Biogrphy of Peter Brown, South African Liberal leader

[Steve Hayes]

This is an abbreviated version of the review on my blog. The full version,
with pictures, is here: http://su.pr/304nRK

I generally enjoy reading biographies, but but Michael Cardo's biography
of Peter Brown is the the first one I have read that is about someone I
knew fairly well, so I read it with more than usual interest, and perhaps
more critically than usual. I read it to discover more about someone I had
known, but also to discover whether the person described in the biography
was the same as the person that I knew. And on the whole, I have to say
yes -- the character of Peter Brown that Michael Cardo captures is indeed
the Peter Brown that I knew.

Peter Brown was one of the founders and leaders of the Liberal Party of
South Africa, which, in the 1950s and 1960s, stood for the principle of a
non- racial democracy in South Africa, and Peter Brown was one of its most
principled and consistent exponents.

His background made it seem unlikely that he would be such a thing. He
came from a fairly wealthy and privileged white farming and merchant
family, and white farmers in South Africa were not generally known for
their liberal political ideas. The Liberal Party did manage to attract a
few, some of whom, like Roy Coventry in northern Natal and Jean van Riet
in the Free State, are mentioned by Cardo.

It was largely due to Peter Brown, though, that the Liberal Party was not
merely non-racial in its aims and ideals, but also in its membership.
Cardo (2010:89) notes that in 1953 Brown was elected Natal Provincial
Secretary of the party, though not yet 30 years old, and that he
"traversed the province from the Midlands to the northern parts of
Zululand, south towards the Transkei, and along the coastal regions and
communicated the Party's message to voters."

He communicated the party's message to non-voters as well, to blacks,
coloureds and Indians, so that "by 1956 Natal had the largest membership,
the highest proportion of black members and a significant sway over the
national leadership.

Randolph Vigne wrote a history of the Liberal Party, published in 1997,
"Liberals against apartheid", but Vigne was in the Western Cape, and his
history is rather skimpy on Natal. Unfortunately, this is also a weakness
in Cardo's book

One thing that struck me was that Cardo gives an extraordinary smount of
detail in the section on Church Agricultural Projects (CAP) and Neil
Alcock, and very scanty detail on the Liberal Party in the 1960-65 period.
While Brown was involved in CAP, most of the initiative and the actual
work was done by Neil Alcock, with Peter Brown as an onlooker and adviser.
But Brown was far more closely involved with the Liberal Party, and much
of the initiative, planning and action was his. Even after he was banned,
he continued to take a close interest in the rural branches of the party,
and at one point complained that the Midlands branches that he had founded
were being neglected, while those established by Enock Mnguni were getting
more attention (especially before Mnguni himself was banned). Yet
virtually nothing is said about these branches.

After Peter Brown was banned, those from Pietermaritzburg who attended
rural branch meetings on Saturday afternoons would usually call on the
Browns on the Saturday evening or the Sunday to let Peter know what had
happened, as a kind of debriefing. He would often ask questions that we
were unable to answer, about the people who were at the meeting, and what
had happened to them. He would ask whether such and such a person was
there, and then would tell us something about the person and their family.


Some 10-15 years later, when I was involved in rural ministry in the
Anglican Church in Zululand, I was struck by the similarity between rural
church congregations and the rural branches of the Liberal Party. And then
in retrospect Peter Brown seemed like a kind of secular pastor or a
bishop. He knew his sheep, he shepherded his flock and they heard his
voice -- not in a paternalistic way, but rather in a caring way. He knew
the people and cared for them, and they knew him and cared for him. And
indeed, the Zulu name for the Liberal Party -- IBandla leNkululeko --
could be translated back into English as "Church of Redemption".

The Liberal Party was not the first non-racial political party in South
Africa; that honour belongs to the Communist Party. But the Communist
Party was not always non-racial, and at one time was associated with the
slogan "workers of the world unite and fight for a white South Africa". It
was when the party line from Moscow changed that the Communist Party
became non- racial. And perhaps the fact that the Communist Party was the
first to become non-racial was what led the Nationalist government to
identify non-racialism with communism, and to regard liberalism and
communism as the same thing.

