Axel-Ivar Berglund - Nordic Documentation on the Liberation ...

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<strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: Then we had an honourable man as mission director, well, two of them were good, decent people, Tore Furberg and Holger Benettsson. They said, “You come in and work in our offices,” because for some reason the then Africa Secretary, Tore Bergman, was due to retire. He was going back to Zimbabwe and then I stepped in. It just went overnight. I don’t think that there was any minuting of that decision. I took over after him and got stuck in and worked hard and was accepted by the staff until these rumours came, then I was cut off just like that. Bertil Högberg: Did you take back South African citizenship? <strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: No, I kept it, even during the very difficult years when Sweden, rightly, I had taken a stand against apartheid. South Africa was my world. I came to Sweden to study, but South Africa has always been home, even in the tough times that Sweden offered me, because, you know, the Swedes can be treacherous people. Bertil Högberg: In what way? <strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: South African intelligence forces, the security branch, had an outstanding ability to spread a rumour. They spread it here through the South African legation that I was one of their main informers. Bertil Högberg: When was this now? <strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: 1982/83. They knew how to go about things, these security people from South Africa, and the legation here was wicked, terrible, awful. Unfortunately, anybody who had anything good to say about South Africa was a suspect person. I have suffered very much under that, of being a suspect, and rumours of what I was up to spread all over the place. I eventually took it to heart and thought about whether I should cut my ties with South Africa, but that was impossible, so I retained them. The rumours grew worse because of South African Intelligence’s interest in me, to the extent that 20
even Archbishop Olof Sundby, who was Chairman of Church of Sweden Mission, became involved in my communications with South Africa. I wrote a letter to him and said, “I hear that you have been informed that I am not to be relied upon and I would be glad to know the details”. He did not reply, so I phoned him and he said, no, he had no notion of that. But the rumours just kept on being added to, and went all the way down, so I wrote a second letter to Archbishop Olof Sundby and said that I have noticed the change of attitudes towards me, I have heard that you’ve had secret talks in your office, which then was in the old stable building. Again there was no response and when I asked him, h e denied everything and said he knew nothing. Eventually I was removed from being Southern Africa Secretary in CSM and I was offered the position of South-East Asia Secretary. I intended to say no, I’ve got my job. However, Bengt Sundkler, Karl Fredrik Hallencreutz and Marja-Liisa Swantz, a gracious woman, and I sat one night until late and we talked through this matter. I’m saying “Can you imagine me relating to Indians? I’m not an Indian, I’m a black.” Just before they left here, we had tea, evening devotions, Bengt Sundkler said to me, “<strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong>, take Asia and you will hit them in the face, because that will be very unexpected.” The following day I went to see Biörn Fjärsted. He looked at me a long time and when eventually he did say anything, he said, “Are you joking or are you serious?” I said, “One doesn’t joke about things of this nature,” so I took on Asia. Carl Fredrik Hallencreutz was going to go to India to give the Tambaram lecture and had two tickets. His dear wife, who still lives here in Sweden in Uppsala, was to travel with him, but for some reason she couldn’t. I think it was the boys. Then he said, “You take my ticket and both of us will go.” So we went and I got to know many Indians. That is the only occasion when I slept one night in a hotel; after that I stayed with people. At Tambaram I was to share a room with an Indian, and do you know who that person was? MM Thomas! That was fantastic and we stayed up half the night talking. Here was a man of great depth, a gracious man, who belonged to the Syrian Christians in India. After that we somehow got to know one another so we upheld our contacts and that is how I got into Asia. 21
Page 1 and 2: Axel-Ivar<
Page 3 and 4: How would that be possible? Be that
Page 5 and 6: with South Africa is that in the mi
Page 7 and 8: against apartheid, because other pe
Page 9 and 10: old resolution or something of that
Page 13 and 14: the crushing of the expectations of
Page 17 and 18: second lot were our family, the peo
Page 19: on me. We went out and sat in Joube
Page 23 and 24: Bertil Högberg: You also served fo
Page 25 and 26: Bertil Högberg: Did you receive an
Page 31 and 32: LWF, the Lutheran World Federation,
Page 33 and 34: Bertil Högberg: But were there any

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