The.
î
S*~^\ A window open on the world
CourierMarch 1967 (20th year) U.K. : 1/6-stg. - Canada : 30 cents - France: 1 F
TREASURES
OF
WORLD ART
Speaking Hands
This year marks the fiftiethanniversary of the death ofAuguste Rodin (1840-1917).The French sculptor's repu¬tation has steadily grown overthe last half-century, althoughduring his lifetime the univer¬sality of his work which isnow generally recognised washotly contested. Such is thevariety and range of his out¬put that the public at large isstill unaware of certain as¬pects. The work of this"unknown Rodin" includes
such small sculptures as thesetwo right hands joined to¬gether in gentle supplication(carved stone 64 x 34 x 32cms). For Rodin, hands weremore expressive than faces.
He entitled this sculpture"The Cathedral" so as to
combine the idea of the couplewith spiritual elevation, thesupreme symbol of which wasexemplified in his view bythe Gothic arch.
Photo © SPADEM, ParisMusée Rodin
///
CourierMARCH 1967 - 20TH YEAR
PUBLISHED IN
NINE EDITIONS
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Published monthly by UNESCO
The United Nations
Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization
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The UNESCO COURIER is published monthly, except
in August and September when it is bi-monthly (11 issues ayear) in English, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Arabic,Japanese and Italian. In the United Kingdom it is distributedby H.M. Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, London, S.E.I.Individual articles and photographs not copyrighted maybe reprinted providing the credit line reads "Reprinted fromthe UNESCO COURIER", plus date of issue, and threevoucher copies are sent to the editor. Signed articles re¬printed must bear author's name. Non-copyright photoswill be supplied on request. Unsolicited manuscripts cannotbe returned unless accompanied by an internationalreply coupon covering postage. Signed articles express theopinions of the authors and do not necessarily representthe opinions of UNESCO or those of the editors of theUNESCO COURIER.
The Unesco Courier is indexed monthly in The Read¬ers' Guide to Periodical Literature, published byH. W. Wilson Co., New York.
Editorial Offices
Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, Paris-7e, France
Editor-in-Chief
Sandy Koffler
Assistant Editor-in-Chief
René Caloz
Assistant to the Editor-in-ChiefLucio Attinelli
Managing EditorsEnglish Edition: Ronald Fenton (Paris)French Edition: Jane Albert Hesse (Paris)
Spanish Edition: Arturo Despouey (Paris)Russian Edition: Victor Goliachkov (Paris)German Edition: Hans Rieben (Berne)Arabic Edition: Abdel Moneim El Sawi (Cairo)
Japanese Edition: Shin-lchi Hasegawa (Tokyo)Italian Edition: Maria Remiddi (Rome)
Research: Olga Rodel
Layout & Design: Robert JacqueminAll correspondence shouldbe addressed to the Editor-in-Chief
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APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA
A COUNTRY DIVIDED
A Unesco report on apartheid
THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON CULTURE
THE PRICE OF SEGREGATION
By Alan Paton
THE FORBIDDEN DIALOGUE
By Lewis Nkosi
THE SEEDS OF WRATH
By Dennis Brutus
THE DYING MINDS
By Ronald Segal
THE FETTERED SPIRIT
By Breyten Breytenbach
SOUTH AFRICA'S WASTED MANPOWER
An inquiry by the International Labour Organization
FROM UNESCO'S REPORT ON APARTHEID
APARTHEID AND THE CHURCH
TREASURES OF WORLD ART
Hands (Auguste Rodin)
Photo © Holmes - Lebel - Ernest Cole
Cover photo
"Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality..."
Article 26 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
"We should not give the natives an academic education . . . We should soconduct our schools that the native who attends those schools will know
that to a great extent he must be the labourer in the country."
Mr. J.N. Le Roux, present Minister of Agri¬culture of the Republic of South Africa,House of Assembly (April 2, 1945).
APARTHEIDIN SOUTH AFRICA
The General Assembly of the UnitedNations, has proclaimed March 21"International Day for the Eliminationof Racial Discrimination". In the
same resolution proclaiming this in¬ternational Day, which coincideswith the anniversary of the Sharpe-ville massacre in South África, theAssembly again called on Statespracticing racial discrimination orapartheid to comply with the UnitedNations Declaration on the Elimina¬
tion of All Forms of Racial Discrimi¬nation and with the Universal Dec¬
laration of Human Rights.
At the beginning of this year, onJanuary 18, an important Unesco re¬port on the effects of apartheid oneducation, science, culture and in¬formation in South Africa was made
public by the United Nations in NewYork. This report will be publishedin its final form in English and Frenchin some months time.
The present issue includes passagesfrom this document together with aseries of statements on the effects of
apartheid on South Africa's culturallife. These articles have been spe¬cially written for the Unesco Cou¬rier by the distinguished South Afri¬can writers. Alan Paton, Lewis Nkosi,Dennis Brutus, Ronald Segal andBreyten Breytenbach.
f~> BOTSWANA(ex-Bechuanaland)
I SOUTH WEST
AFRICA
Mill' ,| Transvaal
SOUTH AFRICA.
M'y OrangeBloemfontein
CapeProvince
Capetown
Cape of
Good Hope
SWAZILAND
LESOTHO (ex-Basutoland)
Transkei
Port Elizabeth 'Bantu reserves'
(approximate)
Areport prepared by the
United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (Unesco) onthe effects of apartheid on education,science, culture and information in
South Africa concludes that the policy
of apartheid is not only an inadmissibleanswer to racial and group conflictbut is itself the major source of racial
and group conflict there.
The report, to be published later thisyear by Unesco in its final form, wasprepared for the U.N. General Assemb¬ly's Special Committee on the Policiesof Apartheid of the Government ofSouth Africa.
In its report, Unesco terms the situa¬tion in South Africa "alarming" andoutlines in detail how discrimination in
the areas studied contributes to main¬
taining an ideology which it says is"unacceptable to the world of today."
The 259-page report was preparedby the Unesco Secretariat with thehelp of various consultants and isbased essentially on official govern¬ment publications and reports fromscientific and research institutions
within and outside South Africa.
D ISCRIMINATORY practicesat all levels of education, which keepAfricans at the most menial level of
society are outlined in the report. Itcites legislation and regulations whichrequire Africans to finance their owneducational institutions to a very large
extent through special taxation on them,which limit the range of subjects offer¬ed to them in school and which isolate
South African children of different eth¬
nic groups from each other. The reportalso states that the overcrowding andan insufficient number of teachers
for the most part poorly trained addto a pattern which serves to preventAfricans, and to lesser extent colour¬
eds and people of Asian extraction,from playing a full role in society.
While there has been an increase
in the number of Africans going to
school, the report states this has beenachieved without a corresponding rise
in expenditure. In fact, the percentageof net national income spent on African
schools is decreasing, the report adds.
The increase in school atten¬
dance, the report says, has beenachieved through the introduction ofdouble sessions in the first two yearsof schooling, the policy of appointingwomen teachers who are paid a lower
salary and the conversion of moneyearmarked for school meals for expan¬sion of education.
The sum allocated for school meals
has decreased from $1,758,960 in 1954
to $98,000 in 1966. Several surveysamong African school children, con¬ducted around 1960, revealed that
60-70 per cent were recognizably suf¬fering from malnutrition, 50 per centneeded nursing and medical attentionand almost 10 per cent required hospi-
The term "white" is used for
people of European stock. Theterm "African" replaces the word
"Bantu" which is at present usedby the South African Govern¬ment to designate people ofAfrican stock, except in direct
quotations where, if the word"Bantu" was originally used, itis retained. The term "Asian" is
used for people of Chinese orIndian descent, and "coloured"
for those of mixed European and
African or Asian background.The use in this issue of these
terms white, "African," "Asian"
and "coloured", has been un¬
avoidable, because of the nature
of "apartheid" itself. However,the Unesco Secretariat rejectsthe concepts of race and ofethnic group relations that suchterms imply.
talization for diseases directly or in¬directly attributable to malnutrition.
While there is no doubt that primarylevel education, financed by the Afri¬cans themselves, has expanded, the
position has remained almost stationaryat secondary and university levels,according to the report. "That Africansare being trained to 'take over' in theReserves cannot be supported either
by the numbers who graduate. . . norby the degree of administrative respon¬sibility. That they are not being train¬ed to play their part in a total South
African society is explicitely stated bythe South African Government itself."
