Colour Bar (17 page)

the woman who is going to be the mother of the future Kgosi must come from a Kgosi, or if she comes from a family, that family must be of standing. In this way I am not suggesting that Mrs Khama does not come from a family of standing, but I am only telling the law as it pertains amongst us. We would know that if there had been negotiations between the Tribe and the family of Mrs Khama.

Despite Thema's prominence in South African black politics, his position there was a vexed one. He was one of the old guard of the ANC – one of those people described years later by Nelson Mandela as an ‘impediment' to the struggle against apartheid. Shortly after the Harragin Inquiry, when J. B. Marks was elected president of the Transvaal ANC, Thema led a breakaway ANC group called the Nationalist Minded Bloc. In
Bantu World
, he fiercely criticized the new direction being taken by the ANC: he claimed that communists had taken over and that Indians were exploiting the Africans.
²³
He was expelled from the ANC in 1951.
²⁴

The Inquiry finished sitting in Lobatse on 10 November and reassembled at Serowe four days later. ‘The day came when Seretse had to give his evidence at the enquiry,' recalled Ruth later. ‘I did not go down with him because I was still not really fit. He was in the witness-box for a day and a half.'
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But she brought tea and sandwiches for him during adjournments, when they sat quietly together outside the marquee, in the shade.
²⁶

Dressed in a dark suit, Seretse stood up to give evidence. Outside the marquee, many of the assembled Bangwato people chanted his name.
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‘I acted as a good Christian,' he stated, adding that he and Ruth had ‘true affection for each other, and I did not marry to spite anyone.' At the June Kgotla, he pointed out, practically everybody had stood up in his support:

the Tribe, almost to a man, is with me… The Government said: ‘The Tribe could decide,' and it has done so. The Tribe expects its decision to be honoured.

I claim the Chieftainship as it is due to me.

He argued that the Kgosi's wife had no official standing and that, in any case, his uncles' wives would help Ruth. Seretse spoke well and easily: he was dignified and courteous, but also forthright and often amusing. He was comfortable on the stand and showed to advantage his years of training for the Bar. As the days of the Inquiry passed, Harragin showed increasing respect for Seretse, as well as pleasure in their shared sense of humour.

But Thompson, the Attorney General, disliked Seretse intensely and tried to humiliate him. When Seretse mentioned Smuts, he barked,
‘Who is Smuts?' Then, when Seretse replied politely, ‘General Smuts', he sneered, ‘Do you mind referring to him as General Smuts?' Seretse, with his usual good nature, simply replied, ‘I am sorry.' But when Thompson started to interrogate him about his drinking habits, Seretse became playful in his answers:

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: When did Mrs Khama arrive here in Serowe?

SERETSE
: About 20 August.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: I find that there was only one permit issued to her to purchase liquor. Do you know about that?

SERETSE
: Yes, I went to Mr Sullivan [the District Commissioner] for it.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: And the permit was for one dozen bottles of beer, two bottles of some sort of liquor, three bottles of brandy and three bottles of gin. Do you remember getting that permit from Mr Sullivan?

SERETSE
: Yes.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: Was the liquor obtained?

SERETSE
: Yes, Sir.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: The beer as well? My information is that the beer may not have been supplied. Do you remember whether you got the beer or not?

SERETSE
: I am trying to think. I don't know whether I got it or not.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: The suggestion is that you got brandy instead of beer?

SERETSE
: Twelve brandies?

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: No, five brandies instead of twelve quarts of beer.

SERETSE
: No, I don't think I got more brandy.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: Two bottles of liqueurs, three bottles of brandy and three bottles of gin. What was that liquor intended for?

SERETSE
: It was intended for my consumption.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: Your personal consumption? Have you still got some of it left?

SERETSE
: Unfortunately, no…

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: This liquor was intended for yourself and your wife?

SERETSE
: She hardly drinks.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: And your visitors?

