Despite the Darkness, page 26
Robin Renfrew had turned on his heel and marched out. One of the librarians had turned away and found something to do in the office behind the issue desk, the other had remained where she was and smiled at him without saying anything. She looked friendly and was obviously sympathetic, but Cameron hadn’t felt like embarking on any further conversation. He just needed to find somewhere quiet to calm down, come to terms with the humiliation of the plenary session, and prepare himself for the impending meeting, which would no doubt be a rerun of his encounter with Robin Renfrew.
By the time he needed to leave the library, Cameron felt ready for them. Anger had crystallised out as the main emotion. It was beyond belief that a group of historians, among them many of the most eminent African History specialists in the world, could allow their whole conference to operate on the basis of untested hearsay and gossip.
There was no one in the room he had been told they wanted to meet him in. None of the five organisers deigned to greet him as they hurried in at intervals over the next seven minutes. They refrained from saying anything to each other either. The silence grew more and more awkward until the Chair of the organizing committee, the sixth and last to arrive, bustled in and sat down, mumbling apologetically to his colleagues, but again making no effort to acknowledge Cameron.
Looking at the heavy guns lined up against him, Cameron suddenly realized that this wasn’t just a question of trying to set the record straight at this particular conference. These people were in a position to determine the course of his career. This wasn’t the conference organizing committee, this was the Executive Committee of the Association. The group contained the editors of all four of the international academic journals in which his articles had been published to date, and at least one of them would be found on the editorial board of all the significant journals in his field. Although it was quite cool, and he could see through the window that it was still raining, Cameron could feel himself starting to prickle with sweat.
‘Good evening, Dr Beaumont,’ the Chair said, breaking the silence. ‘Thank you for coming to meet us this evening. As you know, I am Professor Peter Jordan, Chair of the African History Association and the organizer of this conference. My colleagues here are Professors Michael Phipson, Charles Dougherty, Peter Guthrie, Oliver Hall and James Johnson. Professor Guthrie is also a member of the organizing committee, and together we constitute the Executive Committee of the African History Association.’
‘Good evening,’ Cameron responded.
‘You obviously know,’ Jordan said, ‘that in view of the academic boycott of South Africa your invitation to this conference had to be sanctioned by the ANC.’
‘Yes,’ Cameron replied. ‘I was pleased that they were happy to approve.’
‘What you don’t know,’ Jordan continued, ‘is that that approval has now been rescinded. I received a phone call last night from the ANC telling me that they had evidence that you are an agent of the South African Special Branch and that you were responsible for betraying your research student, Mr Enoch Sithole, to the South African Police. We were advised to have nothing to do with you. I accordingly called my organizing committee together first thing this morning and asked them to alert all conference delegates to the situation. What do you have to say for yourself?’
This was entirely predictable, Cameron thought, his mind racing as fast as his pulse – he just hadn’t predicted it. Getting away from South Africa had left him too relaxed. He had assumed the rumour must just have been picked up on the grapevine from colleagues in South Africa.
‘How do you know the phone call was from the ANC?’ Cameron asked.
‘The man who spoke to me said his name was Vusi Dlamini,’ Jordan replied. ‘I looked up the letter the ANC sent to us approving your invitation. It was signed by a Mr Vusi Dlamini.’
‘And he definitely said they had evidence that I am a Special Branch agent, not just that I was suspected of being one?’ Cameron asked.
‘Yes, he was quite definite,’ Jordan replied. ‘So what?’
‘I think you will find that whoever phoned you wasn’t a member of the ANC,’ Cameron said.
‘What makes you think he might not have been?’ Peter Guthrie chipped in.
‘The ANC can’t have any evidence that I am a Special Branch agent, for the simple reason that I am not a Special Branch agent,’ Cameron responded. ‘Agents of the South African state spend an inordinate amount of time trying to infiltrate the ANC in exile, so they need to have a good measure of paranoia if they are going to survive. That means they have to be very careful, and their intelligence on the ground has to be very good. They will be aware of Mirambo’s disappearance, and they will have been fed the rumour that I am working for the police, but they will have learnt not to accept every rumour at face value. They will know how to look for evidence and they will recognize evidence when they see it.’
‘Who is Mirambo?’ Guthrie asked.
‘Sorry,’ Cameron replied. ‘Mr Sithole prefers to be known as Mirambo.’
‘The so-called “Napoleon of Central Africa”,’ interjected Charles Dougherty. ‘Another aspirant leader of anti-colonial rebellion harbouring delusions of grandeur?’
Cameron looked across the table at Dougherty for a couple of seconds to allow the flare of anger to subside. Dougherty knew the detail of the history, but he obviously hadn’t learned much from it – and the supercilious bastard had come to the meeting to accuse Cameron of being the racist.
‘As it happens, Mirambo is extremely modest,’ Cameron said. ‘In my experience it isn’t the black people I know who tend to have delusions of grandeur. As I was saying, the ANC knows perfectly well that the South African government is especially gifted in the disinformation department, as is very ably demonstrated by the South African Broadcasting Corporation. If the person who claimed to be Vusi Dlamini really was who he claimed to be, and really was from the ANC office, he might have phoned to warn you that I am suspected of being a Special Branch agent, but I very much doubt he would have asserted that he has evidence to that effect.’