The education section of the reportconcludes: "The effects of apartheidon education go far beyond the racialdiscrimination that the facts and figuresof this report demonstrate. The mostdeplorable effect is on the South Afri¬can child whatever his colour. ..who
in all cases is educated within the res¬
trictions of an ideology unacceptableto the world of today."
THE report investigates the
effects of apartheid on the employ¬ment of non-white scientific and tech¬
nical personnel; on scientific organi¬zation; on social field research and on
international scientific and technical co¬
operation. Among facts brought outin the survey are the following:
There is little training available tonon-whites in engineering or in agri¬culture where the need for non-white
specialists is probably greatest in theso-called "Bantu Homelands."
The total number of non-white
doctors in 1960 was estimated at
around 130. The number of doctors per
head of population in that year was onein eighteen hundred in South Africacompared with one in eleven hundred
in the United Kingdom and one inseven hundred and fifty in the UnitedStates. Many scientific societies haveresisted government pressure to changetheir constitutions so as to prohibit
membership to non-whites.
The difficulty which trained non-whites experience in obtaining employ¬ment. "This lack of suitable employ¬ment opportunities undoubtedly dam¬pens the enthusiasm of many apotential non-white scientist and maylead to mediocre performance and lack
of interest in scientific training," thereport states.
Besides taking up the influence ofapartheid on intellectuals, both "white" Kand "non-white," the report also consi- *ders culture in the broader context and
gives details of the difficulties encoun-
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
APARTHEID (Continued)
tered by non-white South Africans fac¬ed with the official Government policyof the separation of cultures.
The report cites the Bantu LawsAmendment Act of 1964 which served
to create a migratory labour force ofAfricans temporarily resident in urbancentres but without any permanent
rights. This Act, the report states, hashad important effects on the Africanfamily. One of these has been thedisproportionate increase in Africanmale population in the suburbs ofcities. Another has been the break-up
of entire families' because of govern¬ment refusal to permit husbands andwives to live together.
That apartheid is compatible withChristianity has been denied by manydenominations, according to the report,although a 1950 conference of theDutch Reformed Churches, which
attempted to define that church's policytowards the African, endorsed the solu¬tion of "Bantu Homelands" and recom¬
mended the replacing of the Africanin the European industrial system.
In the area of literature, the report
points out that major works by AfricanSouth African writers, writing in
English, have been banned as "inde¬cent, objectionable, or obscene," andthat well-known African writers, if not
under house arrest, now live outside
South Africa.
serves "communism" under the Sup¬
pression of Communism Act of 1950.According to the Unesco report, thisAct endangers freedom of information.Under its clauses, the Minister of Jus¬
tice has the power to prohibit anindividual from attending a particularmeeting or playing any part in certain
organizations and may prohibit any per¬son from living in a given area fora period of time, as well as assign¬ing him to a determined residence.
The Annual Survey of South AfricanLaw of 1963 states that there were
7,500 banned publications.
The report concludes that in educa¬tion, science, culture and information,
apartheid violates both in principle andin practice the United Nations Charter,the Constitution of Unesco, the Uni¬
versal Declaration of Human Rights,as well as the standards which have
been set by the international commu¬
nity in conventions, recommendationsand declarations which have been
adopted within the United Nations sys¬tem. Moreover, "separate develop¬ment" as practised within the Republicof South Africa, does not mean equalitybetween various ethnic groups in anyof the spheres with which Unesco isconcerned.
CQ
IN MEMORY
OF SHARPEVILLE
S
6
'OUTH AFRICA has had a
long tradition of library services. Thereport states, however, that under thepolicy of maintaining separate libraries,the major libraries remain closed tonon-white South Africans. In Pieter-
maritzburg, the European library hasalmost ten times the number of volumes
as the branch for non-Europeans.
Sports have also been affected byapartheid. The separation of the"races" in the field of sport coversfive different but related issues, the
report states. These include mixedteams, inter-racial team competitions,
the participation of non-white playersin games played on fields of all-whitedistricts and the composition of foreignteams visiting South Africa and mixedaudiences.
Through the Group Areas Act of1950, which was later extended to
cinemas, non-whites may not be allow¬ed to attend cinemas, theatre or operain a "white" district without a specialpermit, and ¿whites" are not permittedto attend cinemas and other entertain¬
ments in non-white areas.
While freedom of the press is partof the Constitution of the Republic ofSouth Africa, the Government mayprohibit any publication which it deems
MYTHS OF SOUTH AFRICA
Two myths aro widely believed in South Africa: that the Dutch landed
in empty territory and that the early history of white settlement wasmarked by the massacre of innocent whites by Africans. Early travellershad very different tales to tell: "On Sunday November 26, 1497 the fleetreached the inlet ... a number of Hottentots appeared . . . They werevery friendly"; or they "came with ail friendliness to trade with us . . .
The killing of our people is undoubtedly caused by revenge being takenby the [Africans] when their cattle is seized ..."
In "Prejudice in the Classroom" (Johannesburg, 1966), Eleanor Hawar-den points out that "if African peoples are presented to school childrensolely as engaging in unprovoked attacks on white farmers and this isthe picture which most South African textbooks and teachers present in
both primary and secondary schools then though the facts of individualattack may be correct, the total impact on the students and the picture
they form of past events, is untrue. It omits the attacks by Europeans,the provocation suffered by the Africans, the loss of their lands, thecourage and chivalry with which the Ama-Xhosa fought in defendingtheir country from invasion."
Similarly, land tenure and its relationship to frontier clashes was oneof the key aspects of early South African history. Yet F.E. Auerbach("Thp Power of Prejudice in South African Education," Cape Town/Amsterdam, 1965) found that in the Transvaal no junior book explainsit and only one senior book deals with it.
From the Unesco Report on Apartheid
On March 21 1960, the crowd scatters as firing starts in Sharpeville(South Africa). A few moments after this photograph was taken,about one hundred Africans were killed and more than two hundred
wounded. The police had opened fire to disperse demonstrators
protesting against the law requiring non-whites to carry passes atall times. A resolution recently adopted by the United NationsGeneral Assembly proclaimed March 21 as "International Day forthe Elimination of Racial Discrimination".
A COUNTRY DIVIDED
The following excerptsare drawn from
the Unesco reporton the effects
of the policy
of apartheid oneducation, science,
culture and
information.
S,OUTH Africa, a society inwhich Africans, Asians and Europeans
co-exist in the same territory has beenthe result of a long history going backto the first European settlement in theCape of Good Hope in 1652. It is ahistory not only of prolonged contact(some of it friendly) between thesegroups of people, but also a historyof conflict over land and cattle at
first, then over industrial opportunities
when towns grew up.
There were also conflicts between
the Boers, decendants of the first
Dutch settlers, and the English-speak¬ing South African conflicts whichterminated in the Boer War and the
defeat of the Dutch-speaking Afrika¬ners by the English colonizers.
About the mid-twentieth century,
then, the ingredients of the presentalarming South African .situation wereall present: the rivalry between theAfrikaner and the English-speakingSouth Africans which split the whitepopulation into two main groups, thesuspicion and fear which most of thewhite group felt for the Africans whowere numerically stronger, againstwhom they had fought a series of warsand whom they had traditionally treat¬ed as a source of cheap labour.
There was also the coloured groupformed from a mixture of white, Hotten¬
tot and Malay elements and an Asiangroup brought to South Africa in the19th century as labour for the newsugar plantations in Natal.
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
7
A COUNTRY DIVIDED (Continued)
The myth of 'separate development'
At the end of the second world war
there was another factor on the South
African scene. White supremacy,threatened occasionally over the300 years of white settlement, waschallenged by the emergence of inde¬pendent states in Africa and Asia.
On the political front the struggle forindependence was a struggle for one-man one-vote, and had direct conse¬
quences for South African whites, who,in framing the Constitution of 1910,had resisted any effective participationof non-whites in the political process.
There was another challenge; in allcountries arose a new demand for the
implementation of "Human Rights", ademand encouraged by the United Na¬tions Universal Declaration of Human
Rights of 1948. In South Africa thismeant a demand for equality of oppor¬tunity on the social and economicfront and was thus a direct threat to
white privileges.
