those “struggle” years in the light of where our country is today, and to reflect on where we have come from and what we still aspire to achieve in terms of justice, equality and peace.
For some white, voting South Africans in the dark years of apartheid and the increasing oppressions being brought upon the black majority of disenfranchised South Africans, it was difficult to know what to do. Sadly, for many the easiest thing was to do nothing, happily live the good life and ignore the plight of the dispossessed.
Not so a group of women, middle-class, privileged but educated and aware. In 1955 they formed the “Women’s Defence of the Constitution League” in response to the National Party’s packing of the senate to disenfranchise coloured voters. One of these women was Jean Sinclair, mother of Sheena. And so, as Desmond Tutu said: she imbibed this heritage like “mother’s milk”.
This was the birth of what came to be known as the Black Sash because of the sashes worn in mourning for the demise of the constitution. Annemarie has skilfully used the life of Sheena to write a book that is much more than simply a history of the Black Sash or, for that matter, of the South African Council of Churches, the End Conscription Campaign, Gun Free South Africa or pacifism.
She has woven together the narratives of the various organisations in which Sheena was deeply involved in such a way as to highlight the extraordinary role this amazing woman played in helping to end apartheid and to pave the way for a better, more just future for South Africa.
A refreshing tone in Annemarie’s book is her decision to disregard people’s titles and to use their first names after their initial introduction. I am following her lead in this regard. The only quibble I have is that it would have been helpful if some of those quoted had been contextualised more fully.
Sheena’s work in the advice offices run by the Sash is well documented and she was, for many years, the guiding light in this regard, highly thought of by the human rights lawyers with whom she worked. Recognition came in the form of no less than three honorary Doctorates in Law and a proposal that she be nominated as a judge in the newly formed Constitutional Court in 1994.
Finally, there was Sheena’s commitment to pacifism. Gun Free South Africa and the End Conscription Campaign were evidence of her strong antimilitarist standpoint.
Annemarie has told the story of this notable woman so as to reveal the extent of her influence in the quest for justice and peace in South Africa, without losing sight of the wife, mother, grandmother, friend and genuine all round mensch that Sheena was.