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It may be difficult now to imagine the impact that Scott made back in the 1940s and 1950s. From the moment he arrived in South Africa from England as a young Anglican priest in 1943, he identified himself with the dispossessed. In Johannesburg he lived with Africans in the dangerous squalor of Tobruk shanty town.
In Durban he joined Indian passive resisters and with them, went to jail. Along with Ruth First and Gert Sibande, he exposed slave labour conditions on Bethels farms. Most whites thought of him a dangerous trouble-maker and his church found him an increasing embarrassment. Father Huddleston was later to write:
To my shame I did very little then to help Michael Scott. Somehow it took me a long while to wake up.
In 1946 Scott received a desperate message from South West Africa. The South African government threatened to incorporate the mandated territory. Traditional leaders found that their attempts to protest to the United Nations were blocked. They appealed for assistance, and Scott set off for Windhoek and so begun his crusade.
In South West Africa, as Namibia was called then, Chief Hosea Kutako, who had led the Herero people since the German wars of extermination in 1904, Captain David Witbooi, traditional leader of the Nama people, told Scott the histories of their people and of their bitter opposition to South African rule. They appointed him their international spokesman and armed with their petitions, set off for the United Nations. He had no organisation and was virtually penniless, with only a few Quakers and assorted do-gooders to help out.
The United Nation was in its infancy. The only African member states were Egypt, Ethiopia and Liberia. To an organisation taken up mainly with war ravaged Europe, what could a few small and remote African communities matter?
Scott found himself pitted against a whole system. The Western powers argued that there was absolutely no right under the Charter for an individual to testify. Britain, the USa and France voted with South Africa against his being given hearing and the Soviet group were nervous of a precedent for dissidents to testify. But he lobbied tirelessly, and India ad a few small countries supported him. It too nearly three years and in November 1949, the Trusteeship Committee voted by 25 to 15, with 6 abstentions, to hear this spokesman of the ‘tribes of SWA’.
It was an historic breakthrough. In Britain it was headline news:
“The angry mutter of Africa has broken through the crust of the United Nations ” , said one report. From the Central Hall to meetings all over the country, Scott addressed overflow crowds. In South Africa, Prime Minister Malan said:
The admission of agitators of the Scott type created a serious crises.
Scott was prohibited from ever returning to white ruled southern Africa and the South African government proceeded to incorporate South West Africa, believing that this would protect them from UN attack. They reckoned without Scott and his followers. His and their relentless lobbying and writing kept South West Africa firmly on the agenda on the UN and of the International Court of Justice. The right to testify before UN Committees and hosting UN sponsored conference and publications, are partly owed to Reverent Michael Scott. May his soul rest in eternal peace!
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