The Nationalist Party came to powerin 1948 on an appeal which rested al¬
most entirely on its promise to safe¬guard and, if necessary, strengthen"white supremacy." In its public state¬ments the Government identified this
political, economic and social policywith the ideology of "apartheid" whichwas described in the 1947 Election
Manifesto of the National Party as
follows: "In general terms our policyenvisages segregating the most impor¬tant ethnic groups and sub-groups intheir own areas where every group willbe enabled to develop into a self-suffi¬cient unit. We endorse the general
principle of territorial segregation ofthe Bantu and the Whites ... the Bantu
in the urban areas should be regardedas migratory citizens not entitled topolitical or social rights equal to thoseof the Whites. The process of detri-balisation should be arrested..."
F
8
ROM the beginning therewere two co-existing concepts of apart¬heid. One was that the races should
be completely segregated into self-sufficient territories. The other was
that apartheid was not to mean com¬plete territorial segregation but a morerigid enforcement of "non-white" social,economic and political inferiority. From1948 to 1965, the South AfricanGovernment moved in both directions.
On December 4, 1963, the Prime mini¬
ster, Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, statedthat ". . . we shall be able to prove that
it is only by creating separate nationsthat discrimination will in fact disappear
in the long run."
It is certain that some idealistic
"white" South Africans hoped that theincipient conflict in the South African
situation would be resolved by apart¬heid. Further, many hoped that whilethe political and economic aspirationsof the "African" majority and the"coloured" and "Asian" minorities
would be met by "separate develop¬ment" the privileges of a "white" SouthAfrica would be guaranteed.
The creation of Bantustans "Black
Homelands" from the scattered reser¬
ves and the establishment of the Trans¬
kei as an example of a semi-autono¬
mous state, are steps in this "separatedevelopment."
I T is not necessary here togo into the Government's case forindependent Bantustans or the case
against it. It is sufficient to note thereport of the United Nations' SpecialCommittee on Apartheid in South Afri¬ca, September 13, 1963: "These moves
are engineered by a Government inwhich the African people concernedhave no voice and are aimed at the
separation of the races and the denialof rights to the African population insix-sevenths of the territory of theRepublic of South Africa in return forpromises of self-government for theAfricans in scattered reserves which
account for one-seventh of the terri¬
tory. These reserves contain less thantwo-fifths of the African population ofthe Republic, while many of the Afri¬cans in the rest of the country arelargely detribalised and have littleattachment to the reserves . . . The
creation of Bantustans may, therefore,be regarded as designed to reinforcewhite supremacy in the Republic by
strengthening the position of tribalchiefs, dividing the African peoplethrough the offer of opportunities fora limited number of Africans and
deceiving public opinion."
One important step in any attemptedseparation of the races was the enforc¬
ed removal of people of differing raceswho had lived closely together.
The Population Registration Act of1950 with its later amendments provid¬ed for the classification of the South
African population into three main
groups: white, coloured and African
the Asians constituting a sub-group inthe coloured group. This classificationwas fundamental to the whole Govern¬
ment policy of "separateness" foreach "race".
Control of the freedom of movement
of Africans has been achieved through
the "Pass Laws." A system of PassLaws was in effect before the Natio¬
nalist Party came to power; however,these laws varied from province to
province. Some classes of "Africans"were exempted from carrying them,and in the Cape, while they existedin theory, they were in practice no
longer required.
The Natives (Abolition of Passesand Co-ordination of Documents) Act,1952, repealed previous laws. Hence¬forth all Africans were required to
possess a "reference book" whichcontains detailed information about the
holder, including a space for effluxand influx control endorsements. Fail¬
ure to produce the "reference book"on demand is a criminal offence.
Between July 1, 1963, and June 30,1964, 162,182 Africans had been pro¬
secuted for failing to register or toproduce these documents.
The Natives (Urban Areas) Consoli¬dation Act of 1945 and its amend¬
ments together with the Bantu LawsAmendment Act, N° 42, provided forthe compulsory residence in locations,native villages or hostels of Africanswithin an urban area. It regulatedthe entry of Africans into the areasand the place of their settlement. Thepresence of an African in a prescribed
area for more than 72 hours is subjectto severe restrictions. To take up
work he must get permission from alabour bureau, and to visit the area
permission must be sought from alabour officer.
SOME Africans are exempt¬
ed from these restrictions; for example,
those continuously resident in the areasince birth (who must provide proofthat they are entitled to be there.) But
even Africans who qualify to remainin a prescribed area may be deemed"idle" or "undesirable" and then be
ordered out of the area, forfeiting
their residential rights. Moreover,there seems to be some confusion as
to what the exemptions are and to
whom they apply.
The Group Areas Act has been fol¬lowed by a list of Group Area Decla¬rations setting aside areas for theexclusive occupation of one or otherpopulation group. This Act has beenimplemented in spite of repeated reso¬
lutions by the General Assembly.
The proclamations issued in October1963 involved in Durban alone the
eviction of nearly 10,000 families, thegreat majority of them Indians. In
The Extension of
University Education Act1959 proposed to replaceattendance of non-whites
at the universities
which until then were opento all races byinstitutions for the
different groups :Africans, Asians andcoloureds, each with itsown university, theAfricans being furtherdivided according totribal origins. TheUnesco report finds that"neither enrolments,
nor degrees awarded,justify the statement thatestablishment of Ethnic
Group Colleges hasprovided increaseduniversity facilities fornon-whites." While 144
Africans obtained degreesin 1956 and 182 in 1961,there were only 105in 1962.
Outside Durban University(right), white andAfrican students protestagainst racialdiscrimination. This
demonstration took placeten years ago ; todayit would be an extremelyrisky undertaking. Thenew laws are so
stringent that allparticipants could bearrested and detained
without charge fornearly six months.
1964 the declarations were designedto resettle virtually all of the 38,000 In¬dians on the Rand.
Ejection orders are not confined tosituations in which there may be adegree however small of mixedresidential districts; the orders were
framed to force non-whites out of the
town centres and to resettle them on
the outskirts. Thus, the joint minis¬terial statement of February 1966declared District Six one of the oldest
sections of Cape Town which hadbeen populated by coloured residentsfor over 300 years, as a "white" area.A coloured population of over 20,000was to be forced to move.
In spite of the ideology of apartheid,in spite of the uprooting of thousandsof families, the complete separation of
peoples into tribal and ethnic groupingsin South Africa has proved impossible.The closely integrated economic struc¬ture, the location of all the major
industries, all the mineral wealth, all
the important harbour facilities and allthe best arable land in that part ofSouth Africa which is outside the
reserves in white ownership has meantthat Africans as well as "coloureds"
and "Asians" remain dependent on
the town and farming complex of"white" South Africa for a livelihood.
Even the Government's attempt to en
courage African-owned small-scaleindustries in the Transkei has come up
against the relative poverty of the area,the comparative lack of natural resour¬ces and the lack of accumulated
capital.
For good or ill, "white" and "non-white" South Africa remain economi¬
cally interdependent. If the non-whitesneed the job opportunities at presentavailable in "white" South Africa, so
white South Africa could not maintain
its present industrial and agriculturalproduction nor the present highstandard of living without non-whitelabour. In fact, whatever the stated
policy of the Government, there has
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
9
In 1961 an Indian, Dr Dorasamy Chetty,
a graduate of the University of theWitwatersrand (South Africa) and theLondon School of Hygiene and TropicalMedicine, with many years of experienceon malaria eradication programmes inthe Far East with the World Health
Organization, was unable to obtain apost in South Africa where he couldpractice and teach preventive medicine.
' In 1962, "in terms of Government policy,
a highly qualified African doctor wasrefused an appointment to the Liv¬ingstone Hospital for non-whites in PortElizabeth because in his post he wouldhave had several whites working under
him" (A Survey of Race Relations,Johannesburg, 1963).'
From the Unesco Reporton Apartheid
These Indian women (photo right),officially classified in the so-called"Asian" racial group, were forced,with their families, to leave the cityand shift to the districts specificallyallotted to their group. Photo far right:Johannesburg (1,100,000 inhabitants)is the largest city in South Africaand the most important industrialand commercial centre.
A COUNTRY DIVIDED (Continued)
Photo Holmes-Lebel
10
been an increasing number of Africansadmitted to urban areas.
Between 1962 and 1964 the Afri¬can population of Johannesburg in¬creased from 609,100 to 706,389; the
number of African men employed inDurban increased from 74,500 in 1946
to 136,000 in 1965. In the Western
Cape, the number of Africans em¬ployed by local authorities, the Pro¬vincial Administration, Public Service
Departments, agriculture and industryincreased from 1963 to 1964 by 7.5 %
(from almost 77,000 to a little under83,000) and increasing numbers werebeing recruited for employment throughthe labour bureaux in the Transkei.