SERETSE
: I have not offered them any.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
: There is none left?

SERETSE
: I am afraid not.

At this point, Harragin interjected with a general remark; he was clearly embarrassed by Thompson's rude battery of questions and wanted to close it down.

Then, with a dry irony that he knew Seretse would appreciate, Harragin turned to his marriage:

You then did something – which we now know was getting married – which in effect the Regent or your guardian was suggesting was so serious that you could not, or should not, be designated as Chief, much in the same way as if you had committed murder or something.

At the June Kgotla, Harragin went on, the tribe ‘rose as a man and said, “We will have Seretse and his wife” – whether she is a white or a green one.' It was clear that Harragin sided with Seretse – not only in his clash with the Attorney General, but in his confrontation with the British Government.

Thompson raised the issue of South Africa. Given that the Protectorate's capital, Mafikeng, was in the Union, he asked, how could Seretse – as a prohibited immigrant – function as chief? But it ought to be possible to set up alternative arrangements, countered Seretse. Being a prohibited immigrant, he added, meant that he was not very different from practically every black South African – ‘because even in the Union itself African people are practically prohibited immigrants; they cannot move from one part of the Union to another without some sort of permission from the Native Commissioner'. In any case, he shrewdly pointed out, South Africa was irrelevant to the Inquiry – the Secretary of State had said so.

When Ellenberger, who had been carefully briefed by the High Commissioner's Office, was called as a witness, he returned to the issue of South Africa. He argued that the Bangwato required ‘very strong' leadership and the ‘closest contact' with the Administration, so their Chief would need to be able to go to Mafikeng. He added that the Protectorate needed to import food from the Union and was dependent upon the export of cattle; in addition, families were dependent on funds from men working in the Union. He was asked about the political views of the Union and of Southern Rhodesia and at this point the Attorney General handed in – as evidence – the statement of the Union Prime Minister to the Nationalist Party Conference
on 26 October 1949. A copy of the debate in the Legislative Assembly of Southern Rhodesia, when there had been unanimous agreement that Seretse should not be installed as chief, was also included as evidence.

Fraenkel tackled Ellenberger on the issue of South Africa. He argued that, in actual fact, the Union was dependent upon the Protectorate for labour in the mines. On the matter of the export of cattle, he added, the market for beef was expanding in the north.

Walter Stanford Pela had come to Serowe from South Africa to express the views of the Bangwato men working in the mines on the Rand and in Pretoria. Pela had been Seretse's boarding master at Tiger Kloof and had a degree in Native Law and Administration. He had already made public his support for Seretse's marriage in June that year, in a South African magazine called
Common Sense
.
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Now he contended that under Sotho-Tswana customary law, the Kgotla occupied the same position as Parliament according to Western concepts. ‘Tswana customary law,' he argued, ‘recognises no colour distinction, and an objection based on this ground is untenable for lack of precedent.' He accused Tshekedi of wanting his children to succeed to the chieftainship after Seretse's death. He pleaded with the Commission not to be influenced by the recent statements of the Prime Ministers of the Union and of Southern Rhodesia.

Kgosi Mokgosi of the Balete also disputed Tshekedi's position, arguing that he was motivated by political ambition. ‘I and my Tribe agree to Seretse's marriage,' he said. ‘I may say that Seretse's marriage really did not cause any offence.'

A memorandum from Kanye, the capital of the Bangwaketse Reserve, was read aloud. Dated 20 October 1949, it was signed by fifteen people who could not attend, including teachers, clerks, administrators, sanitary inspectors and policemen. They took a very different view from their Kgosi, Bathoen II. They praised Seretse's leadership qualities – pointing out that he was chief prefect at Tiger Kloof and Lovedale – and argued that his education was good for the people. While he was in England, they said, Seretse had worked on a farm to gain knowledge of farming methods there. But the chief argument of the memorandum was that

Seretse's unquestionable royal birth has never been a hindrance to his free association with persons of all classes. He ‘walked with kings but never lost the common touch'. This is evidenced by the way he was always ready to serve others even if it was a matter of fetching water for somebody both of lower rank and younger than he. Such seemingly small deeds go a long way in the hearts of men.

