The Quakers in South Africa: A Social Witness (review)

Book Reviews79 that there is no "conversion narrative" in the Journal. J. William Frost asks ". . . the historian's question of whether John Woolman knew the sources of his own thoughts." There is just enough of the academic hesitancy to jump on the bandwagon that the overwhelming witness of Woolman's religious, ethical, and moral insight is made the more powerful. I found especially helpful Michael Birkel's chapter on Woolman's use ofscripture and Vernie Davis's chapter on Woolman as an agent for social change. Oddly, for me, Birkel's essay was more moving that the chapter on scripture in his own book! It presents Woolman as a model for reading the Bible as an act ofself-discovery. Davis gives clear guidance on how we can take Woolman's approach to conflict resolution and apply it to our own lives. In both books, John Woolman is presented as a very real person, one who in spite ofthe accident of a difference of 250 years or so, can be part of our "blessed community." He can be a companion to us as we read scripture, confront the powers and principalities, or dig deep to the springs of the living Spirit within. These books are excellent companions, too— guides to reclaiming Woolman as a vital resource for a wider community. Max L. CarterGuilford College The Quakers in South Africa: A Social Witness. By Betty K. Tonsing. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 2002. v+354 pp. Illustrations, appendixes, notes, bibliography, and index. $1 19.95. This welcome addition to the history ofFriends in Africa documents the concerns of South African Quakers since the nineteenth century, with about one-third ofthe book covering the period before apartheid (1948) and two-thirds the period after. It deals with a much broader span of time than the only other major monograph on South African Friends, Hope Hay Hewison's Hedge of Wild Almonds: South Africa, the "Pro-Boers" and the Quaker Conscience, 1890-1910 (1989). Discussion ofthe actions of individual Friends in the face of the government's segregationist and apartheid policies provides some particularly useful insights. The author does not appear to be a Friend, nor is he a professional historian, but she has lived in southern Africa over several years, knows Friends, and her impressive array ofsources includes interviews with contemporary Friends, Quaker journals such as The Friend, minutes of monthly and yearly meetings, reports, manuscript collections, and published works. South African Friends, historically small in number and scattered throughout the country, have often acted individually or in small groups. 80Quaker History The major meeting was first established in Cape Town in 1903, while others were later established in Johannesburg and Soweto. In the first half of the twentieth century, Friends discussed race relations but most, from their privileged perspective, were not ready to address these issues head on. Like liberal whites elsewhere, they adopted what would now be seen as paternalistic attitudes, believing thatAfricans were not "ready" to participate in political life, or fearing the consequences of too rapid a transition for "traditional" societies into the "modern" world except in circumstances controlled by white populations and enacted in legislation by the whitedominated parliament and local governments. Like other white South Africans, Quakers were as much concerned with relations between populations ofEuropean descent (English-speakers and Afrikaners), as with whiteblack relations, often more so. Nor did they believe that the non-white population were sufficiently "sophisticated" to mount modern mass resistance movements. For many years, meetings had no African members and the three prominent, professional black South Africans who joined the Society of Friends while students in England, retained their membership there. Friends were most comfortable with "good works"—education, health projects, and charity. And such social action was critical for the black population at a time when the state largely left such concerns to the churches. After the introduction of apartheid policies and the reorganization of the African National Congress (ANC) as a mass movement, the Defiance Campaign, culminating in the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, convinced many Friends of the need to engage more deeply in the political struggle while continuing their social witness. Still, divisions that have exercised Friends elsewhere also persisted...