Working to Make Liberty a Reality : Slain local woman fought for S. Africa harmony

It’s hard to imagine anything more senseless than the killing in South Africa of Amy Elizabeth Biehl, an idealistic Fulbright scholar from Newport Beach. As a white driving with three black colleagues, she got caught up in South Africa’s vicious racial violence, even as that troubled country is moving toward its rendezvous with democracy.

It is worth remembering that on our nation’s birthday this summer, Nelson Mandela, president of the African National Congress, and President F. W. de Klerk stood together in Philadelphia with a symbol of the free world, the President of the United States. Biehl was an American putting those cherished principles into practice by working tirelessly for the cause of freedom in South Africa. She had labored to make liberty a reality in a land that has suffered under generations of oppressive apartheid.

To its credit, the ANC, with which Biehl had worked, quickly expressed its outrage and vowed to help find the killers. It said exactly what needed saying in a country at a historic crossroads: South Africa must work hard to minimize racial hatred and it must foster harmony and understanding.

The swiftness of the ANC’s response and the clarity of its message sent a powerful signal to South Africa and to the rest of the world.

Police arrested two black youths in Cape Town’s Guguletu township near the University of the Western Cape, where Biehl, 26, had been studying at the university’s Community Law Center.

The suspects were said to be student members of the radical Pan Africanist Congress, which has continued its armed struggle against white rule.

But on the eve of inevitable change, it is toleration and understanding, the ideals that inspired Biehl, that can keep South Africa on course for its scheduled elections.

Her death is certain to fuel the apprehensions the white minority already has about what is to come. And many black South Africans no doubt will continue to be frustrated by the slow pace of change, their country’s continuing economic and labor troubles and its long, bloody history of violence and injustice.

Only last April, when blacks mourned the death of ANC leader Chris Hani, Mandela delivered an eloquent national appeal for “calm and dignity” with his pledge to continue dialogue.

Therein lies a important recognition that change is coming to South Africa, but that it requires patience and persistence.

And it must be approached in the spirit exemplified by a young American who is now a symbol for the cause of democracy around the world.