The influence of Peter, the conscientious objector, lives on after death

Otago Daily Times

10-07-2025

A committed stance still has meaning after death, Jenny Beck writes.
He died a year ago, my brother Peter, the Moll family's mighty totara, and his loss still reverberates.
And yet. "Non omnis obiit" — he is not all dead. His influence lives on among us.
My English lecturer at university, Dr Bertelsen, displayed an arresting poster on her door: "Carry a little conviction this morning!"
Peter did, and thus he became a conscientious objector.
In South Africa military training was compulsory for young white men. Peter completed his "basic training" after school and then sailed off to the University of Cape Town.
Where he began changing. First of all, there were the Soweto riots of June 1976 and then days later at a Christian student conference he had a "Damascus Road experience", noting that the delegates of colour were accommodated, inconveniently, miles away.
Deliberately he widened his circle of friends to include those of other denominations and faiths, indeed, folk of all stripes.
The (White) National Government then in power disrespected the humanity of other races and the army bolstered its position, he realised.
Conscription compelled participation in an "unjust war", and the Lord, Peter told me firmly, was impelling him to oppose it.
There was no precedent for the direction he was taking, and there was certainly virulent opposition, such that his life was made truly unpleasant. He was accused of being a disobedient son and a poor God-follower.
But nothing deterred him, and during this period of decision making he practised, in the words of Ovid, being patient and tough, knowing that one day this pain would be useful to him.
He objected to two army summer camps. Third strike though, he was warned, and you're off to jail.
Peter worked as an actuary for a year after university. The third call-up though was looming, and, steadfastly setting his face towards Jerusalem as it were, on December 4 1979 he found himself at Cape Town Castle, convicted of failing to report and being sentenced to 18 months, to be served at the military prison, Voortrekkerhoogte, in Pretoria.
I visited him there regularly; he was allowed three visitors per month for 15 minutes each. We would sit on formica chairs in the hot, largely shadeless prison yard. Really, the pits.
Mercifully he could receive any number of letters (including monthly missives from Desmond Tutu) but was allowed to write only one per month of 500 words.
Solitary confinement however was the worst privation.
Peter refused to wear army overalls. Into solitary confinement he went for 10 days with no reading matter officially but the Bible and no clothes but his underpants.
A few days after his release he was asked, Now will you comply? No, he said.
In, out, in, out. Altogether he spent 125 days in that cell, all alone.
On visiting days, I sensed his steely resolve but alongside that a curious serenity, calling up the immortal words of Dante Aligheri: "In His will is our peace."
Despite all this Peter later said that objecting was the best thing he ever did, as it helped to ignite the conscientious objection movement in South Africa.
There was the odd moment of joyful clarity. Over Easter 1980 supporters around the country fasted and prayed, and then on Easter Sunday Peter received a telegram from his Economics Professor Francis Wilson recounting the words of Romans 8:38: "Nothing can separate us from the love of God."
Peter hung on to this promise of God's constant companionship and upholding.
In the wake of Peter's stand, and that of our cousin Richard Steele, a movement was spawned, the End Conscription Campaign.
But more importantly hearts were touched and challenged by the message that was, at bottom, as simple and profound as this: Love one another.
This added to the anti-apartheid ferment in South Africa in the 1980s and, I like to think, helped make way for the new, more equitable regime to come.
Our brother Terence in his Encomium said: "In our dark times, Peter is a reminder of how people with moral clarity and courage can make a difference." You can't help swelling with pride and gratitude, can you?
After his death Professor Jim Cochrane was to say that Peter's was in a sense the story of anyone who has to break free of the straitjacket of authority that allows injustice to thrive "in order to find and follow the moral foundations that offer hope for all of humanity".
I'm deeply comforted in my mourning by recollections of Peter's courage. And this thought from Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott: "Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening."
Also, recalling Dr Bertelsen's poster, to have had a brother who, God-with-him, carried more than a little conviction not only back then but all his life.
■Jenny Beck is a lawyer and member of Dunedin City Baptist Church.