[This tribute to the Reverend Canon L. John Collins - Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, London and President of the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa - was published by the United Nations Centre against Apartheid in 1978 following a decision by the Special Committee against Apartheid to bestow on him a United Nations award in recognition of his "significant contribution to the international campaign against apartheid, in cooperation with the United Nations and in solidarity with the South African liberation movements".]

Since the end of World War II, Canon John Collins of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, has been conducting a personal crusade against the injustices, the cruelties and the dangers that are the consequence of racial prejudice and racial tyranny. His particular involvement in Southern Africa has grown steadily over the years. At first he was one of a small but prophetic number of people who tried to focus world attention upon the true nature of apartheid in South Africa. But Canon Collins is a man of action; he was determined to do something positive against the evil that he had recognized and so, with unflagging energy and dedication, he succeeded in building up around himself the organization well-known today in the United Nations, the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa.

Canon Collins's first public action in this field was his energetic support for the mission in 1949 to the United Nations of the Reverend Michael Scott, a mission undertaken on behalf of the persecuted Herero people of South-West Africa (Namibia). Throughout 1950, Canon Collins organized meetings in London, and raised money in order to publicize the illegal role of South Africa in the United Nations mandated territory and to help those suffering persecution there. Today Namibia stands upon the verge of a genuine independence, and throughout its struggle for liberation Canon Collins, through the International Defence and Aid Fund, has played a constructive and significant role.

At the same time, Canon Collins embarked upon his campaign to rouse the consciences of people in Great Britain and throughout the world to the evils of apartheid. As well as attacking the South African regime for its injustice and inhumanity; as well as exposing the hypocrisy of a Government that professed a devotion to Christian teaching and Christian values, while acting in direct contradiction to them; Canon Collins has never ceased to issue warnings of the threat to peace involved in all forms of racial injustice, and of the particular dangers of an eruption of violence in Southern Africa that could, in time, lead even to confrontation between the super-powers.

As to opinion in Great Britain, Archbishop Trevor Huddleston has written:

"It needs to be remembered (and it is not easy to remember) that twenty-five years ago there were very few in Britain who understood at all what was at stake... In those years, before even the first successful British colony to seek independence (Ghana) had achieved its aim, there was no public opinion in England expressive of concern for the African peoples."

During the fifties there were many Africans in London either as students or exiles. Canon Collins built up a modest Race Relations Fund to which Africans who found themselves in any kind of difficulty were able to apply. But more importantly he was able, during those years, to build up many real and lasting friendships. There were persons like Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Seretse and Ruth Khama, Joshua Nkomo and many others. These friendships were not only valuable in themselves, but have also proved mutually helpful in the struggle for liberation.

Canon Collins's first active intervention within South Africa came in 1952, when the non-violent Defiance Campaign against unjust and discriminatory laws was mounted by the African National Congress under the leadership of Chief Albert Lutuli. This was a remarkably successful campaign - at first scores and then thousands of black citizens deliberately and non-violently courted arrest by breaking the segregation laws. The prisons began to overflow, and had this campaign received the support that it deserved from the outside world and from the whites within South Africa, the tragic history of that country might have been very different. As it was, when the A.N.C. leaders appealed for help, a handful of white South Africans led by Father Huddleston, as he then was, did their best, but outside support came from Canon Collins, and his small struggling organization, Christian Action. He immediately set about raising a fund to support the families and dependants of all those who had gone peacefully to prison. In this he demonstrated his respect for the African leaders and his determination, which has never wavered, to help Africans to liberate themselves. "Thus began", wrote Archbishop Huddleston, "a pattern of support which has never altered except to grow in volume over the years in order to meet the ever- increasing needs of the victims of state violence."

Canon Collins continued, by means of sermons, writings and public meetings, to try to arouse the British public to the reality of what was happening in South Africa. Many of his words provoked violent opposition. But Canon Collins has never been afraid of controversy and this grew in volume. "The correspondence columns of the press", wrote Archbishop Huddleston, at last began to reflect public opinion on the whole vast issue of racism in a Commonwealth country. For the first time since the end of the war against Hitler, the British press were being alerted to the truth that anti-Semitism and the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis were not the only forms of racism..."

As a result of this public controversy, Canon Collins was invited, in 1954, to visit South Africa. The invitation came from a Durban businessman who hoped to convert this turbulent priest to what he considered was a better way of thinking. Canon Collins accepted, but insisted on spending an extra month in South Africa at his own expense so that, unblinkered by white affluence and white prejudice, he could see for himself the other side of apartheid. During this extra month he was able to form invaluable contacts and friendships with men and women of all races who were actively engaged in the resistance to apartheid.

Canon Collins's experience in South Africa, far from inclining him to a more sympathetic view of apartheid, immensely strengthened his commitment to the cause of African liberation. It strengthened, too, his conviction of the very real threat to peace that would inevitably increase if the cruel apparatus of apartheid were not dismantled. He began to plead, as he has done ever since, with the powerful nations of the West to bring peaceful pressures upon South Africa to change its policies before it is too late.

