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Cosmas Desmond, priest and activist (Guardian obit).
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Steve Hayes
Apr 20, 2012, 5:48:11 AM4/20/12
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Cosmas Desmond
Author of a ground-breaking book and arch-opponent of the apartheid regime
Denis Herbstein
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 April 2012 17.37 BST
Cosmas Desmond, whose ground-breaking book, The Discarded People, exposed the
desperate living conditions of thousands of black South Africans, has died
aged 76 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Desmond researched the book
while serving as a Franciscan priest at a mission station in the former
northern Natal Province.
He was born Patrick Desmond, the seventh of 11 children, into an Irish
Catholic family in Stepney, east London. His father worked in public health
for Poplar council. After Cardinal Vaughan Memorial school, west London, he
trained for the ministry at St Mary's Friary, East Bergholt, Suffolk, and on
being ordained chose the name Cosmas, after a saintly third-century physician
who refused payment from his patients. Without further ado, Desmond left for a
Catholic mission in Zululand to "convert the heathen hordes", but soon
discovered, as he would say, "that the jungle was concrete and the heathens
were white".
His conversion to activism came at Our Lady of Sorrows church at the Maria
Ratschitz mission, near Ladysmith, as his parishioners were being moved
forcibly to Limehill, a dumping ground for what a cabinet minister called
"surplus" people. Desmond learned that, across the country, black people were
being ejected from "white" areas into the embryonic Bantustans that the
Afrikaner nationalists hoped would turn South Africa into a white country.
He drove an ancient Volkswagen Beetle round South Africa, chronicling
communities mired in hopelessness; no jobs, no water, rudimentary housing, no
land even for subsistence survival. The only part of their lives that did
flourish were the graves of small children. Desmond took his notes to the
Christian Institute in Johannesburg and, in 1970, The Discarded People was
published. The following year it appeared in Britain in the Penguin Africa
library series.
Desmond was outlawed under the Suppression of Communism Act and subjected to
house arrest – which was later relaxed so he could attend mass on Sundays. It
became illegal to buy or possess his book. The church hierarchy was not
pleased. His mother, Cecilia, said: "They are too concerned with saying mass,
administering the sacraments and saving souls." In 1973 he left the priesthood
but remained a practising Catholic.
Horst Kleinschmidt, who shared a house with Desmond in Johannesburg, recalled
the constant surveillance. "We knew they were there from the glimmer of fag
ends in their cars." One Sunday, he smuggled Desmond out of the house in the
boot of a car and drove to a nearby Anglican church for him to address a
congregation of carefully selected people. No one gave the game away.
The systematic documentation of forced removals caused an international
outcry. In 1973 the UN general assembly adopted the International Convention
on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The apartheid
state was on its way to isolation.
The bans on Desmond were lifted in 1975 but, faced with death threats and
unable to rely on police protection, he returned to Britain with his wife,
Snoeks (Alethea), a human rights activist. He became director of the British
arm of Amnesty International, ideal for a man who had been a prisoner of
conscience.
However, within 18 months he was sacked, the victim of a power struggle
between voluntary workers and the organisation's staff. Desmond was also a
Labour councillor in Tower Hamlets, east London, but resigned in protest at
the Labour council's refusal to veto a telephone contract with Plessey, which
did business with the apartheid regime. He later worked for the Canon Collins
Education trust.
In 1991, with the liberation of Nelson Mandela, he was allowed back to South
Africa. He stood for the new parliament for the former Pan Africanist Congress
but was not elected. He became director of the children's rights organisation
Children First in Durban and edited its journal. He was soon disillusioned
with the African National Congress, criticising in particular its inability to
redistribute land. "The rural poor," complained the former Franciscan, "to all
intent and purpose, are still the hewers of wood and the drawers of water."
He is survived by Snoeks and three sons.
• Cosmas (Patrick Anthony) Desmond, clergyman and activist, born 19 November
1935; died 31 March 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/19/cosmas-desmond
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Author of a ground-breaking book and arch-opponent of the apartheid regime
Denis Herbstein
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 April 2012 17.37 BST
Cosmas Desmond, whose ground-breaking book, The Discarded People, exposed the
desperate living conditions of thousands of black South Africans, has died
aged 76 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Desmond researched the book
while serving as a Franciscan priest at a mission station in the former
northern Natal Province.
