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

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Bertil Högberg: It is also the place where they weave these tapestries. I think you have one behind you. <strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: Yes, Amelia Mkize is the lady who made that. It was Peder Gowenius and company that started this fantastic work. Bertil Högberg: It was also a project initiated by the Church of Sweden Mission? <strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: Yes, and it was heavily supported by the mission to begin with, but when the sales of the products of this place were high, the funding from Sweden was gradually withdrawn. Today it is self-supporting. Having been at eShiyane, we had to move the whole seminary because it was on so-called European land, whoever Europeans were, who knows? The outcome of the deliberations was that the seminary would have to move to Umphumulo and that’s how I landed up at Umphumulo. There I taught theology, mainly Old Testament, Hebrew, can you believe it, and a number of other subjects, until I moved to the South African Council of Churches. The reason for going to the South African Council of Churches was that under the very competent leadership of a number of people, a resolution was passed saying that staff members of the SACC should be South Africans, so that the authorities couldn’t just whip them off. That was one of the reasons why I landed up with the South African Council of Churches. Bertil Högberg: And what time are we now in? <strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: Early 1960s. I then worked with a fellow by the name of John Reese, he is no longer with us. He was a very competent man, hard- working and very clear in his mind what the purpose of the SACC was and that we should not allow ourselves to be humiliated by the State and the Security Branch. He was subsequently followed by another crowd of very competent people, and Desmond Tutu was one of them. The strange thing 4
with South Africa is that in the midst of all the turmoil and all the suffering and all the anxieties and deaths, it became the growing ground of very competent people. They stretch from Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, throughout the land, not least within the Church. And they still are the people that they used to be. Bertil Högberg: I want to know about your encounter with the concept of apartheid. When did you become aware of that policy and the problems that it created? <strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: Intellectually I became aware of the problem, but it did not become a part of me until I moved from the school at Ekutuleni and the classroom with my teacher Matilda Nzuza, to the white schools, then it became like a knife that cut through my life. I couldn’t understand it because I was separated from all my playmates. I remember at the white school the rumour about me was that I had played with natives. Now natives were the black people, of course, and it hurt me terribly, because I couldn’t see that I would be better off with so-called white children. That is the first time that I really started being aware of and began groping with this problem. Bertil Högberg: How would you say that the CSM (Church of Sweden Mission) tackled the issue of apartheid? <strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: That varied very much indeed. There were those who in their own thinking, and perhaps not only their own but in the thinking of many others, were heroes of apartheid. Gunnar Helander was one of them. Bishop Helge Fosseus was quite the opposite. The two ladies who ran Ceza Hospital and extended it, built it up and improved all the facilities, were very much anti- apartheid, but they were placed at Ceza and Ceza was in a way a hiding place. There was a single road leading to Ceza and in the rainy season, the summer months, if you wished to go to Ceza you would have to leave your vehicle on the road between Hlobane and Ceza. There was absolutely no communication, no telephones, of course. 5
Page 1 and 2: Axel-Ivar<
Page 3: How would that be possible? Be that
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 and 20: on me. We went out and sat in Joube
Page 21 and 22: even Archbishop Olof Sundby, who wa
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

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

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