Then it added, by way of example:

Once, in a social gathering, a number of people asked to hear ‘the voice of the Kgosi'. He was bound to say one or two things, and inter alia he said something very significant of his character: ‘Well, you have heard my voice, it is no different from yours…'

‘Such interest in the common man, so rare among many of our leaders,' argued the authors of the memorandum, ‘augurs well for a successful leader who will not remain at the topmost stratum but will go down in order to uplift the masses up the ladder of progress fully understanding their shortcomings.' He was not the first Kgosi to marry the woman of his choice – and a ‘woman of one's choice refers equally to all colours, whether white, black, green or yellow in this respect'. The matter had only cropped up ‘because of the dislike for the unlike, which the more democratic and liberal peoples of the world are trying to fight against everyday'.

A memorandum had also been submitted by Monametsi Chiepe, from Vryburg in South Africa. Chiepe was an intellectual who had been a Tribal Secretary under Tshekedi but had resigned after a misunderstanding.
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In the memorandum he challenged Tshekedi's claim that the decision at the June Kgotla was a mob decision, arguing that it was the product of careful consideration by the Bangwato. It was true, he acknowledged, that initially the Bangwato had wanted Seretse to marry someone from his own people. But by refusing to pander to the wishes of those who wanted to separate him from his wife, Seretse had persuaded them to change their view.

Sir Walter Harragin brought the Inquiry to a close on 18 November. ‘We would like to thank the Bamangwato people who have assembled in their thousands round this tent, sitting silently through sun and rain, always orderly and courteous under any circumstances,' he said
to the crowd outside the marquee. He was concerned that after all their efforts and loyalty, they would not discover the result of the Inquiry for a long time. Many people, he knew, would expect the Inquiry to operate like a kgotla meeting, where a consensus would be reached by the end, or like a law court trial, where a judgement would be given:

I am afraid many [people] are going to be disappointed today because I feel sure that they imagine that this is a case and that the Judge will immediately give judgement, but that is far from the fact. No judgement is given by us.

In due course, he explained, certain recommendations would be made to the British High Commissioner in Pretoria, who would in turn forward them to the Secretary of State in London. ‘It may be several months,' he warned, ‘before you hear the result.'

Harragin finished his speech by entreating the crowd to go to their fields and start ploughing – for this was the time of year when people left their homes in the village and went to their lands. ‘We have, I am told,' he said, apologetically,

been to some extent responsible for keeping you away from ploughing your fields, and as I understand that some of you are waiting for the word to be given – I believe it is called
Letsema
– insofar as I have any authority, may I say that it is my pious hope that you will now proceed to your fields and proceed with your ploughing and that in due course more rain will come.

Despite the cynical decisions behind the Inquiry, it had been thoroughly and conscientiously conducted by Sir Walter and had produced a mass of material. When a final record of the evidence was collected together, it amounted to many thousands of pages, in fourteen thick volumes. Everyone was exhausted. The clerk who had taken shorthand returned to her home in Durban, where she started to type up her notes. ‘I am really feeling dead beat now,' she complained. ‘It is eight weeks of solid hard graft without a single week-end or public holiday, and only stopping for meals and bed late at night, and how I stuck it I just don't know.'
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A few days after the inquiry closed, there was a prayer service in the Serowe Kgotla. It was an annual event, when the Kgosi spoke to the people and told them they might start ploughing when they wish
– the formal
Letsema
. Now, in November 1949, it was expected that Seretse would give this service. It was the first time that he had taken on this formal role, and beforehand, said Ruth, he was nervous – ‘but once he started to speak everything was all right'. He was given a huge reception and as they left the meeting, ‘a way for us had to be forced through the crowd'.
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