‘You are just splitting hairs,’ Oliver Hall said. ‘If it wasn’t a member of the ANC who phoned Professor Jordan, who would it be?’
‘A genuine Special Branch agent,’ Cameron replied, refraining from adding ‘obviously’. ‘The rumour that I am a police spy was dreamed up by the Special Branch and spread by students in the pay of the security police, including at least one member of our Students Representative Council. The Special Branch doesn’t like what I have been saying and doing for the past fifteen years and has been harassing me and my family for most of that time, presumably hoping to get us out of their hair by making life so difficult for us that we will pack up and emigrate, as so many of those who object to apartheid have done.’
‘Bullshit!’ Dougherty interjected.
Jordan, clearly taken aback by the unparliamentary language, looked as if he was about to remonstrate but Michael Phipson, speaking for the first time, beat him to it.
‘Are you implying that those who packed up and emigrated are somehow deficient in moral fibre?’ he asked.
The brittleness of Phipson’s tone reminded Cameron that Phipson had begun his academic career at the University of Cape Town but had left the country for a post in England very soon after the Sharpeville massacre.
‘No, not at all,’ Cameron replied, ‘I wasn’t intending to sound judgemental. Living in South Africa under the Nationalist Government presents white people with a moral dilemma. It is perfectly understandable that, ever since 1948, some people should have found living under apartheid intolerable and decided to leave. I just happen to think that it is better to stay in South Africa and do what little I can to contribute to the struggle against apartheid from within.’
‘More bullshit,’ Dougherty said. ‘Better to stay in South Africa and benefit from apartheid while doing all you can to undermine any opposition to it, more likely. Every single thing you have said so far is exactly what one would expect a police agent who has been caught out to say in the circumstances. Isn’t that the case?’
‘Possibly,’ acknowledged Cameron. ‘All I can say is that I am not a police agent and did not betray Mirambo to the police.’
‘Your talk about apartheid being immoral and indefensible sounds to me like a classic case of projection,’ James Johnson said, making his first contribution to the meeting. ‘Why should we believe you rather than the ANC?’
‘How, in other words, can I prove that I’m not a police agent?’ asked Cameron.
‘Precisely,’ Jordan agreed from the chair.
Cameron felt the adrenalin that had kept him going all day and through the meeting so far suddenly leaking away. He was getting precisely nowhere – it was like standing waist deep in his waders in a trout dam and finding himself entirely unable to move against the cold weight of water pressing in on his legs and the clinging mud sucking at his boots.
‘Well?’ prompted Jordan, growing impatient at Cameron’s delayed reply.
‘I can’t prove I’m not a police agent,’ Cameron said. ‘You can’t prove a negative.’
Cameron felt like a stuck record – this particular group might not have heard the refrain before, but that didn’t stop him feeling deathly tired of having to repeat it.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Dougherty asked.
‘If I were to tell the people around this table that you are a paedophile, Professor Dougherty,’ Cameron answered, ‘how would you propose to set about proving to them that you aren’t?’
‘Hold on! Hold on!’ Jordan interjected, trying to assert his role as Chair before the meeting got out of control. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘That is absolutely outrageous! What the hell do you mean?’ Dougherty burst out at the same time. ‘Of course I’m not a paedophile. How dare you say that?’
‘Precisely,’ Cameron went on, energized by the reaction he had provoked. ‘You can deny that you are a paedophile, but here and now you can’t prove you aren’t one, and you would have great difficulty in proving it anywhere else either. I wasn’t, incidentally, suggesting that Professor Dougherty is a paedophile, I was just making the point.’
‘I’m a historian,’ Cameron went on after a brief pause. ‘Four of you are the editors of academic journals that have published articles by me. You have sent them out to reviewers who have approved their publication. The point of historical research is to uncover the truth about the past. Writing up the findings of historical research is a form of truth-telling. In approving the publication of my articles you have certified me as a truth-teller. I am telling the truth when I say I am not a police agent, even though I cannot prove that to you. Historical research sometime in the future will demonstrate the truth of what I am telling you. It would be a betrayal of the historical process for eminent historians to accept what you have been told as the truth without testing it in any way.’
‘That is as may be,’ Jordan said. ‘But Mr Sithole, or Mirambo as you call him, wasn’t the only example Mr Dlamini gave. He also said that you had been responsible for the arrest and torture of three ANC men from a place called, I think he said, Edendale – and that was only a week or so ago.’
‘That is also untrue,’ Cameron responded, ‘but what can I say that won’t invite Professor Dougherty’s response of “That’s what you would say wouldn’t you?” The truth in this case is that I went to Edendale looking for Mirambo. I spoke to three men at the address Mirambo had given when he first applied to us. The Special Branch, who were also looking for Mirambo, identified the same address entirely independently of me and arrested the three men, who were then told by Venter that it was because of me that they had been arrested. I had nothing to do with those arrests.’