He was born Patrick Desmond, the seventh of 11 children, into an Irish
Catholic family in Stepney, east London. His father worked in public health
for Poplar council. After Cardinal Vaughan Memorial school, west London, he
trained for the ministry at St Mary's Friary, East Bergholt, Suffolk, and on
being ordained chose the name Cosmas, after a saintly third-century physician
who refused payment from his patients. Without further ado, Desmond left for a
Catholic mission in Zululand to "convert the heathen hordes", but soon
discovered, as he would say, "that the jungle was concrete and the heathens
were white".
His conversion to activism came at Our Lady of Sorrows church at the Maria
Ratschitz mission, near Ladysmith, as his parishioners were being moved
forcibly to Limehill, a dumping ground for what a cabinet minister called
"surplus" people. Desmond learned that, across the country, black people were
being ejected from "white" areas into the embryonic Bantustans that the
Afrikaner nationalists hoped would turn South Africa into a white country.
He drove an ancient Volkswagen Beetle round South Africa, chronicling
communities mired in hopelessness; no jobs, no water, rudimentary housing, no
land even for subsistence survival. The only part of their lives that did
flourish were the graves of small children. Desmond took his notes to the
Christian Institute in Johannesburg and, in 1970, The Discarded People was
published. The following year it appeared in Britain in the Penguin Africa
library series.
Desmond was outlawed under the Suppression of Communism Act and subjected to
house arrest – which was later relaxed so he could attend mass on Sundays. It
became illegal to buy or possess his book. The church hierarchy was not
pleased. His mother, Cecilia, said: "They are too concerned with saying mass,
administering the sacraments and saving souls." In 1973 he left the priesthood
but remained a practising Catholic.
Horst Kleinschmidt, who shared a house with Desmond in Johannesburg, recalled
the constant surveillance. "We knew they were there from the glimmer of fag
ends in their cars." One Sunday, he smuggled Desmond out of the house in the
boot of a car and drove to a nearby Anglican church for him to address a
congregation of carefully selected people. No one gave the game away.
The systematic documentation of forced removals caused an international
outcry. In 1973 the UN general assembly adopted the International Convention
on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The apartheid
state was on its way to isolation.
The bans on Desmond were lifted in 1975 but, faced with death threats and
unable to rely on police protection, he returned to Britain with his wife,
Snoeks (Alethea), a human rights activist. He became director of the British
arm of Amnesty International, ideal for a man who had been a prisoner of
conscience.
However, within 18 months he was sacked, the victim of a power struggle
between voluntary workers and the organisation's staff. Desmond was also a
Labour councillor in Tower Hamlets, east London, but resigned in protest at
the Labour council's refusal to veto a telephone contract with Plessey, which
did business with the apartheid regime. He later worked for the Canon Collins
Education trust.
In 1991, with the liberation of Nelson Mandela, he was allowed back to South
Africa. He stood for the new parliament for the former Pan Africanist Congress
but was not elected. He became director of the children's rights organisation
Children First in Durban and edited its journal. He was soon disillusioned
with the African National Congress, criticising in particular its inability to
redistribute land. "The rural poor," complained the former Franciscan, "to all
intent and purpose, are still the hewers of wood and the drawers of water."
He is survived by Snoeks and three sons.
• Cosmas (Patrick Anthony) Desmond, clergyman and activist, born 19 November
1935; died 31 March 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/19/cosmas-desmond
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Steve Hayes
Apr 26, 2012, 1:45:24 AM4/26/12
to
On Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:48:11 +0200, Steve Hayes <haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>Cosmas Desmond, whose ground-breaking book, The Discarded People, exposed the
>desperate living conditions of thousands of black South Africans, has died
>aged 76 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Desmond researched the book
>while serving as a Franciscan priest at a mission station in the former
>northern Natal Province.
More about Cosmas Desmond here:
>Cosmas Desmond, whose ground-breaking book, The Discarded People, exposed the
>desperate living conditions of thousands of black South Africans, has died
>aged 76 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Desmond researched the book
>while serving as a Franciscan priest at a mission station in the former
>northern Natal Province.
http://wp.me/p3gtp-OK
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