By Shakira Hoosain

Sixty years ago, this year, Helen Keller visited South Africa as a stop on her world tour. Not only did the plight of the poor and the condition of the blind and deaf in South Africa astound her, but the sheer goodwill of South Africans towards helping people did too. Arthur William Blaxall writes a sensitive and simply written account of Helen Keller: Under the Southern Cross, of which Council’s library has a copy. The poetic descriptions Blaxall provides of Keller’s visit and her commitment to devoting her life to the uplifting of deaf and blind people are not only remarkably elegant, but also quaintly contextual to the 1950s.

The book is divided into two parts and is opened with a foreword by Alan Paton. In the first part, Blaxall provides commentary from his side, on the magnitude and scope of the visit as well as his impressions of Keller and some of the ideas which she expressed about South Africa to him. The second half focuses exclusively on Keller’s own impressions and thoughts on her trip to South Africa. Helen Keller’s deeply philosophical thoughts pepper the accounts of her travels. Her observations on the racial stratifications of South Africa at the time, show an understanding of the unfair situation which existed. Perhaps the lasting image one takes from both Blaxall’s accounts and Keller’s is that very little has changed for blind and deaf people in South Africa. Under-funded schools, subsisting on the enthusiasm and love of the teachers for their pupils are still a challenge in South Africa. Of particular interest is Keller’s special mention that Council included welfare groupings from all race groups as “…the South African National Council for the Blind, which includes the bureau for preventing blindness, and co-operates with the Society for the Care of non-European Blind, and the Coloured and Indian Blind Welfare Association.”

It was also during this two-month tour of South Africa that Wits University conferred on Keller an Honorary Doctorate. Keller herself was not without academic distinction and knew Latin, French, Greek and German.

Written before Blaxall went into exile under the Suppression of Communism Act, Blaxall makes mention of Keller’s inclusivity to all race groups and how she advocated for a single, humanist approach towards dealing with people with disabilities. Rightly, Blaxall calls Keller “the Apostle of Human Relations”.
Helen Keller: Under the Southern Cross by Arthur William Blaxall was published by Juta in 1952 and the title takes its meaning from Keller’s description of the African sky as “…one vast field of stars…, and brightest of all was the Southern Cross. I love the Southern Cross particularly, because it symbolizes to my fancy consciousness radiating out of darkness, out of mystery, out of the Unknown”.

It is with much gratitude that the South African National Council for the Blind makes mention of this book in the anniversary issue of Imfama to commemorate the work of both Keller and Blaxall in helping blind people in South Africa by highlighting the plight of the lack of support and giving a voice to the services available to people to help them succeed despite adversity and challenges faced.