‘That’s what you would say wouldn’t you?’ said Dougherty. ‘How very coincidental that you just happened to find yourself at that address shortly before the arrests…’
‘Dr Beaumont,’ Jordan interrupted, clearly anxious to get the meeting over as quickly as possible, ‘you are obviously right in saying that those of us who are attending this 1985 African History Conference in Brighton have no means of establishing the accuracy or otherwise of what we have been told about you. But the fact is that an academic boycott of South Africa is in force. As you are an academic from South Africa your attendance at this conference had to be formally approved by the ANC. We have now been informed that the ANC’s approval has been withdrawn. We have no basis for questioning either the message we received or the credentials of the messenger we received it from. The organizing committee has accordingly agreed, with the full concurrence of the Executive Committee of the African History Association, that you be asked to leave the conference with immediate effect. The Executive Committee has also agreed that your membership of the Association should be terminated.’
Cameron felt totally drained by the struggle to keep his temper. He didn’t have the magic words that would open the minds of the eminent academics lined up against him. He felt as though, with his boots still immoveable in the mud, the water had risen above the top of his waders and was flowing in to drag him under.
‘You don’t have anything to say in response?’ Jordan asked.
‘What the hell am I supposed to say?’ asked Cameron wearily. ‘Some of the most prominent academics in my field, whose reputations are supposedly built on their academic rigour, have chosen to believe the lies of a South African Special Branch policeman instead of me. The fact that that particular policeman happens to be a vicious psychopath who enjoys torturing people and spends his life threatening to kill me and beat the shit out of my wife, to use his inelegant terminology, is beside the point.’
‘It would appear that you have plenty to say, Dr Beaumont,’ Jordan said, ‘but there is never any need to use bad language in saying it.’
‘Yes there bloody well is a need, Professor Jordan,’ Cameron answered. ‘You should try taking your opposition to apartheid into South Africa instead of sitting safely six thousand miles away.’
‘Before you go, Dr Beaumont,’ Michael Phipson said, ‘we need to inform you about something else that has been informally agreed by those of us who are editors of the four most prestigious journals of African History. Up to now, the academic boycott of South Africa has not been rigorously applied by the Editorial Boards of our journals. If it had been entirely up to me, it would have been. In your particular case, however, from now on it will be. As of now, sending the manuscript of any article to any of our journals will be a waste of your time. You also need to know that one or other of us is on the editorial board of every significant publisher of academic History books. We have agreed to use our influence on those boards to make sure that any manuscript you submit is binned without further ado.’
‘But you can’t do that…’ Cameron started to say. He didn’t know quite how he was going to end the sentence without sounding hopelessly feeble, but Phipson cut him short.
‘Of course we can do that,’ he said. ‘Who do you think is going to stop us? It’s called editorial discretion.’
‘This would normally only be for as long as the academic boycott lasts,’ Dougherty added. ‘But in your particular case, should the boycott come to an end in our lifetimes, you would probably need to clear your name first.’
This was clearly the signal for Jordan to wrap the meeting up.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,’ he said. ‘It would only be proper for me to communicate the outcome of this meeting to your Vice Chancellor, which I will accordingly do. You are welcome to go now.’
It was as much as Cameron could do to summon the energy to get up, pick up his briefcase, and make his way to the door, leaving a hostile silence behind. The briefcase, weighed down with the uncirculated copies of a paper that he would now never be able to publish, suddenly felt very heavy. As the door closed behind he could hear them they all start speaking at once – congratulating themselves, no doubt, on a successful blow bravely struck against the bastions of apartheid.
What the hell was he supposed to do now? In the short term he would have to abandon the conference. If he’d had to pay the conference fee they might have had more difficulty in throwing him out if he tried to stay, but the conference fee had been waived for the presenters of plenary sessions. They were unlikely to think that an audience of one was good value for the airfare, but when you are looking down from the lofty pinnacle of the moral high ground you probably don’t worry too much about value for money.
If he insisted on staying, they would probably just get the university administration to say he was trespassing and call the police. At least Mr Plod would be unlikely to threaten to blow his brains out, but he’d had more than enough of dealing with policemen. Anyway, what was the point? Going to conferences was supposed to help one’s academic career. If he was never going to be able to publish another academic article he no longer had an academic career.
As Cameron opened the door to the pub where they had agreed to meet he saw William standing up and beckoning him over. Everyone else fell silent and watched him as he walked over to join William.
‘What will you have?’ William asked. ‘I’ll get it. You would have to fight your way through the hyenas to get to the bar – or would you like to go somewhere else?’
‘A double scotch please, not one of the expensive ones,’ Cameron answered, reaching for his wallet in his back pocket. ‘No, we might as well stay here. I’ll have to get used to it.’
‘No. Put your wallet away,’ William said. ‘This one’s definitely on me. You look as if you need it.’
Pretending to be oblivious to everyone around him was more difficult than Cameron would have thought – intense academic scrutiny of stained beer-mats felt unconvincing. Cameron didn’t look up until William arrived back at the table with two glasses. When he did so, he saw that the man with the side-burns who had doubled the size of his audience for all of sixty seconds had arrived at a table on the other side of the bar. As William sat down with his back to the bar, Professor Jordan walked up to the table and loomed over them. The room fell silent again.