The main push of apartheid hastherefore been in the direction of more
rigid racial discrimination, with growinginequalities in opportunities.
As could be expected, the policy ofapartheid has given rise to opposition.There have been protests, demonstra¬tions and riots from the non-whites,
while among whites opposition to the
Number of Africans admitted to and endorsed out of
during 1964 and the first three months
Admitted
the
of
main urban areas
1965
Endorsed out
Men Women
84,258 13,983
19,159 3,855
Men Women
1964 156,352 18,747
First 3 months 1965 44,409 5,133
Government's policy has ranged fromcriticism to more political involvement.
A minority can hardly succeed inpreserving its absolute supremacy inall spheres without the use of force.It is therefore not surprising that theimplementation of the policy of apart¬heid has been accompanied by an
abuse of police power, a disregard forthe integrity of the individual and cen¬sorship of the press.
The real or imagined fear of coun¬ter-violence, has led those in powerto a multiplication of proceduresaimed at strengthening the system ofapartheid by destroying opposition.
Again and again during the post¬war period, attention has been called tothe situation in South Africa with regard
to civil rights. One need only brieflydraw attention to the 90-day detentionclause in the General Law Amendment
Act, 1963, which when it was with¬
drawn was in fact replaced by the Cri-
Photo © Paul Almasy, Paris
minai Proceedure Amendment Act.
Under this Act the Attcrney Generalmay issue a warrant for arrest and de¬tention for a maximum of six months
(180 days) of a person who is likelyto give evidence for the State in any
criminal proceedings with respect tocertain offences, as long as that deten¬tion is deemed to be in the interest of
such a person or of the administration
of justice.
The International Commission of
Jurists observed: "This must be one of
the most extraordinary powers that
have ever been granted outside aperiod of emergency. It authorizes thedetention of an innocent person against
whom no allegations are made and nosuspicion even exists; it authorizesdetention in the absolute discretion of
the Attorney General. It denies thedetainee access to a lawyer without
special permission; and it precludesthe courts from examining the validity
Of the detention even within the al¬
ready very wide powers of the Act.
"It further authorizes the subjectionOf the detained witness to solitary con¬finement for a period of six monthsand, with the object, inter alia of
excluding, 'tampering with or intimida¬tion' of any person, places him in asituation where he Is in the almost
uncontrolled power of the police whoalso have an interest in the evidence
he may give."
There are, too, the peculiar techni¬
ques of banishing, or listing persons,and of banning.
Banishment is an action which can
be taken against Africans. The NativeAdministration Act empowers the StatePresident, whenever he deems it expe¬
dient in the public interest, withoutnotice to order any tribe, portion oftribe or individual African to move to
any stated place. Banishment hasbeen used, i.a, to remove from the
reserves persons who have been active
opponents of chiefs or of certainGovernment measures.
In addition, emergency regulations
for the Transkei provide that any per¬
son suspected of committing anoffence under the regulations of anylaw, or of intending to do so, or ofpossessing information about anoffence may be arrested without war¬rant and held in custody until the
police or prison authorities are satis¬fied that they have fully and truth¬
fully answered all relevant questionsput to them. The offences include:holding a meeting of more than tenAfricans unless with special permission
(church services and funerals areexempted), making any statement or
performing any action likely to havethe effect of interfering with the autho¬
rity of the State, one of its officials, ora chief or headman, or boycotting an
official meeting.
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
11
A COUNTRY DIVIDED (Continued)
Salary of Africans : one-seventh that of whites
12
The person held in custody underthese regulations may not consult alegal adviser without the consent ofthe Minister of Bantu Administration
and Development.
Between January and April 1966, a
total of sixty-two Transkeians weredetained by the South African autho¬rities.
Under the Suppression of Commu¬nism Act, 1950, amended in 1962, a
person might be listed as member oractive supporter of the Communist
Party of South Africa (banned in 1950)or of any other organizations deemedunlawful (as the African National Con¬gress, the Pan-African Congress andthe African Resistance Movement.)In 1962 a list of 437 names of persons,129 whites and 308 non-whites, was
published in the Gazette. At a later
date some were removed from the list;
others were added. The publicationof the names is merely for publicinformation, having no direct legalconsequences.
However, the Minister of Justice is
empowered to take certain actions
against a listed person. It should bementioned that the same actions mightbe directed against certain other cate¬gories, too, as persons convicted ofactions deemed to have furthered the
aims of Communism. Banning ordersof the most varying character might beserved. Thus, a person might be pro¬hibited from becoming or being a mem¬ber of specified organizations or orga¬nizations of a specified nature.
Further, a person may be prohibitedfrom attending gatherings of any kind,including social gatherings. Bans pro- 'hibiting persons from attending gather¬ings are rather frequent. With certainexceptions it is an offence to record,
publish, or disseminate any speech,utterance or writing made anywhere atany time by a person under such ban.
In addition a banning order may implythat the person concerned is prohibitedfrom absenting himself from any statedplace or area, may be confined to atown or a suburb, may be confined tohouse arrest for a certain number of
hours, and on public holidays. It issometimes required that the personshall remain at home for 24 hours each
day.
The publication of particulars in theGazette contains the date of deliveryof notice and the date on which notice
expires. The period varies, often itis one or two years, and sometimesfive years.
At the beginning of 1964, 257 per¬sons were subject to restrictions underthe Suppression of Communism Act.
The United Nations Special Com¬mittee on the policy of Apartheid inthe Republic of South Africa gave thenumber of persons "banned" asapproximately 600 in 1966.
While Unesco is not directly con¬cerned with the economic and political
aspects of apartheid in the Republicof South Africa, the policy of apart¬heid has consequences for education,science, culture and the dissemination
of information consequences which
follow logically from the philosophicalconcept of man as conceived of by the
ideology of "apartheid", from the eco¬nomic inequalities which the policycreates and reinforces, and from the
political situation which severelycurtails freedom for all South Africans,
and in particular for the non-white
South Africans who form the majorityof the country's population.
N conformity with the ¡dealof "separateness," Africans, Asians,coloured and whites are educated as
independent groups within the popula¬tion, the "separateness" emphasized bythe administrative structure of educa¬
tion, by methods of finance, by diffe¬rences in syllabuses, and by differentlevels of achievement deliberatelyimposed to fit in with different expecta¬
tions in employment. Ultimately educa¬tion is geared for the effective prepara
tion of the Africans for their future
occupations as unskilled labourers.
Higher training is intended only for thesmall number of persons who can beemployed in skilled work in African"homelands" or African "developmentschemes."
The result of racial discrimination
in education and in the pattern of em¬ployment is seen clearly in the fieldof science. South Africa is facing achronic shortage of top-level man¬power in science and technology aswell as in management. The shortagecannot be remedied by relying on thewhite population alone. Moreover, thegeneral repressive atmosphere is ini¬mical to the development of a spirit
.of free enquiry and has led to the lossto South Africa of some scientists of
great eminence, particularly ¡n thefield of the social sciences. The poli¬tical atmosphere has also affected
recruitment of staff, particularly fromuniversities in the United Kingdom.
"Separate development" in the fieldof culture has reduced to a minimum
all contacts between whites and non-
whites that are not purely of an eco¬nomic nature. As in all other fields,
"separate development" is in factsynonymous with "inequality ofaccess", but moreover, cultural apart¬ness, as opposed to cultural interac¬tion for which Unesco stands, has
limited the creative possibilities of allSouth Africans.
Africans Coloured Asians Whites
Distribution of South African
population according to racialgroups 12,162,000 1,742,000 533,000 3,395,000
Income per capita 1960
Average salaries in mining, 1963
Average salaries in manufactur¬ing, 1963
87 Rands
(1)152
422
346
44.40 »
109 Rands
458
660
603
City:168
Non-City:138
147 Rands
458
660
884
City:168
Non-City:138
952 Rands
2,562 »
2,058 »
1,694 «
360 »
Public Service, 1963
Maximum old age pension rates(per annum)
Infant mortality rates. Numberof infants under 1 year of ageper 1,000 live births 1963
no figuresgiven 126.9 44.7 29.0
Percentage increase or de¬crease of T.B. rates in 1963over 1962 children under
5 years plus 20.3 plus 7.5 minus 16.8 minus 7.0
(1)1 South African Rand = $ / .40
That policy cannot be separated fromprinciple is illustrated by the fact that,whilst the South African Government
in its statements continues to uphold
the right to freedom of information, theneed to enforce the policy of apartheid
has affected the relevant legislationand its application, the actions takendenying in fact the principle of free¬dom of information.
