OPERATION VULA - CONNIE BRAAM (Review by Max du Preez)

OPERATION VULA - CONNIE BRAAM (Jacana, 2004)

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Review by Max du Preez

The South African story deserves to be told by more talented writers than historians or political scientists. It needs proper storytellers and keen observers of human behaviour. Like Antjie Krog. And Connie Braam. Especially like Braam - Krog's narrative is often so complex and dense that it becomes hard work to read. Reading a story should never be hard work. And we really need ordinary South Africans to start reading the stories of our past. History is storytelling. Braam, for many years the head of the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement, is an established Dutch novelist. Her writing is therefore accessible and entertaining; she tells us about moods, emotions, atmosphere and body language rather than only the cold facts. But it also explains why she sometimes writes of a conversation she had years ago by giving us the dialogue in quotation marks. That's mildly annoying, because one knows it is impossible for her to remember the actual words used during that conversation. Such a technique tends to undermine the credibility of her writing - how much else did she make up, cynics would ask. But her book about the ANC's Operation Vula in the late 1980s is unpretentious, straightforward and honest. She sticks to what she did and said and heard and avoids the temptation of learned political analysis. On the other hand, non-South Africans with no knowledge of the events and time (1986 to 1990) might want a bit more context. The basic story is a fascinating one. Braam recruited sympathetic people from the Netherlands and Belgium to smuggle arms into South Africa or to put up safe houses for the Vula operatives inside the country and in neighbouring states. With the help of make-up artists, hairdressers and actors in Amsterdam she also devised elaborate disguises for Umkontho we Sizwe agents who were to infiltrate the country. They were clearly very successful: well-known leaders like Siphiwe Nyanda, now head of the National Defence Force, Charles Nqakula and Ronnie Kasrils, now members of Thabo Mbeki's cabinet, Max Ozinsky and Mac Maharaj operated inside the country for long periods without being detected. It was important for South Africans to be reminded now that foreigners did play a role in our liberation struggle. Hundreds of anti-apartheid activists from especially Holland but also Belgium, Britain and elsewhere risked their lives and jobs to contribute to the fight for democracy in South Africa. We should always remember that. Braam's book is primarily the story of the Dutch activists. But it also has a number of wonderful stories of the Vula operatives involved. Braam interviewed some of them about their past and their experiences in MK while they were visiting Amsterdam to have disguises planned for them, and records these stories in the book. The remarkable story of MK soldier Christopher Tsie Manye, aka Little John, is an example. When are we going to see the books by the Little Johns and other soldiers of the struggle? I think it is important for South Africans to know more of and understand the lives and experiences of the guerrillas who fought the apartheid governments for so long. In fact, isn't it time a South African publisher pushed Mac Maharaj into writing his memoirs? Maharaj was one of the top men of Operation Vula and for years in the heart of the ANC's intelligence community. Reading Braam's book made me feel sad about the way this highly intelligent and articulate man fell from grace after his accusations against Scorpion boss Bulelani Ngcuka. Braam also tells the touching story of her personal relationship with Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim, the MK commander who was later kidnapped by the South African Security Forces in Swaziland and jailed on Robben Island. He was released only after the negotiations between the ANC and the National Party government started in 1990. Ebrahim is a senior government adviser today, but Braam doesn't tell us if or when the relationship ended. Why was the Dutch anti-apartheid movement the most active and effective and why did so many Dutch people risk their lives during Operation Vula? I think it is partly because of the political culture of the Netherlands, or rather of that great city Amsterdam. But it is also because it was the Dutch who first colonised the indigenous people of the southern tip of Africa, and because the ruling ethnic group until 1994 spoke a language originally derived from Dutch. (It has long been an irritation to Dutch progressives that the only Dutch word known throughout the world is "apartheid" - oh, and that Hendrik Verwoerd was born in Holland.) Braam also talks of the "historical ties" between the Netherlands and South Africa. It was for this reason that I organised the first sanctioned breaking of the cultural boycott when I was editor of Vrye Weekblad: the Dutch/South African "Breaking the Barriers" festival in 1991. It seemed a good idea at the time, but it quickly became clear that progressive Dutch people didn't want to be reminded of their ethnic and language links to the Afrikaners: they were ashamed. They wanted to share their culture with the oppressed black masses of South Africa, but the masses didn't care for Dutch culture because it was too close to Afrikaans culture. The deep resentment towards white Afrikaners comes through in Braam's book. It helped me to understand why the Anti-Apartheid Beweging Nederland and its affiliate that helped fund Vrye Weekblad, the Komitee Zuidelijk Afrika, always treated me and my comrades with such suspicion. Even when I was on an (invited) speaking tour of the Dutch platteland as part of their campaign against apartheid I always felt resented and mistrusted. They would have loved it so much if I were black. Reading Braam's book made it easier for me to understand this. (And they could never understand why I as editor of a fiercely anti-apartheid newspaper couldn't be a card-carrying member of the ANC and couldn't do courier jobs for the movement. An activist is an activist, was the feeling.) Connie Braam and her comrades did important and brave work during Operation Vula and through the campaigns of the Dutch anti-apartheid movement. A fascinating book.