Student Comrade Prisoner Spy: A memoir

by Bridget Hilton-Barber

When Bridget Hilton-Barber got on a train to Grahamstown in 1982 to study journalism at Rhodes University, she had no idea of the brutal drama that would unfold. A rebellious young woman, she became politically involved in anti-apartheid organisations and was caught up in the massive resistance and repression sweeping the Eastern Cape at the time. She ended up spending three months in detention without trial, and after her release discovered she had been betrayed by one of her best friends, Olivia Forsyth, who was a spy for the South African security police. Thirty years later, a horrific flashback triggers Bridget’s journey back to the Eastern Cape to see if she can forgive her betrayer and finally let go of the extraordinary violence she encountered in the final days of apartheid. This is her powerful story.

Genres: South Africa, Biography

310 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 1, 2016

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Student Comrade Prisoner Spy” is an invaluable look into the mind of the apartheid animal through the eyes of a young woman who was both liberated and bewildered by a journey that was precipitated by her exposure to various freedom movements at university.

“Student Comrade Prisoner Spy” is written with a prose like a machine-gun’s bullets – fast and sharp; indeed, Hilton-Barber can describe more in a few words than most writers can in a paragraph. It is this prose style which yanks the reader along on a disturbing rollercoaster of a ride, while somehow creating the feeling that Hilton-Barber is in the seat next to you.

The writer has immersed herself in this book. This might sound redundant for a memoir, but she exposes herself, her thoughts and her emotions with an honesty that can only be described as brutal. She is open about her initial naiveté and direct about her political development, while her incarceration and subsequent quest to put her demons to rest draws the reader into a mind painfully disturbed and desperately seeking solace.

It is a pity, then, that one gets the feeling that part of the reason for writing the book was to “respond” to the book written by her friend and comrade, and ultimately her betrayer, Olivia Forsyth. Forsyth was a complicated person who became prominent in many of the student groups advocating and working towards a free South Africa. It later emerged that she was working on behalf of the Security Branch and supplied information which would have resulted in the jailing, torture, or worse, of people allied to these groups. It is this betrayal and apparent lack of remorse that Hilton-Barber is unable to forgive and seems to have motivated the writing of the book to a greater or lesser extent.

Nevertheless, the motivation behind the writing of “Student Comrade Prisoner Spy” should not detract from what is a powerful story told by a talented writer who has turned her most personal experiences inside out for a book that is both a thundering good read and a thought-provoking and emotional exploration of a time where evil was the norm.

[☆♡Claudia♡☆]

Mmmhhmm, happy that I'm sticking to my plan of going through my political tbr. This book broke my heart, Apartheid was such an evil thing 💔💔💔my people fought so hard and thousands paid with their lives to afford me my rights. I'm forever grateful. Olivia reminds me of Letty from Babel by R.F Kuang, only Babel is fiction and this is real life.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars
Being a born and raised South African I have learnt a fair deal about Apartheid, in fact it’s the predominant period focused on in schools, or at least it was when I was still a school girl. What I failed to ever consider was reading about it from the perspective of individuals who were involved on either side of the fence back then.
I received this book from Penguin Random House in return for an honest review. Here are my thoughts.

Bridget Hilton-Barber enrolled at Rhodes University to study journalism, belonging to a liberal minded family she found herself joining the resistance movement against apartheid. Freedom parties, rallies and peaceful protest are all things which soon become second nature to her and like-minded students. What Bridget doesn’t realise is that one of her closest friends will turn out to be the one to put her and many of her comrades behind bars.
Hilton-Barber has an incredible way with words, as she describes the scenes which unfold before her, or the people that she meets, she manages to grab you and bring you along for the ride. I enjoyed the poetic way with which she wrote though I’ll admit there were times I could skip almost a whole page with little being lost by way of plot, one could call it poetic over kill maybe?

Having seen and experienced the things she did, I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it must have been to revisit her past, to capture the moments and events which would eventually lead to her PTSD, to share it with the world. I felt an air of therapeutic release as I read, as though by writing she has given those who lost their lives another chance to find peace in their eternal rest, knowing their story has found another portal from which all people of our nation may learn and grow.

