Episcopal Press and News
Maimed Anglican Priest Is Symbol of the Horror of Apartheid
Episcopal News Service. October 18, 1991 [91206]
Daniel Cattau
When the Rev. Michael Lapsley returned to his home in Harare, Zimbabwe, after an April 28 going-away party last year, the long-time opponent of apartheid was in a euphoric mood.
He had just completed a successful trip of speaking engagements in Canada; Nelson Mandela, recently released from prison, was preparing to lead the African National Congress (ANC) into serious negotiations with South Africa's President F. W. De Klerk; and Lapsley was about to leave Harare to take a new assignment as a priest in a black township parish in Bulawayo.
In calmly recounting his story to a small group at New York City's Church of the Heavenly Rest, Lapsley, 42, added: "In our euphoria, perhaps we were a little naive."
Lapsley told of opening his mail when, in a flash, there was a tremendous blast that blew out the windows and three rooms of his home, tore open the ceiling, bore a hole in the floor, and changed his life forever.
Lapsley's hands were blown off, his face was bloodied, he was temporarily blinded (and eventually lost one eye), his body was burned and scarred, his eardrums were shattered, but he never lost consciousness.
Hugh McCullum, a Canadian journalist and friend, was summoned to Lapsley's house and drove the maimed priest to a hospital. In the back seat of the car, Lapsley held his bloodied arms up and said: "It was a book. It came from South Africa."
Actually, the letter bomb came in a manila envelope containing two religious magazines, one in English and the other in Afrikaans. The sophisticated letter bomb, which Lapsley believes was the work of the South African government, was detonated when the New Zealand-born priest opened the English magazine that was intended to be his instrument of death.
An Anglican monk with the Society of the Sacred Mission, Lapsley came to South Africa from Australia in 1973 to serve as chaplain at the University of Natal at Durban as well as two black colleges.
In an interview, Lapsley said he immediately saw how everyone -- black, white, and colored -- was "trapped by apartheid. It dehumanized people, making them into the oppressed or oppressors."
As the national chaplain for Anglican students, he spoke out strongly against the massacre of schoolchildren and youth during the 1976 Soweto uprising -- and was soon expelled from South Africa by the South African government.
Lapsley remained in close contact with events in South Africa, however, as chaplain to the National University of Lesotho, a small country surrounded by South Africa. In December 1982, South African commando troops raided its neighbor, killing 42 people. Known to be on South Africa's "death list," Lapsley went to Zimbabwe the next year, where he served a parish and, as a member of the ANC, also served as its chaplain.
In Zimbabwe, Lapsley became known internationally as an opponent of apartheid and served for three years as a consultant to the Lutheran World Federation.
If anything, the bombing attack has increased his profile as an anti-apartheid activist, even as the laws legitimizing racial separation are being dismantled. But Lapsley claims that little has changed in the land where five million blacks are effectively homeless and 30 million blacks cannot vote.
There is "still poverty in the midst of great wealth," said Lapsley, adding, "not still -- but increasingly."
In May, June, and July this year, Lapsley returned to South Africa for the first time in 15 years, traveling extensively and attending the legislative meeting of the ANC. "It was incredibly different," he said, and yet, "incredibly, still the same."
With reports from South Africa saying there may be an all-party conference on a new constitution by the end of this year, Lapsley said the pressure is increasing for an interim government. His strongest warning, however, is for those naive enough to think that the white regime has changed. He calls De Klerk "more clever than good" in pursuing a two-track policy of public concessions while continuing to foment internal violence, particularly the well-publicized battles between the ANC and Inkatha, a prominent Zulu group.
"President De Klerk is saying apartheid is over," said Lapsley. "How come he is still in power?" Answering his own question, he said that it is because "black people do not have the right to vote." Until apartheid is completely dismantled, Lapsley said that he favors the continuation of economic sanctions.
In his current tour of Canada and the United States, Lapsley shows a videotape of interviews produced last year before the bomb attack. He still resembles the burly priest shown on the videotape, with the same bushy beard, moderately long curly brown hair, an open-necked shirt and a gray tweed jacket. However, Lapsley now wears glasses as well as the artificial arms. The messenger may look different, but the message is still the same.
"The South African government is saying that apartheid was a great tactical blunder," Lapsley said. "They're not saying apartheid was or is fundamentally or unequivocally evil."
Today, Lapsley said that he considers himself to be a symbol of the evils of apartheid, "a sign to you of what apartheid has done to the peoples of South Africa... illustrated so horrifically in my own life." When he shuffles papers or pauses to scratch in his head while deep in thought, he does it now with steel artificial hooks instead of his hands. He often greets people with a hug instead of a handshake.
Showing a sense of humor (he surmised that President Bush's get-well card must have gotten "lost in the post"), and, more surprisingly, a lack of bitterness, Lapsley told another church group if he had been filled with self-pity or hatred, "I would have been a victim forever." The bombing, he said, has deepened his compassion for others and proven to him that "life can come out of death."
The bomb attack has left Lapsley with the conviction that victory over apartheid is possible, and said that he hopes to be part of a new South Africa. Though constitutional change may come within three years, he said, it will take 100 years to create a "humane society."
It is a hope that is painfully etched in Lapsley's memory. One of his most vivid images is of the Monday morning after the Saturday night attack. When he had gone to sleep, his world was dark. But when he opened his one eye he saw a radiant blue sky and said: "The Boers have not won."
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