In Spite of All Barriers: Teaching in South Africa with Lowell Johnson

By Robert Mazibuko

About the Book
Robert Mazibuko continues to record the major efforts to teach the Bahá’ í Faith in apartheid South Africa in the late 1960s and onward. Recounting the strategies learned during the travels of two people of different colour and origin working together: one a white American and the other a black South African under the strictures of culture and government.
A fascinating insight into how people working in unity can effect great change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RoseDog Books
• Release date: Jul 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781639376155

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Lowell Johnson, my friend and instructor in the Bahá’í Teachings. He passed on while the manuscript was being developed and had been able to see the nearly completed work. His encouragement and assistance in publishing the manuscript were invaluable.

In writing this book, his companionship is remembered with great fondness.

Preface

In 1969, Lowell and I went travel-teaching on instructions from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of South and West Africa. We covered the area along the coast from Durban, through the Transkei, to Cape Town and back, visiting most Bahá’ís on our lists in all those areas, whether the address was a post office box, a school, place of employment or home residence. On the way back from Cape Town, all these communities were revisited in reverse order, and the trip terminated in Johannesburg where we had been asked to submit all reports.

At that time, I got to know Lowell a little better. My experiences with him were so important and meant so much that I wish to commit most accounts to paper, even if that attempt were futile, for others to be able follow the route we took in thought and experiences. The months of travelling together were from July to November, but the round trip took until January of the next year, by which time I was exhausted and needed to settle down and stabilize. Though the town to town part of the story is sequential, the lessons learned are not. Some lessons were acquired in conversation. If cars could talk, such an account could be accomplished!

Negotiating meals, stops, and meeting people were interesting, but time to converse was limitless in its content, as we were in the privacy of a moving vehicle. In spite of the restrictions imposed by law, the Bahá’í Faith gradually got established through efforts of this nature. The lessons learned were so precious that they form the basis of my knowledge of activities amongst the Bahá’ís. Association with Lowell did not end with the trip, as I was still in touch with him to the time of his passing in 2012.

Lowell does not make long speeches, but can extend a talk a great deal more if he uses audiovisuals. However, he has written many books, especially about the lives of other Bahá’ís. This is one of the reasons much of this story is told with pictures. I wanted his memory of these people to come alive. This authentication is proven in the books he has written about several Bahá’ís that he came to know.

Many of the pictures used are from a personal collection which has been gathered over the years (some from the millennium gallery of 1993 and the Bahá’í Principles Gallery Website where such graphics can be easily accessed). The rest are from the referenced sources on pages 108-110. We take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of South Africa for their permissions and assistance with many of these photos.

This account is written in English for obvious reasons of editing and review. It has to be observed that some themes in the story are left to the reader to infer instead of direct statements being made by the author.

The author is partly Zulu and partly Xhosa in origin. He has been a translator into Xhosa for over twenty years. This does not mean that the author was an expert translator, but that he wished to make the Writings that are in English available in Xhosa. His Zulu is not in any way excellent, but he was prepared to communicate with Zulu-speaking people about his religion.

Some thoughts have been expressed about this period in our history and I feel there is a need for a record to be set down. This book is my personal attempt to record that history. It is an eyewitness account, not an official record. It is an explanation, and not an apology. It comes from one who was, for a while, not serving as a member of an elected Assembly, and who tried to be objective.

The author was visiting some areas for the first time and, therefore, had a fresh, independent view of his own. However, introductions and places visited depended on Lowell’s knowledge, since he was anxious to reveal all to the author in an attempt to help him understand.

Introduction

The events contained in this short account occurred for the most part in South Africa, in the years between 1953 and the present. In the years between 1948 and the independence of South Africa in the 1990s, South Africa was governed by a minority of white people under a system called Apartheid, a term that meant a discrimination of status by virtue of race and/or colour.

Under that system, it was a crime to gather together except for work and other activities that were regarded as legitimate. Special licenses were required for any other meeting. During a situation termed State of Emergency, no ten Africans could gather together anywhere unless the meeting was for worship or related activities. It later became possible for armed policemen to enter classrooms in schools and monitor activities of students and teachers.

Each race lived in its designated area and, at the end of the day, black workers had to return to their area and not venture out without night permits from their employers. In any case, it was a crime for a black person to be found anywhere without his identity papers. This was punishable by up to ten days in jail. This is just a small example of the onerous conditions, outlined here to highlight the barriers to travel.

It was under such circumstances that the Bahá’ís had to come in from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and several other countries to teach the Bahá’í Faith, mainly to the black and coloured population of the country. The reason that these two races were chosen was the avoidance of political entanglement that ensued when all races were approached.

While the Bahá’í Faith teaches the oneness of the human race, Bahá’ís do not become involved in the party politics of any country. In a definite way, this principle focuses the Bahá’ís on uniting humankind without having to be split amongst themselves on matters pertaining to outside influences of political groups. Each political group has an agenda which may be foreign to or against another.

In the teaching of the oneness of the human race in South Africa, there was always the fear that the pioneers or believers from outside the country who came to teach, would be deported before performing any significant teaching. Local authorities had to be made aware of the presence and activities of Bahá’ís. Bahá’ís are commanded in their Writings to obey the law of all governments, and thus the South African Bahá’ís were careful not only to obey the law, but also not to do things that might be perceived by others as breaking it. On some occasions, Bahá’í pioneers had been refused work permits and sent home.

On the other hand, blacks could not move from town to town, seeking work, without permission from the government through local and regional authorities. Most of this control was exercised under the Influx Control Section of the Department of Bantu Administration and Development, which had strict rules even on housing and the payment of tax by all Africans. On payment of tax, by any African, a sticker was affixed to the identity document. If this stamp was found to be missing, jail time would be applied. Students had to obtain an exemption certificate.

In general, South Africa was an oligarchy, because the few ruled over the many. The Bahá’ís operated at the individual, village and township levels, introducing forms of democratic attitudes, such as voting for their local and national institutions, consultation and a fabric of an administration. It was important to maintain the integrity of this administration because through it Bahá’ís everywhere in the world could be reached. The Writings of the Bahá’í Faith, both in matters of administration and religious observance, were made available in local African languages.

It was under such circumstances that two believers, one American and the other African, were sent out by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of South and West Africa, to make an assessment of the status of the Bahá’í communities in Natal-Kwazulu, and the Cape Province areas, so that plans of improvement could be made during the times of political unrest that riddled the country in these years and those that followed. The American was a well-known Bahá’í administrator and a veteran of World War II having served in the United States Army, and the other, an African translator and aspiring travelling teacher. Their employment was diverse; one was a radio announcer and the other a factory worker.

These two believers had to teach each other Bahá’í attitudes and strategies which could be used while travelling from town