There is no sensitivity in this book, no refining of difficult memories or softening of devastating experiences. We are given a raw, human look into the stories which we aren’t taught about in school. We are told of people whose names will be remembered only by their family and friends. It’s agonizingly real and raw. But I appreciate that, I like knowing I’ve been given a real perspective and not one tinted by rose.

I feel I need to read Olivia Forsyths book though. Agent 404 was written before Student Comrade, Prisoner spy and so when I finally finished SC,PS it was as though I’d watched a tennis match with only one player. I need both sides of a story and it felt to me like this was exceptionally one sided, almost a last dash attempt at having the final say. Despite Forsyth’s actions being so completely treacherous, and certainly therefore worthy of mention, I feel that it completely overshadowed the rest of Hilton-Barbers experiences.

This is a book I feel would be hugely beneficial as bonus reading material for all history students, or for any person interested in obtaining some understanding of the ‘silent warriors’ of apartheid. It has left its mark on me that’s for sure, I don’t foresee this book ever leaving my shelves – it’s that kinda book which you keep and go back to, if for no other reason than to remind yourself that even the darkest of clouds have a silver lining. Our history does not define us, nor should it destroy us.

[Jayne Bauling · Rating 4 out of 5]

South Africa in the 1980s, and the brutality of apartheid.
Bridget Hilton-Barber was a Rhodes University student in these years, throwing herself into the militant Eastern Cape’s struggle; she was subsequently betrayed by a close friend, and was detained without trial. Her memoir engages from the start, although for many it will be difficult reading, recalling the pain of those evil years – forced removals, Casspirs in the townships, conscription, fear, torture, betrayal, and atrocities like the horrific killing of the Cradock Four.
We revisit aspects of the struggle, and are reminded of the many organisations active against apartheid at that time, NUSAS, the ECC, the Black Sash, the UDF and more.
Idealism is often denigrated as naivety. If Hilton-Barber and her friends were initially naïve, it didn’t last. They very quickly understood all they risked with every meeting or rally in which they participated.
Reading this memoir is to relive the hot, helpless rage of those years. The book perhaps offers a response to those who plead to “put the past behind us” and “move on”. How can we, when even now there are so many unanswered questions, and so many missing loved ones still unaccounted for?
I appreciated the index, glossary, and explanation of abbreviations at the back of the book.

[Marion Roux · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think this book was written as a catharsis. She was involved with anti-apartheid organisations (just swept up into it for teenage rebellion) She never comes across as truly committed, drops hundreds of names which mean little and are pointless to her story - young girl in adult world. Her three month detention brought her to her knees and reality. She learnt that her friend was actually a spy for the government.
30 Years later she is a bitter wishy-washy woman.
Narration is bitter and lacks depth

[Tiah]

– You cannot forgive without knowing who to forgive, [Chris Mbekela] went on to say. And he was right and noble and dignified, I thought – but of course none of this I knew at the time. I was simply a horrified twenty-one-year-old white girl from the suburbs staring at the back seat of a car which was covered with burnt bits of human flesh. –

– But I do not seem to be able to shake off the black dogs. They shadow me, they whimper and bark. No one but I can see them, but they are there, nosing the back of my legs, gazing at me with fiery eyes in the darkness of night. Just because the monkey's off your back, they say, doesn't mean the circus has left town; or, in my case, just because the circus has left town, doesn't mean you've got the monkey off your back. – 

– From the well of her grieving soul, through the lips of Mrs Nomonde Calata, window of one of the Cradock Four, comes a cry, a wail, which fact starts the process. –

– The proceedings, for me, are a double-edged sword. On the one hand I feel vindicated, because I too opposed apartheid and I too was brutalised, though in a relatively minor way. People didn't believe us then, when we told them what was going on. And now, you see, we were right. I feel that at some level, people's pain is at last being dignified. But the proceedings are also a terrible reminder of those days, some nine years ago, when the country was under a bad magic spell, and we were caught up in the curse. – 

– We were only doing our jobs. –

– To behold it was madness, but to experience it day after day was way beyond lunacy. –

- And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life. –

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite this book being a harrowing read, I could not put it down.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting perspective on apartheid activism during the late 80's / early 90's from the point of view of a white female journalist student at uni. An important book & well written.