No Fence So High

Winnie Mandela has become, throughout the world, a symbol of quiet courage as she has resisted the dehumanization of apartheid to prepare for Christmas with her grandchildren.

The defiance has served as a bleak but necessary reminder of the injustice that seizes, cripples and corrupts South Africa. The power of her case has been evident in the reluctance of the government until recently to enforce all its outrageous laws against her. Her strength is fueled by the integrity of her case, her commitment to her long-imprisoned husband, Nelson, the most popular black nationalist in the nation, just as the government’s hand is weakened by the very repression that it uses to cling to minority white rule.

There must be profound embarrassment at the power center in Pretoria. The emergency laws, used to screen the brutality of police action from television and photographs, are now being rigorously implemented to bar reporters as well.

The tragedy is made worse, a solution more distant, by the terrorism of black nationalists that escalated Monday in the Amanzimtoti bombing. The cold-blooded slaughter of innocent white Christmas shoppers will not accelerate the day of justice for the black majority. But that extremism also measures the explosive pressures building in South Africa as blacks wait for the government to match deeds with its statements of good intentions, to bring forth change through law before change is grasped in more devastating violence.

We can only imagine the terror and pain that must be overcome in Winnie Mandela’s heart and mind as she pursues her quest for justice. Or the humiliation that she is made to suffer every day. Bishop Desmond Tutu, long before he won the Nobel Peace Prize, recalled taking the Holy Eucharist to her when she was isolated, a banned person. The bishop had to stand on one side of her garden fence, she on the other, to administer the bread and wine of the Communion.

But as all South Africa is discovering in these violent days, no fence is high enough to maintain the separation that until now has sanctioned the exploitation of the majority by the minority. And, as she reminds her government by her deeds, there yet remains the option of change through peaceful means.