In many ways, this visit was a turning point. Archbishop Huddleston wrote:

"Those of us who were so actively engaged in the conflict now knew that we had an ever increasing body of support to which we could turn and that this support group was also our public relations organization. So at last it was recognized that the issues of race and colour conflict in South Africa had to be tackled not as issues peculiar to that country, nor as the responsibility of the local church, but as a challenge to the Christian conscience of the world. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of this change at that time... in recognizing, then publicizing and finally actively proclaiming this changed view, John Collins was exercising a prophetic role. And, like most prophets, he had to pay the penalty."

The next two years in South Africa were marked by an increasingly vicious application of apartheid and an increasingly powerful and committed resistance to it. The Bantu Education Act was passed and the inhuman policy of uprooting whole communities of people and dumping them on the open veld began. The response of the Resistance was that noble and compelling document, the Freedom Charter adopted by the Congress Alliance on 25 June 1955.

These repressive laws and actions of the South African Government were given wide publicity by Canon Collins and his organization. But publicity alone has never satisfied him. He was instrumental in helping to set up an educational fund designed to offset some of the worst consequences of the above Act. He also initiated a pilot scheme for correspondence courses for Africans with men and women of professional qualifications in Britain. "This scheme", it has been said, "lasted for several years, and was undoubtedly of true value at a time when hope was in such short supply for the young, gifted Africans."

It was 1956 that saw the first major action in the South African Government's attempt at the total elimination of all opposition to its racial policies. In the early hours of 5 December, 156 men and women of all races were arrested on charges of high treason - a charge carrying the death penalty. It seemed as if the whole of Canon Collins's previous work and experience in South Africa was a preparation for this moment. Many of those arrested were people whom he had met in 1954 and with whom he had maintained friendly contacts. He immediately sent £100 as a token gift to the Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, Ambrose Reeves, and asked him to brief the best lawyers available to undertake the defence of the accused. He pledged himself and his organization, Christian Action, to raise enough money to pay the legal fees, to support the families and dependants of those on trial and to help to rehabilitate them in the event of their acquittal. It was a bold pledge. Who could have guessed that this, the notorious Treason Trial, was to drag on for four and a half years at a cost of some £200,000? But the trial was matched by Canon Collins's Treason Trial Fund to which he now devoted most of his energy, and out of the total cost of the trial, he succeeded in raising all but £50,000 and this, it must be remembered, was through voluntary effort and voluntary giving. The final result was a triumph; the acquittal of every single one of the accused.

The years of the Treason Trial revealed more clearly than ever the growing dimensions of the struggle for liberation in South Africa. World opinion was increasingly concerned, and the interlocking future of the white-dominated countries of Southern Africa became more and more evident. It was in response to this growing awareness that Canon Collins, in 1958, merged the various Christian Action funds into a new British Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. This had wider objects than just the Treason Trial and it specifically included Rhodesia where there were already rumblings of future trouble. Since then the Defence and Aid Fund has carried out in Rhodesia work similar to that which it has done in South Africa and Namibia.

The Treason Trial was not the only trial taking place in South Africa. All over the country men and women were being arrested, imprisoned and often brutally treated. The Defence and Aid Fund was now in a position to bring as much help as funds would allow to all who found themselves picked out by the authorities for special persecution. Under the new terms of reference, it was able to embark upon a more considered and comprehensive campaign of publicity and information. This research and information service has expanded over the years, and has become one of the best available services for information on all aspects of apartheid and the affairs of Southern Africa. Its publications are used with confidence by Governments and by the United Nations, since Canon Collins has always insisted upon a scrupulous adherence to verified facts and has steadily set himself against anything in the nature of propaganda.

In March 1960 the world was shocked when South African police fired upon an unarmed crowd of African demonstrators at Sharpeville. Sixty-eight people were killed, shot in the back while attempting to flee from the savagery of the police, and a great many more were wounded. The Defence and Aid Fund was ready, and immediately through the Committee in Johannesburg, chaired by Ambrose Reeves, it set about organizing relief for the families of all those killed and wounded, and the financing of a legal enquiry that would prove to the world what had really happened and who, in South Africa, were the real aggressors.

The Fund was ready, too, to receive and put to immediate use the very considerable sums of money that began to arrive, especially from overseas. A trickle of contributions from other countries had already begun to come in, but, after Sharpeville, a number of national anti-apartheid committees and notably the Swedish Committee, began to channel donations through the British Defence and Aid Fund. After Sharpeville, too, began the first major exodus of refugees from South Africa. Canon Collins and his organization were able to assist a great number of people to escape and re-establish themselves elsewhere. In this they were greatly helped by the late President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. He made aircraft available for an airlift from southern Africa to Ghana, and anyone white, Indian, Coloured or African, who was a genuine opponent of and refugee from the South African tyranny was given help.

