In the restless autumn of a troubling year, cinema at least gave us heroes. Not the muscle-bound shooty-bang variety, but better. Two stories faithful to real events inspire. One is Sully, based on the autobiography of Chesley Sullenberger, the veteran airline pilot who in 2009 landed his failing plane on the Hudson River and saved 155 passengers. In his book he modestly emphasised the role of crew, co-pilot and rescue teams. He reflected that it was just after the banking recession, so “people were wondering if everything was about self-interest and greed. They were doubting human nature. Then all these people acted together, selflessly, to get something really important done . . . I think it gave everyone a chance to have hope.”
That film gave us a man’s experience, maturity, calm and solicitude. It reminded us of unassuming un-spun heroes in other crises. The second film took us far deeper into the past, and provoked a different reflection on humanity’s best and worst. A United Kingdom relates the love and marriage of the late Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams, in the years between 1947 and the moment when he became the first president of independent Botswana. I remember his 1966 knighthood dimly from my teens: our family was lately back from my father’s bruising stint as a diplomat in Johannesburg, all unsettled by living in the vicious apartheid regime. So for Botswana, just over South Africa’s border, to have independence and not only a knighted black leader but one with a white English wife was immense. It was an inspiration, a triumphant V-sign to the SA premier Verwoerd.
In the biographical film David Oyelowo as Seretse, studying in London, meets Ruth (Rosamund Pike) and they fall in love. Tricky, in a racist era; trickier still when he has to tell her that he is the royal heir of his land, then the “Bechuanaland Protectorate”. Bravely they marry, although in a register office because the Bishop of London cravenly refused to allow a church wedding unless the government agreed. And our government — we’ll come to that — absolutely did not. Nor was Bechuanaland enthusiastic: the young man’s uncle, then regent, demanded an annulment, and tribal elders were appalled. But Ruth Khama’s calm benignity and devotion to her husband and his country won her acceptance. After a series of public meetings, Seretse was reaffirmed as leader.
But not for long. South Africa had banned interracial marriage and its prime minister Daniel Malan described the Khamas’ as “nauseating”. Britain, in debt after the war, needed access to South Africa’s gold and uranium wealth, so the Attlee government kowtowed to its racism and, ignoring sober deputations from the Bamangwato elders, banned Khama from ever returning home after summoning him to London for “talks”.
When the Conservatives under Churchill returned they reneged on previous promises to campaigners, to keep South Africa sweet. So the Khamas were for five years beached in Croydon, and when permitted to go home he had to renounce the tribal throne and be a private citizen. This despite a suppressed parliamentary report that pronounced the serious young man eminently fit to rule his homeland “but for his unfortunate marriage”.
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Well, it came good in the end: at independence, Botswana’s democratic election made the erstwhile royal heir a civilian president, and a knighthood from the young Queen put an end to that age of clenched, racist, imperial bossiness. I remember my father, who always deplored racism and was often more than uneasy at Foreign Office policy, rejoiced: he could feel patriotic again. Sir Seretse proved a fine leader, firmly anti-corruption, upholding welfare and the rule of law. As Botswana prospered after mining discoveries he also stood against “indigenisation”, and accepted foreign white expatriates working in the system whenever locals were not yet qualified.
So there’s a bit of history. But what strikes me powerfully is that all this happened in my lifetime, and I am not that old. Only 60 years ago interracial marriage, or indeed accepting black people as equal, shocked British governments (of both colours), made the Anglican church cowardly, and also upset tribal elders in Africa. Useful to recall too that despite indignation from progressives, up at the top of society the imperial mindset was still arrogant, still treated “protectorates” with ancient cultures and traditions of their own as pawns and peons.
“Within my lifetime interracial marriage shocked governments
Sixty years is not much, and to remember how far we have come brings a calmer understanding of why today we often seem so divided, so furious with one another. Especially in this referendum year. On one side is a dwindling but significant group that is wary of ethnic minorities’ advance and of a collaborative, melting-pot world. It yearns, not necessarily in a vicious or even Ukippish spirit, for a lost British overconfidence.
On the other side you find us modern liberals: hypersensitive and chronically indignant, we interpret even the harmless aspects of the other side’s nostalgia as a threat that we could return to the days of white supremacism, snobbery and national arrogance. Both factions are still digesting the big changes. One lot fears being “overrun” by strangers; the other interprets even harmless nostalgia, mild Euroscepticism and morris dancing as potential fascism. It’s understandable, when the past lies still so close.