Apartheid is not only not an admis¬sible answer to racial and group con¬flict but is itself the major source ofthis conflict. This is most serious in
relationships between whites and non-
whites, but the very heightening ofgroup awareness, which is part of theaims of the apartheid system, should
per se intensify hostilities betweenAfrikaner and English-speaking SouthAfrica, and, by the separation of Afri¬cans into self-contained tribal units,
create a tribal nationalism leading toincreased inter-tribal rivalry.
The image of man to whateverethnic group he belongs or is made apart of which results from the policyof apartheid in South Africa, is animage which is clearly the opposite ofthe one to which the community ofnations is ethically and legally dedi¬cated.
THE ill effects of apartheid
are not confined to the situation within
South Africa; "the practice of apart¬heid and all other forms of racial dis¬
crimination constitute a threat to inter¬
national peace and security and are acrime against humanity," as stated inthe Resolution on "Unesco's tasks in
the light of the resolutions adopted bythe General Assembly of the UnitedNations at its 20th session on ques¬tions relating to the liquidation of colo¬nialism and racialism," which was
adopted by the General Conference atits 14th session (Nov. 1966).
The Secretary-General of the UnitedNations emphasized in an address onFebruary 3, 1964: "There is the clearprospect that racial conflict, if we can¬not curb and finally eliminate it, willgrow into a destructive monster com¬
pared to which the religious or ideolo¬gical conflicts of the past and presentwill seem like small family quarrels . . .This, for the sake of all our children,
whatever their race and colour, must
not be permitted to happen."
The group of experts, established bythe Security Council Resolution ofDecember 4, 1963, warned that "a race
conflict starting in South Africa mustaffect race relations elsewhere in the
world, and also, in its international
repercussions, create a world dangerof first magnitude."
LU
o."
THE INVISIBLE WALL. That the Informal and personal contacts between people and pri¬vate entertaining are important in the ordinary daily living together of any people no-onewill deny. The extent to which they can take place in South Africa is limited by the regu¬lations governing eating together outside of the home, staying overnight in named areasor in getting permission to visit "locations". It would be impossible for a racially mixedgroup of South Africans to have tea or coffee together in any public place in the Republic.Besides this, the whole atmosphere of mistrust between people, the basic suppositionsof the superiority and inferiority of racial groups, the difficult political problems, thesuspicion that Government-paid informers exist make meaningful human relationships notonly across colour groups, but within groups themselves, difficult to maintain. As longas the present situation continues, one thing is certain South African culture (for whitesand non-whites) will become increasingly less creative.
From the Unesco Report on Apartheid
13
Since 1964, the presence of an Africanin a "white" district for more than72 hours has been severely restricted.Wives and children of Africans workingin these districts may not live withtheir husbands or fathers unless theyhave resided continuously in the samedistrict previously. Visits between hus¬bands and wives residing in separatedistricts are limited to a maximum of72 hours unless otherwise authorised.
From the Unesco Report on Apartheid
THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID
ON CULTURE
The price
segregationby Atan Patón
m
ALAN PATÓN was born ¡n 1903 in
the province of Natal, South Africa. Hisfamous novel "Cry, the Beloved Country"(1948), which was translated into 18languages and published in 22 countries,earned him world-wide renown. An opera,"Lost in the Stars", and a film were basedon this book which gives a movingaccount of the conflicts and crises
arising from racial segregation in SouthAfrica. Paton's second novel, "Too Latethe Phalarope" deals with the attitudes ofthe Afrikaners. All his books, somefifteen novels and studies, have beenpublished outside South Africa, in Englandor the United States. They include "SouthAfrica and her People" (1957), "TheChristian Approach to Racial Problemsin the Modern World" (1959), 'Hope forSouth Africa" (1959), "Tales from a Troubl¬ed Land" (1961) and "South AfricanTragedy ; the Life and Times of JanHofmeyr" (1965). Alan Paton was amongthose who formed the Liberal Associationof South Africa which became the
Liberal Party of which he is President.The Liberal Party re/ects the racialtheories used to justify white supremacyand aims at equal rights for all SouthAfricans regardless of their ethnic groups.
Photo © Jonathan Cape Ltd., London
Photo © Ian Berry - Magnum
T,HE policy of apartheid, orSeparate Development as it is nowmore grandly called, has as one of itsmain aims the preservation of thecultures of each of the racial groupsin South Africa,' the safeguarding ofeach culture from contamination by theothers, and presumably the develop¬ment of each of these cultures "alongits own lines". Apartheid has novision whatsoever of a South African
culture, enriched by contributions fromits Afrikaners, its Africans, its Colouredpeople (that is, those of mixed blood,Malay, Hottentot, and European strains
i
A ^
fl
|
amongst others), its white English-speaking people, its Hindus andMuslims and Jews. These streams
must not flow into a river, they mustnot even flow into the sea, they mustflow parallel to one another for everand ever.
Nor does apartheid envisage agroup of distinct racial cultures con¬tinually enriching themselves andothers by fruitful exchanges. In factthe purpose of legislation is to preventthis from happening. It is now againstthe law for a mixed (1) audience ofwhites and non-whites, even with
segregated seating, to attend theballet, the concert, the opera, thetheatre, without a special permit fromthe governmental authorities.
Hardly a day passes without newsthat a permit for this or that event hasbeen refused. The most recent
example of this is the refusal to allowAfricans to attend the quinquennial
(/) The adjective "mixed" in this article,when used of teams, audiences, and other
groups, means that white and non-whitepeople are associated as co-players, co-performers, co-spectators, etc.
showing of the Oberammergau PassionPlay in the city of Durban. TheGovernment is prepared however tolet the all-white cast present aseparate performance for Africans, butit would almost certainly not beprepared to allow the producer of theplay to use a non-white actor for thepart of Simon of Cyrene. Nor can acoloured opera group use a whitesinger without permit.
It would be tiresome to retail the
thousand-and-one permutations andcombinations for which permits wouldbe required. The whole thing is an
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
15
THE PRICE OF SEGREGATION (Continued)
'Like walking blindfold through a minefield'
immense fatuity, irrational and derisible,with an element of cruelty that isinevitably present when one race groupassumes the task of preserving thecultures of others.
The same fatuity characterises theGovernment attitude towards sport.Spectators in segregated seating may,if a permit is granted, witness cricket,soccer, rugby, football, tennis, andother games, but no mixed team canvisit the country. Nor can any mixedteam be formed in the country, exceptpresumably to play on some privateground, nor can a team of one raceplay against a team of another racewithout a permit.
The reader must note, however, thatthis would not apply if the two mono-racial teams were both white; it is the
element of colour that is the importantconsideration. It will therefore be
seen that apartheid or separatedevelopment is not solely concernedwith the preservation of culturaldifferences; it is equally concernedwith the preservation of racialdifferences, and above all, of course,
with the preservation of white racialpurity, such as it is after a period ofthree centuries.
Again hardly a day passes withoutnews that sports apartheid is beingmore and more rigidly enforced.
The South African golfer Mr. PapwaSewgolum is of Indian descent, but hecan no longer play in any open golftournament. He can therefore no
longer win prizes, and must rely oncharity to enable him to golf abroad,for example, in Holland, of whoseOpen Tournament he has been thewinner on two occasions.
The Government has alreadyannounced that if Mr. Basil D'Oliviera,
a South African coloured man livingin England, is selected to play forEngland in cricket in 1968, the teamwill not be allowed to enter South
Africa.
As I write this, it has just beenannounced that Mr. Ronnie van der
Walt, a leading South African boxerwho has been fighting in "white"boxing for 12 years, has now beenclassified as a coloured man. When
interviewed by newspaper men, hebroke down and wept. His tears willbring no relief; the Government willgo ahead with its task of creating ahappy and harmonious community outof the unhappinesses of individual menand women.
The people who suffer most fromthese restrictions are those Africans,Indians, and Coloured people who areeager to enjoy and to learn moreabout Western music, ballet, theatre,and opera. Such people are incident¬ally characterized by their quietbehaviour. They do not go to concertsand plays to demonstrate, they go tohear and enjoy and learn. Theirnumbers are in general not great, sothat they are unable to organize suchoccasions for themselves. In anyevent it appears to me impossible forany non-Westerner, except the mostexceptional, to make much progress inthe understanding of Western cultureunless he is in touch with those who
are part of it.
