[image: Sunday Times]
*Obituary: Jean Middleton* *Anti-apartheid activist and justifiably proud of it* *Dudley Moloi, Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 2 January 2010* Jean Middleton, who has died in England, was a feisty anti-apartheid activist, author and journalist. It is perhaps a strange twist of historical irony that one of few white South Africans to forsake the comforts of the country's racial laager, and who fought to the bitter end for its overthrow, would be laid to rest in faraway England. Middleton, a teacher by profession, was forced from her Durban birthplace into exile just after the 1964 Bram Fischer trial. She was among the 14 people charged under the Suppression of Communism Act alongside the Harvard-educated Fischer, the son of the Afrikaner establishment turned communist during one of the most repressive periods in South African history. White, anti-apartheid individuals like Fischer and Middleton were scarce during South Africa's dark ages, and they might well find it galling that, today, it is almost impossible to find whites who either actively supported apartheid or who are prepared to admit they benefited from the spoils by default. In her 1997 testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) special hearings on incarceration under apartheid, Middleton told of her intermittent arrests and three years of captivity at the notorious Barberton prison, after nearly a year of sentencing. The charges in the trial, of which Middleton was accused number seven, included her membership of the Communist Party of South Africa and political pamphleteering against the apartheid regime. This was barely three weeks after the conclusion of the Rivonia trial, which saw the sentencing of Nelson Mandela for nearly three decades on Robben Island. "I mean those jails were enforcers of apartheid just as the police were. The way the wardresses used to try to humiliate the prisoners and that included us; I mean they didn't treat us like ladies, they just treated us better than black women, and humiliation or attempted humiliation was used a lot. "I think they used to get annoyed about the political prisoners because it's not easy to humiliate a political prisoner; you know you're proud of what you've done, you're not ashamed of it and I think that got to them sometimes but they certainly did try," she testified. Like most activists at the time, Middleton found it almost impossible to resume normal life or earn a living after her release from jail in the late '60s. As a teacher, the apartheid state was particularly nervous about her spawning more Ruth Firsts, Joe Slovos, Beyers Naudes, Bram Fischers and dozens other white South Africans of similar conscience and conviction. Essop Pahad, a long-time comrade in the SACP and currently publishing editor of political journal The Thinker, says Middleton "never once regretted" being a member of the underground during the liberation struggle. Her "commitment to the party (SACP) cannot be faulted", he said, adding that "her contribution to the South African political struggle had been remarkable, especially for a white woman". The former SACP member says that often those activists who opted to remain in exile after 1994 are not always recognised for their "extraordinary and selfless work" elsewhere. Besides the testimony at the TRC, Middleton's record of personal sacrifice and her part in the forging of a nonracial and democratic South Africa are documented in her 1998 memoir Convictions: A woman political prisoner remembers. *From: http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article832052.ece/Obituary--Jean-Middleton--Anti-apartheid-activist-and-justifiably-proud-of-it * * * * * -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