Frightened by the repercussions of the Sharpeville incident, the South African Government rushed through more and more draconian legislation. Arrests, detentions, bannings, trials, imprisonments, deportations all meant a trail of abandoned, unhappy, often destitute human beings; all meant to vastly increase demands upon the Defence and Aid Fund. The Rivonia Trial in 1963 was another important watershed. This marked a change of policy on the part of the A.N.C., and was the first time that Africans were being charged with specific acts of sabotage and with incitement to violence. This posed something of a dilemma to Canon Collins who, with his organization, stood for the peaceful resolution of national and international disputes, and for the techniques of non-violence pioneered by Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King in the United States. But he quickly decided that no one, and certainly no white man, had the right to sit in judgement upon men who had been driven by an obdurate and violent tyranny to seek their freedom through counter-violence. Whatever they might have done they were entitled to legal defence and their families and dependants should, on no account, be abandoned.

The Rivonia Trial could well have ended with death sentences for all the accused. As it was, one man was acquitted, the others, including Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, received life sentences. The work of Defence and Aid ensured that the world was kept fully alerted to the process and implications of the trial.

Following closely upon the Rivonia Trial, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution urging Governments to contribute money for the relief of the victims of apartheid. The British Defence and Aid Fund was an obvious channel for such relief, and in l964 it was reconstituted as the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (I.D.A.F.). Since then the Fund has received grants from sympathetic Governments and from the United Nations Trust Fund for South Africa. As Per Wastberg, a leading Swedish writer and journalist, has said, "It is easy to see why the Swedish Government has found I.D.A.F. such a valuable instrument to which to give its support. Here is an independent, humanitarian and international organization led by a Churchman of integrity and international repute, and, while the Fund has never been identified with any one area of the political spectrum, and gives aid without discrimination, it has close and friendly links with leaders of the various liberation movements, who have time and again expressed their appreciation of the unique work of the Fund, and the need for its extension. "

Since these close links were established between the United Nations and I.D.A.F., Canon Collins has, on a number of occasions, addressed the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid, and has spoken at United Nations-sponsored conferences.

In these Statements there are his warnings, repeated steadily since

1954, of the dangers to world peace posed by the racist regimes of Southern Africa. These warnings are accompanied by pleas for peaceful pressures, economic and otherwise, to be put upon South Africa immediately in order to avoid future bloodshed.

Second is his insistence that freedom, like peace, is indivisible. All countries and all racial groups in Africa must be free, before the continent can be said to be truly free.

Third is his insistence that the line between what is political and what is humanitarian cannot be rigidly drawn. While the Fund will never supply money for arms or do anything to promote violence - to give defence and aid to the oppressed and imprisoned, to support the families of those struggling for independence, this is to act politically as well as humanely, and is an essential part of the struggle for liberation.

Fourth is the rule that aid must be given without any discrimination on grounds of race, colour, creed or political affiliation.

Fifth is the insistence that while the work is seen as a service to the liberation movements, it is not for I.D.A.F. nor for Canon Collins himself to take sides, make judgements, nor to interfere in the internal politics of the liberation movements.

Finally, Canon Collins insists that true African freedom cannot come through the imposition of any foreign ideology, whether it be from the Left or from the Right. When the Africans are free, they can choose for themselves what form of political structure is best suited for their needs.

In 1966 the South African Government banned the Defence and Aid Committees inside South Africa, through which I.D.A.F. channelled most of its aid. This could have been a real blow, and there were those who predicted the end of the work of I.D.A.F. in that country. But they had not reckoned with the character of Canon Collins. As he explained in a speech at the United Nations, he regarded this action as the greatest compliment that could be paid to the effectiveness of the work of I.D.A. F. Any organization, he argued, that was permitted to function openly within the South African State, could be only marginally dangerous to it. And he immediately set about ensuring that the work of I.D.A.F. would continue in spite of all obstacles.

And so the work continues. It is impossible to touch upon all the far-ranging activities of the Fund nor to estimate how many thousands of people owe life and health and hope to this work. It has kept the conscience of the world alive, it has launched the anti-apartheid movement, financed the highly successful sports boycott run by the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC); it has organized complex and extensive educational schemes for prisoners and has supported constructive multi-racial enterprises. Wherever there is suffering as a result of opposition to apartheid there I.D.A.F. will be found. Men recently released from Robben Island have brought special messages of gratitude, and have stated how much the work of the Fund has contributed and contributes to the maintenance of morale, especially among the long-term prisoners.

"It is from his insight into the human suffering of all those who are oppressed in South Africa" writes Per Wastberg, "that John Collins gets his restless energy and his outstanding ability to get things done." This is true, but the springs of Canon Collins's activities lie deeper. He is a Christian; passionately convinced of the need for Christians to translate their faith into practical action in all the affairs of life, social, economic and political as well as personal. It is his deep belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men everywhere that lies behind his hatred of apartheid and of all forms of injustice and discrimination. Archbishop Huddleston sums up:

"I am certain, and am proud to go on record saying it, that informed opposition to apartheid... owes as much to John Collins and Christian Action as informed opposition to the slave trade owed to Wilberforce. And when history comes to be written the name of John Collins will have an equally honoured place. South African racist policy; the anti-apartheid movement; the consequences for world peace of all that happens in the area of race relations anywhere on earth... the fact that today these things are recognized and acknowledged as urgent international priorities is in large measure due to the unflagging dedication and enthusiasm of one man. I thank God for him."

- United Nations Centre against Apartheid, Notes and Documents, 22/78, August 1978