In 1948 apartheid, though it certainlyexisted, had not yet been translated
This sign at the entranceto St. George's AnglicanCathedral, Cape Town,was erected in 1957
when the South African
Parliament, in session afew streets away, passedthe Native Laws
Amendment Act one
clause of which forbids
people of different racesto worship together.This sign has since beenreplaced by a muchlarger one, statingthe same message inEnglish, Afrikaans andHäuser. For an article
on apartheid andthe church, see page 33.
Greatly against the desires ofthe parents, primary educationis given in the vernacular,whereas parents want it inEnglish. As the Unesco Reporton Apartheid in South Africastates, this serves "to reinforcethe linguistic, social andcultural isolation of the African
population within the countryas well as from the world at
large." Left, a school in theCapetown area.
Photo Francos - Holmes - Lebel
into the formidable body of law themaking of which has occupiedso much of the time and energy ofsuccessive Parliaments. Cultural con¬
tacts between and among SouthAfricans of different races were
steadily increasing. It would almostappear that South Africans weregrowing in cultural awareness of oneanother.
This tide has now been halted and
is in fact receding. Yet one hears thepreposterous suggestion that thechildren in rigidly segregated schoolsshould be taught to appreciate andunderstand the children of other races.
They are in fact to be taught to loveothers, while being strictly forbiddento play or eat or have any meaningfulrelationship with them.
Apartheid has a crippling effect onthe art of writing. I give it as myconsidered opinion that any play orwork of fiction which dealt with anyracial topic or any act of injustice ina way uncongenial to the government,would today, have little chance ofpassing the governmental organ knownas the Publications Control Board,
whose powers are very far-reaching.I add that such a work need not be
brought before the Board, but thatfew publishers or producers would riska ban after publication or production.
It could of course be said that the
banning of publications has nothing todo with apartheid, but in fact thebanning of publications is directed asmuch against books dealing with racialtopics and injustices as it is againstthe flood of pornographic trash whichwould pour into the bookstalls.
The real purpose of publicationscontrol is shown by the attitudeof censors towards "Selma", thatdistasteful tale of the freedom fightersin the Deep South. Any novel dealingwith love or sex affairs between black
and white (unless it does so withconsiderable restraint, as in my ownnovel "Too Late the Phalarope") wouldnever be allowed to enter South Africa.But "Selma" was allowed to enter
because it showed freedom fightersas unsavoury characters; who wouldwant integration if these are the peoplewho fight for it?
One must not think that apartheidand authoritarian control of thoughtand education are separate entities.
They are one and the same thing.Without authoritarian control there
could be no apartheid. Both ofthem powerfully influence the culture.Some years ago African educationwas largely in the hands of missionarybodies, who gave what one couldgenerally describe as a liberaleducation. Today, with the exceptionof the Transkei, it is firmly in the handsof the Bantu Education Department.
Greatly against the desires of theparents, primary education is given inthe vernacular, whereas parents wantit to be in English. They believe, anduniversity teachers confirm, that theirchildren are retarded by one or twoyears by this vernacular teaching.What is more, they want their sons anddaughters to be at home in theWestern, or shall we call it the modern,
world. They (though not oftenpublicly) deride the idea that theirculture must be preserved by othersand say that they will preserve whatthey choose to.
Ihere are already signs
that the Government would like to
exercise a tighter control over theeducation of white children also, which
at the moment is controlled by theprovincial administrations. Althoughwhite unity is thought to be necessaryin the face of threats from within
and without, Afrikaans-speaking andEnglish-speaking children are educatedin separate schools. They may laterco-operate in commerce, industry, andother spheres, but during theirimpressionable years they must bekept apart. The government has alsogiven signs that it is preparing toexercise greater control over universityaffairs.
Finally, apartheid has had acalamitous effect on that part of culturewhich has to do with moral ideas.
Here I shall confine myself to the moralideas of the white population.Apartheid, because it has beenelevated to the status of the supremevalue, has wrought devastationamongst the other values. The rule oflaw is one of the outstandingcasualties; people are banned,banished, and detained in solitaryconfinement for periods up to 180 dayswithout any recourse to the courts of
law. White South Africa, withlaudable exceptions, accepts thisprocedure on the grounds that suchpeople "must have been up tosomething"
Certainly the proposition that theend justifies the means is not nowmuch debated. Such things as therule of law, university autonomy,parental rights to choose the languagein which children are educated, thefreedom of the churches, have allsuffered erosion. The value of anythought, any activity, is officially judgedby one criterion and one alone doesit further or does it impede the causeof apartheid.
The Press, especially the Englishlanguage, is under continuous fire.Although as yet no direct steps havebeen taken to curb it, the editing ofa paper is, in the words of one of our
leading editors, "like walking blind¬fold through a minefield".
Therefore although one of the mainaims of apartheid is to develop thecultures separately, its effect is toossify them separately, and to makethem resistant to the entrance of new
ideas. Whether the State will be in
the long run successful in maintainingits hold on culture, or whether culturehas some inherent and independentlife of its own, remains to be seen.
One takes hope from the knowledgethat there are South Africans of all
races who reject apartheid as agigantic self-deception, who rejectwhat is called the "traditional way oflife", who speak and write openly, andboldly present their ideas for theconsideration and criticism of youngergenerations, though it may bedangerous for them to do so.
Nor should one overlook the fact
that despite the laws and theconventions, and despite the attemptto preserve the separate racialcultures, a great deal of culturalassimilation has already taken place,and though attempts are made toreverse the process (as in making thevernacular the medium of school
instruction), there are grounds forbelieving that they will not besuccessful. The forces that make for
apartheid and those that make forassimilation will continue to fight eachother, in a struggle that is as old asSouth Africa itself.
17
COLOUR MAKES THE JOB
During the past five years there are records of only three non-whiteengineering graduates from South African universities.
The Government may prohibit the replacement of employees of onerace by those of another race, may reserve certain types of jobs topersons of a specific race. The Government in introducing this legisla¬tion indicated that it was intended to protect the "white" labour forceagainst the infiltration of non-whites into skilled labour. The TradeUnions have become one of the strongest supporters of a job reser¬vation policy, and its corollary "white supremacy", in the social andeconomic spheres.
From the Unesco Report on Apartheid
By interfering with their freedomof movement and residence, says an
International Labour Organisation reportSouth African law tends to compelnon-whites to take up the least attractivjobs. Above, an African workerarrives at a diamond mine. South Africa
is the second largest producer ofdiamonds in the world.
Only the whites are eligiblefor highly skilled work orexecutive positions. Left, aninterview in the personnelbureau of a diamond mine.
Each evening (right), the minershand in at a window the diamonds
extracted during the day. Minersare stringently controlled to prevent thestones from being smuggled out.When their employment comes toan end, the miners are carefully searched.This man (far right) has been searchedand is about to be X-rayed.Additionally, non-white workers areobliged to live within the actual areaof the mine throughout their employment.
Photos © Ian Berry - Magnum
o é
THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON CULTURE
The forbidden dialogueby Lewis Nkosi
T
20
HE profoundest, most com¬
pelling impulses of South Africansociety have always been, and stillare, toward amalgamation. This isperhaps the fact least frequently notedabout South Africa even by those most
opposed to the doctrine of apartheid;but it is a fact which I think ought tobe set down straightaway not onlybecause it is true and evidence can be
adduced to support it, but because a
great deal of the legislative programmeof the Nationalist Party Governmentsince 1949 cannot be properly under¬
stood without taking this fact intoaccount.
It has also become fashionable in
writing about South Africa to empha¬size the incompatibility of black andwhite interests; yet left to their owndevices the races have always tendedto move closer, albeit unconsciously,
toward some form of integration.
Surely the most glaring proof of thisfact lies in the economic sphere; butless obvious is a similar impulse at
work in the social sphere, which,however denied and deeply buried,continues to reaffirm itself and to agi¬
tate toward complete expression.
The very strong attempts to separatethe races by legislation, by force ifnecessary, shows how strong thisimpulse is. And how natural. TheState therefore feels compelled to uti¬
lise all its energies toward erecting
barriers against the secret, often deni¬ed but natural tendency toward inte¬gration; and it is my view that such anoccupation by the State is not only ofdoubtful value but that it is positivelyharmful to the cultural life of the
country.