After the Communist Party was banned in 1950 white communists and leftists
formed the Congress of Democrats, and formed part of the Congress
Alliance. And though the ANC was willing to cooperate with the Liberals,
and quite a number of Liberals, like Selby Msimang, were dual members of
both the Liberal Party and the ANC, the Congress of Democrats wanted
nothing to do with the Liberal Party, and their hostility persists to this
day. Last August Rica Hodgson (formerly of the COD) repeated in a radio
interview the tired old communist canard that the Liberal Party did not
allow blacks to join.

So Michael Cardo's biography of Peter Brown does a great deal to set the
record straight, and he covers the relations between the Liberals and the
Congress of Democrats fairly well. It's just a pity that it wasn't about
10- 15 pages longer, giving more detail about the Liberal Party in Natal
between about 1962 and 1965. If that would have made the book too long,
then something could have been cut from the story of Church Agricultural
Projects, which, though it deserves to be recorded in its own right, was
less central to Peter Brown's concerns.

[Peter H.M. Brooks]

Post by Steve Hayes
This is an abbreviated version of the review on my blog. The full version,
with pictures, is here:  http://su.pr/304nRK
I generally enjoy reading biographies, but but Michael Cardo's biography
of Peter Brown is the the first one I have read that is about someone I
knew fairly well, so I read it with more than usual interest, and perhaps
more critically than usual. I read it to discover more about someone I had
known, but also to discover whether the person described in the biography
was the same as the person that I knew. And on the whole, I have to say
yes -- the character of Peter Brown that Michael Cardo captures is indeed
the Peter Brown that I knew.
Peter Brown was one of the founders and leaders of the Liberal Party of
South Africa, which, in the 1950s and 1960s, stood for the principle of a
non- racial democracy in South Africa, and Peter Brown was one of its most
principled and consistent exponents.
His background made it seem unlikely that he would be such a thing. He
came from a fairly wealthy and privileged white farming and merchant
family, and white farmers in South Africa were not generally known for
their liberal political ideas. The Liberal Party did manage to attract a
few, some of whom, like Roy Coventry in northern Natal and Jean van Riet
in the Free State, are mentioned by Cardo.

I know of Peter Brown through my father. He sent his son to Cordwalles
- my father was the headmaster. My father was working hard at the time
to try to make the school as non-racial as possible by avoiding state
grants and applying for exceptions for children who otherwise would be
excluded.

At sports days and similar events, Peter was forced to sit on his own
at the far end of the grounds to be away from all the other parents in
case he contravened his banning order by being part of a 'meeting'.

Those were dark and terrible times.

[Steve Hayes]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 05:48:55 -0800 (PST), "Peter H.M. Brooks"

Post by Peter H.M. Brooks

Post by Steve Hayes
This is an abbreviated version of the review on my blog. The full version,
with pictures, is here:  http://su.pr/304nRK

I know of Peter Brown through my father. He sent his son to Cordwalles
- my father was the headmaster. My father was working hard at the time
to try to make the school as non-racial as possible by avoiding state
grants and applying for exceptions for children who otherwise would be
excluded.
At sports days and similar events, Peter was forced to sit on his own
at the far end of the grounds to be away from all the other parents in
case he contravened his banning order by being part of a 'meeting'.
Those were dark and terrible times.

my attention has just been drawn to a review in Business Day, here:

http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=133048

[Peter H.M. Brooks]

Post by Steve Hayes
http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=133048

Interesting, thank you! There's hardly anything on him in wikipaedia,
I see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brown_(South_African_politician)

I wonder why he worked at the Michaelhouse library. It's undoubtedly a
pleasant place to work, but there's not much in it that's unique and
the archives are quite thin. I'd have thought the library in
Maritzburg would be more useful for actual material.