The Troublemaker. Michael Scott and his lonely struggle against injustice, by Anne Yates and Lewis Chester

Abstract

In their attitude to Africa, and especially to South Africa, some 20th-century Anglican clerics were famously militant. We already have the lives of two such men, Archbishop Joost de Blank of Cape Town and Bishop Ambrose Reeves of Johannesburg, both written by John Peart-Binns. Most recently, there have been the studies of Father Trevor Huddleston by Robin Denniston, and of Canon John Collins by Denis Herbstein. Now comes the long-anticipated biography of the Reverend Michael Scott, perhaps, the most complex figure of them all. Scott's lifetime (1906–1983) coincided with the decline of Europe's African empires, though he did not live to see the collapse of apartheid. In Africa his main focus was on South West Africa (now Namibia), as a champion of indigenous tribes, lobbying tirelessly at the United Nations from 1947 until his last appearance in 1982. In 1952, he was persuaded by the editor of The Observer, David Astor, to head the new Africa Bureau in London, though he was often inclined to divert to other causes. So he trekked to India to support the Nagas of Assam, joined an expedition to protest against the first French nuclear test in the Sahara and became controversially involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Not for nothing has this book been entitled The Troublemaker. No one could ever be neutral about Scott, who provoked strong reactions in many circles, as my own researches have shown. The high command of the Church of England was wary of his enthusiasm, a feeling doubtlessly reinforced by a knowledge of Scott's early association with Communism. Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote of Scott in 1950: ‘I have kept clear of him rather deliberately since he came to England.’ Geoffrey Clayton, Archbishop of Cape Town, told Fisher on the topic of Scott and his sympathisers: ‘We all respect their sincerity, but most of us distrust their judgement.’ Collins and Scott saw each other's organizations as unwelcome competitors. Deploring complaints from the Bureau about his modus operandi, Collins declared that it was ‘very difficult to avoid the impression that somebody [i.e. Scott] is out to make mischief.’ During an interview with Archbishop Michael Ramsey in 1970 the South African Prime Minister, Johannes Vorster, fumed at ‘the Anglicans [who] meddle in politics and condemn our policy.’ His particular trio of hate-figures comprised Huddleston, Reeves and Scott.