That the blacks suffer untold hard¬
ships as a price for the maintenanceof the policy of apartheid is a factthat cannot be denied even by theproponents of apartheid. How oftenhas one been told that a certain amount
of hardship and injustice is inevitableduring the transitional period leadingto that perfect state of race separationin which all races will enjoy true well-
being and in which they will experiencedeep spiritual and material satisfac¬tion?
What is not always noted is that,though economically exploitative asa ruling class, the whites are alsosubject to certain very real deprivationsas a result of their determination to
live by a policy which would seemto all reasonable men not only unrealis¬tic but insane.
To say the very least, South Africanwhites are the most culturally deprivedcommunity in Africa. Emotionally theyare just as stunted. White South Afri¬cans cannot express certain emotions
which come naturally to most healthypeople simply because the State hasdecided that the expression of suchemotions is subversive of the very
foundations of White Supremacy.
As a result they not only grow updenying their innermost dreams, theyalso learn to do without some of the
best works of modern world culture
(in literature, music, painting and intel¬lectual discourse) either because suchworks are considered subversive or
resuscitative of dreams that would be
better left covered, or because trafficin culture with the outside world is
rendered almost impossible by themaintenance of the policy of apartheid.
It must be remembered that a greatnumber of people active in the culturalarea are either non-white or white
people strongly opposed to a doctrineof apartheid. Thus the white commu¬
nity in South Africa is becoming almostas isolated in its privileged position as
are the blacks without privileges; fornot only must the blacks not see HarryBelafonte with a white girl in his armsin "Island in the Sun" but the whites
must not see Tony Curtis chained to
Sidney Poitier in the film, "The DefiantOnes."
Indeed, a great number of mod¬ern works of the best kind in the
post-war cinema are kept out of theRepublic of South Africa. The banningof books and plays thought to be con¬troversial is too well-known to need
reiteration. Under these circumstances
it would be surprising if the growth ofan indigenous South African culturewas not hampered and it would besurprising indeed if the fostering ofstandards on a par with the rest of theworld was not rendered almost impos¬sible.
However, let us take a closer lookat the effects of apartheid on the grow¬
ing indigenous culture in the countryitself. I think I can write more effecti¬
vely about an area in which I myselfam interested. That area happens tobe literature.
I t seems to me that bothblack and white writers are severely
impoverished by the limitations as wellas the schism existing in South Africannational life, by a certain lack of sharedassumptions or sense of common na¬tionhood, fostered by the persistentand ruthless application of the policyof apartheid.
For a black writer too much of his
emotional response is absorbed into
formulating his attitude toward apart¬heid or finding his place in the revo¬lutionary struggle; no matter where hegoes later on and no matter how boredhe is with politics he cannot be freeof the tragic burden of South Africauntil that country has freed its14,000,000 non-whites.
Yet there are times when a writer
must suspect that his revolt againstthe system is too easy, even glib, pre¬determined rather than arrived at out
of a singular personal anguish; and
LEWIS NKOSI, South African author andJournalist, was born in 1936 in Durbanwhere he was educated and later became
an editorial writer on the Zulu-Englishnewspaper "llanga Lase Natal" (NatalSun). He then joined the editorial staff of"Drum" and of "Golden City Post" inJohannesburg. In 1960 he was exiled bythe South African Government. In 1966
his collection of essays "Home and Exile"shared second prize with Ralph Ellison's"Shadow and Act" at the Dakar World
Festival of the Negro Arts. He now livesin London where he is literary editor of"The New African".
this revolt, so far as literature is con¬
cerned, must result in the formulation
of characters who are not only gliband standardized but whose only claimupon our imagination is that they arecaught in the apartheid mill. If weconfess ourselves bored with them we
then experience some guilt becausewe cannot be sure that we are not
becoming unduly callous.
At the same time it seems to me
that the blacks in South Africa, no
matter how deprived economically orpolitically, have a graver, far more res¬ponsible attitude toward life. Wherewhite South Africans must manufacture
dreams and fantasies in order to main¬
tain some equilibrium between what
they really are and what they thinkthey are, the blacks have to learn quiteearly to strip themselves of every illu¬sion.
With the hindsight of modern psy¬chology we all know what happensto people who cannot face up to thereality of their lives, who must live byevasions and fantasies; a greaterburden is placed on writers or anyother kind of artists who belong tosuch a community. Before they go onto create anything of value they mustmake an extraordinary effort to unlearneverything they have been taught.
To put it more simply, in SouthAfrica, they must, for instance unlearnwhat they are taught in schools: thatthe whites, from their forefathers to
the present generation, are all heroes,that the whites have the monopoly opmoral wisdom and intellectual enter¬
prise; the pain and the anguish whichattends the creative efforts of Afri¬
kaans writers at the moment is not a
matter for cynical amusement. It is anagony of creative artists who must
break through a sealed cocoon inorder to see the world in its various-
ness or even to say something remo¬tely relevant to their country.
Black writers do not have to make
any comparable moral choice; they donot have to choose to oppose a systemwhich is patently contrary to all ob¬servable reality; their colour makes thechoice for them; what they have todo is learn to survive the system.
What they are prevented from doingby a combination of circumstances is
exploring in depth that experiencewhich goes deeper than the presentapartheid setup, for there are timeswhen an affirmation of certain tradi¬
tional African values proves exasperat-ingly difficult for black writers since
most of them are reacting to an ideo¬logy which asserts again and againthat black and white people are irre¬concilably different; that the African
mind cannot grasp certain nuances ofEuropean thought; and, concludingfrom the foregoing, that apartheid isjustifiable, indeed, the only realisticpolicy to follow.
The result has been that black intel¬
lectuals in South Africa have had to
bend over backwards to prove that theycannot only master the modes of Euro¬
pean thought but that they can beatthe South African whites at their own
game.
In the process they have neglectedto. examine those modes of thought orcultural expression which are indige¬nous and have sustained masses of
their fellow Africans undergoing theprocess of urbanization. Consequently,urban African music seems to me to
have provided the only example ofwhat South Africa can offer culturallyif she were left to develop in a naturaldirection.
Music, because it is non-literal, is
not subject to the same limitations asliterature; it is hardly banned; also itis less self-conscious in the modes it
adopts to express the agony of theSouth African situation. The result has
been that popular urban African music
has provided a glaring paradigm of
what is happening to the undergroundlife of the nation.
The music is predominantly African,which is as it should be, consideringthe dominant numbers of Africans in
the country; but it is also eclectic; itprovides a moving illustration of cultu¬ral diffusion in that part of the continentwhich offers us the best laboratory forthe marriage of African and Europeantechniques and for the coming togetherof European and African modes of
expression. Indeed, the phrase "popu¬lar music" is meaningless if used in theEuropean sense of a music which offersus fantasies about life, for South Afri¬can urban music is nearer to the
blues.
hile black literature from
the Republic offers us glimpses intoan appalling situation of rare brutalityand anguish, the music not only showsus this but goes further to affirm what
we should have known all along thatthe oppressed in South Africa also
display an amazing form of resilience,emotional certitude and optimism. Onthe other hand, apartheid deprives
white South Africans of any real parti¬cipation in such robust forms of
cultural expression.In a short article of this nature one
cannot enlarge too much on this themebut there is just one more disturbingaspect trythe present cultural situationin SoutK Africa which must be touched
upon; and that is the fear of the written
word as well as the brutality practisedagainst it.
It seems to me impossible to dis¬
cuss culture without discussing lan¬guage; and language in the Repub¬lic of South Africa seems to be work¬
ing under the severest of strains.There are totalitarian regimes in the f\4world, of course, in which language is ¿\\subverted, debased, and made to serve
the interests of the regime by first
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
THE FORBIDDEN DIALOGUE (Cont.)
being raped and then being askedto declare love for that which it loathes.
George Orwell's essay on this subjectand more recently George Steiner'swritings on German literature areinstructive.
White South Africans are prevented
from "naming" those emotions whichthey may experience but which are notsanctioned by the State, or they areasked to give the opposite names towhat they truly feel. This is clearlyplaying havoc with language, some¬thing which is the very essence ofculture.
Consider, for example, what theSouth Africans mean by immorality. InSouth Africa a love affair between
black and white is regarded as unna¬tural; therefore a law has been put onthe Statute Book called "The Immo¬
rality Act" which has nothing to dowith immoral acts as we understand
them: it simply means black and whitecouples who feel love for one another,even if they wish to marry.
