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Absurd snub to true pioneer of anti-apartheid movement
• CONGRATULATIONS from South Africa to the New Journal for its highlighting of an injustice to the memory of the Reverend Michael Scott.
As seen from here, English Heritage’s decision not to append a blue plaque to Scott’s last address in Primrose Hill on the grounds of his being of “insufficient stature” is a total absurdity.
My late mother, Anne, was author (with Lewis Chester) of a biography of Scott, entitled The Troublemaker. As it took many years to prepare, I became well versed in the Scott story myself. To say, as English Heritage appears to have done, that Scott’s “significance was overshadowed by that of Trevor Huddleston” is utterly misleading.
Huddleston did become better known, but it was Scott who first raised the standard of rebellion against South Africa’s racist arrangements and carried it for many years virtually alone, long before Huddleston actively got into the fray. Thus Scott has a significance that cannot properly be overshadowed. He was the true pioneer.
And more than that. Among my mother’s research papers there is a letter to her from Cyril Dunn, then the Observer’s long-term Africa correspondent, who was personally closely acquainted with all the leading anti-apartheid political priests of the day – Huddleston, Scott, Canon John Collins and Bishop Ambrose Reeves. In the letter Dunn says that none of the others was in Scott’s class “for originality, nerve, human interest and sheer uniqueness”.
LIZ WELSH
Cape Town, South Africa
• MICHAEL Scott was an inspiration to me when I was young, as he was to many others who followed him as they did Trevor Huddlestone, John Collins and Mary Benson at the Africa Bureau, who all worked ceaselessly for the anti-apartheid movement.
Some of my first wages went to help provide schooling for one of their African boys. Now, at 82, I would be willing to give a small sum towards a People’s Plaque for Michael.
I remember Michael especially for his brave, often lonely, pioneer Christian championship of oppressed people, who, despite ill health, burnt himself out as a committed Anglican priest struggling to right the wrongs afflicted on those who suffered.
YVONNE CRAIG
(Address supplied) WCl
• I AM shocked and saddened at the decision of the English Heritage plaques committee not to recognise the former home of the Reverend Michael Scott in Primrose Hill.
This decision indicates a failure to appreciate Scott’s place in history. He was a pioneer in the fight for the freedom of the people of Namibia and he could be called the father of that nation.
He pleaded the cause of the colonised people at the United Nations in New York. His determination to uphold the principles of the United Nations was inspirational. He was a truly great Englishman.
LINDA MELVERN
Honorary Professor, Department of International Politics,
University of Wales, Aberystwyth |
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