“MADIBA” 

HANNS F SKOUTAJAN

The tumult and the shouting dies,

The captains and the kings depart,

Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,

A humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of hosts be with us yet, 

Lest we forget, lest we forget.

 Recessional by Rudyard Kipling

On a beautiful day in October 1998 I stood on the tarmac in front of the main building of the infamous Dachau concentration camp. Even at the tender age of 8 I had known the meaning of KZ,  the German initials for Konzentrazionslager or concentration camp.  That word even looks like barbed wire . Dachau did not conjure up for me a pleasant brewery town a few kilometres north of Munich but sent shudders down my spine in those difficult prewar days. 

I was part of a small delegation of Canadians all of whom knew someone who had spent time in this prison camp. We somberly  toured the museum and then assembled in front of the memorial to a lay a wreath in silence. 

As I stood there I was very much aware that my own father, an ardent antifascist activist in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, a marked man, might have been among the  inmates lined up to be counted, tortured and starved. Had it not been for Doreen Warriner,  a British Quaker and her compatriots raising money, putting pressure on the British government to issue visas and make travel arrangements for as many of the most endangered such as my father he would have been apprehended and marched under the arch bearing the slogan Arbeit Macht Frei, (Work Liberates). Mother and I would also have been caught behind the lines. Life for me would have been entirely different than it is today. I think about it often.

Concentration camps did not originate in the twisted mind of Adolf Hitler. History has assigned that honour to Britain who in the Boer Wars (1899 - 1902) set up camps not just for men. 35,000 women and children perished largely of starvation in these camps. 

A British journalist, W T Stead, wrote:

"Every one of these children who died as a result of the halving of their rations, thereby exerting pressure onto their family still on the battle-field, was purposefully murdered. The system of half rations stands exposed, stark and unashamedly as a cold-blooded deed of state policy employed with the purpose of ensuring the surrender of men whom we were not able to defeat on the field.”

See their pictures on Google and you will be reminded of what the US GIs saw when they liberated Dachau in 1945. 

A few days ago the people of South Africa joined by many others throughout the world mourned and celebrated the life of Nelson Mandela, their beloved Madeba. He had experienced first hand, life, if one may call it such, in the prison on Robbin Island. He was incarcerated for 27 years and lost a goodly portion of his life and health.

Leaders from all over the world including Canada gathered in South Africa to pay tribute to this truly remarkable person who, although scathed in body, remained unscathed in mind and spirit by this ordeal. 

It is only too easy to point fingers and play the numbers game, to plead innocence or to maintain that our atrocities were much less than those of Iran, Israel, China or North Korea to name just a few countries that hold political prisoners. Blood is on the hands of all wherever vested power is threatened.

Guantanamo stands as a black mark against the United States who prides itself as the home of the free and the brave. Nor is Canada lily white, indeed, one may say that our residential schools were a type of concentration camp for aboriginal children.

The name Nelson Mandela has gone down in history and will be a memorial for those who have survived hardship at the hand of oppressive regimes. After more than two and a half decades he walked out free to lead his country out of Apartheid into a better future. True his country has a long way to go before poverty, a persistent apartheid, is removed. 

Shortly after his liberation he came to Canada where he was received with great acclaim. I saw his entourage in Toronto. He was made an honourary citizen of Canada. The vote in parliament would have been unanimous had it not been for one MP who like the former US vice president Dick Cheney continues to insist that he was a communist and terrorist.

It is my hope that as our Prime Minister stood by his bier he will have had second thoughts about continuing to insist on the incarceration of Omar Khadr, a child soldier cajoled by his father to join the Afghan terrorists and then further cajoled to confess to killing one American soldier. 

It is my hope that as Jean Chretien stood with the other dignitaries he will have borne in mind that it was under his watch as PM that Maher Arar underwent extraordinary rendition and sent to Syria to be interrogated under extreme duress.  How many more languish in our prisons with charges held in secrecy?

It is my hope that Mandela’s name shall never be trivialized but continue to be a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man, to persuade people to work to  bring freedom and to stand for peace and justice.”

Nelson Mandela is dead: Long live Madiba

SQ 12/12/2013

Other writings may be found at MYQUEST

NB new e mail address is: fj735@ncf.c