I
11
he legislation by whichAfrican students were deprived of
university education in the so-called"white universities" is called "The
Extension of University Education Act";the act by which the movement of theAfricans in urban areas was more
rigidly controlled was called "Abolitionof Passes and Co-ordination of Docu¬
ments Act.
I have to explain here that the Afri¬cans are compelled to carry identitydocuments called "passes" by whichtheir movements are controlled; there
have been more riots about "passes"in South Africa than about any otherissue.
Therefore naming legislation whichwas to secure a far more rigid controlof black people "Abolition of Passes"takes on a more sinister implication assoon as one remarks on that phrase"Co-ordination of documents" for in¬
deed one begins to wonder what isbeing "co-ordinated" if the law requir¬ing Africans to carry "passes" is beingabolished.
This kind of abuse of language isonly indicative of a certain malaisewhich is paralysing South African cul¬ture. It is also indicative of a malaise
which compels the young, more expe¬rimental Afrikaans writers to search
for a more poetic, transcendentalist,symbolic language in order to commenteven remotely on the South Africansituation. Otherwise it is doubtful
whether their writing, controlled as itis by the Afrikaans publishers, wouldever see the light of day. In this res¬pect both the literary pieces and thepaintings of a young Afrikaans writerlike Breyten Breytenbach become ofthe utmost significance (see p. 27).
Apartheid and the 'All Blacks'
A white team cannot compete against a non-white team, nor can a white sprinter run in
the same race as a non-white sprinter. The Government's policy of apartheid applies notonly to South African teams inside or outside South Africa but also to foreign teamsvisiting South Africa. The New Zealand "All Blacks" rugby team was due to visit SouthAfrica in 1967. New Zealand proposed to include in its team two Maoris. But the PrimeMinister of South Africa made a public statement: "Just as we' respect other people'scustoms so we expect that when other countries visit us they will respect ours and thatthey adapt themselves to our customs." The "All Blacks" decided not to tour SouthAfrica in 1967.
From the Unesco Report on Apartheid
DENNIS BRUTUS is a South African writer
banned from South Africa and now living inEngland. An outstanding sportsman (cricket,rugby, tennis, table tennis) he was founderand secretary of the South African SportAssociation and President of the South
African Non Racial Olympic Committeewhich, among other international demonstra¬tions of opposition to apartheid, obtained theexclusion of South Africa from the 1964
Tokyo Olympic Games. His struggle againstthe apartheid policy led to his arrest on anumber of occasions. A secondary languagesteacher for 14 years, he was forbidden toteach in 1961. In 1962, publication of hisliterary work was prohibited. In 1964-65 hedid 28 months hard labour after having beenwounded by the police during his arrest. Hisvolume of poems, "Sirens, Knuckles andBoots", won the Mbari prize for poetry in anall-Africa competition in 1962. He is 43.
THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON CULTURE
The seeds of wrathby Dennis Brutus
IeTO
u
I
Sports stadiums in predominantly whiteareas may in general be used by whitesonly. Exceptionally, permission may begranted to non-whites to attend majorevents provided separate seating is madeavailable. As far as minor events are
concerned, coloureds and Asians may beadmitted to grounds so situated that whiteresidents are not disturbed. Above: an
enthusiastic supporter at a rugby match.
HE world knows a greatdeal about apartheid. It knows it as arepressive political system whichdenies political representation to14,000,000 South Africans because
they are not white; it knows it as adivisive social system which keepspeople apart, dividing them ruthlesslyon rigid colour lines and punishingthose who try to cross these lines.But the effects of apartheid in termsof social behaviour and on cultural
development are less well known.
To understand the effects of apart¬
heid it is necessary to think of thedaily lives of the people and the waysin which their lives are regulated by
apartheid both in law and in socialconventions.
It means standing for hours in abus-queue, because there are too fewbuses specially set aside for black
people; it means having to pass thea¬tres and swimming pools with nothought of ever entering them, becausethey are set aside for white people;and because the restrictions extend to
the thoughts people think, and becausethe laws apply to both black andwhite, it means that all people in SouthAfrica are denied the right to readcertain books because the governmentbelieves them to be subversive of its
apartheid society.
Apartheid means that outstandingsportsmen like the cricketer BasilD'OIiviera, the footballer Steve Ma-
kone, the weightlifter Precious Mac¬kenzie could never represent their own
country because they were not white;that singers and actors like MiriamMakeba and Lionel Ngakane would berestricted because of their colour to
appearing in certain places and before
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
23
24
THE SEEDS OF WRATH (Continued)
certain audiences a coloured cast
could perform Verdi's "La Traviata"but no non-whites could attend a per¬
formance before the State President.
The list of restrictions is endless
these are only a few small examples.But what they add up to is an isolationof the people a division which breedsbitterness and hostility. At sportsevents, if white and black spectatorsare present, they support opposingsides and the result is friction so
much so that in many grounds onlywhite spectators are allowed.
Small things show the effects ofapartheid: When I tried to take my highschool pupils to the theatre because"King Lear" which was their prescribedwork was playing, they were turnedback: when, as part of my studies, Itried myself to see an Afrikaans play,the ticket sold to me in error was taken
from me and I was refused entry: oftenI have seen small children being
chased away from the swings in thepark playgrounds their only offencewas that they were black. And in thefew churches which white and black
can still attend together, the blackskneel at the back, go to Communionafter the whites.
It is illegal for white and black toplay chess together South Africacontinues to be a member of the World
Chess Federation in spite of this chessapartheid. And whites who tried toplay football in a team with blackmembers were prosecuted in thecourts.
Of course white and black live in
different areas and it is not difficult
to pick out the houses for blackspoor tin shacks, or at best, monoto¬nous cubes of cement built by the
council housing schemes.
And in a society where these uglybarriers exist, it is better to pretendthat they are not there. The result isthat the writers and poets of whiteSouth Africa are incapable of pro¬
ducing any work which truthfullyreflects their society; and so deep hasthis kind of blindness entered that no
work of any real worth has been pro¬duced in South Africa for many years.
Perhaps one might expect the writersamong the blacks, in a situation full oftension and bitterness and pain, toproduce works which live. But for
them apartheid presents another prob¬lem; to be frank is to be banned.
And so talented writers like Alex la
Guma were silenced by banning or¬ders, or others, like Alfred Hutchinson
and Bloke Modisane fled the countryto evade arrest. Some have faced
greater tragedy; for Nat Nakasa thepledge he was required to sign toleave his country and never return
proved too much; he committed suicidein New York.
Even white writers André Brink, for
instance who have dared to criticise,
or appear to criticise, the apartheidsociety have suffered. Their workshave been banned, or they have beensavagely attacked by the officialspokesmen of apartheid.
The failure of writers to write, or of
people to understand each other allthese are indications of the deeper
evil; the failure of communication. But
what is little understood by the outsideworld is that this is a failure legislatedfor. It is a failure which has been
deliberately designed.
It is the intention of those who have
constructed the apartheid society, andwho intend that it should endure indefi¬
nitely, that those who make up thesociety should be prevented from com¬
municating with each other. Black andwhite must be cut off from each other,
must be unable to communicate. It is
on this division that apartheid rests.This is the true meaning of apartheid.And it is this that inflicts the true terri¬
ble wound on South African society.
B,'UT the real damage is indaily human relations. I have seenwhite children standing in one of themixed buses rather than sit beside any¬one who was not white and this seems
to me so complete a rejection of an¬other human person that it goes muchfurther than the division and separation
enjoined by law. From this kind ofrejection comes a complete lack of anyfeeling of common humanity; the suff¬ering of a human being ceases to bereal because he has ceased to be a
real human being.
In an atmosphere like this, it is easyfor children at play to imagine them¬selves shooting a few blacks. It isequally easy for blacks to think ofmassacring whites in revenge for themany injustices they suffer.
This is the situation which has been
created in South Africa today. Thetensions are real, the threat of a vio¬
lent eruption constant. And this mustnot be thought of simply as somethingwhich the politicians say, or which isthe product of political factors or argu¬ments. It is a simple truth that human
relations between people have deterio¬rated so far, and have been so barri¬
caded against by apartheid laws, thatdialogue, understanding, friendshipall these are impossible.
This is the effect of apartheid in
terms of the society this is its all per¬vasive extent: it breeds, if it breeds
anything, hostility: often the result issimply the bitter sterility which willengender violence.
RONALD SEGAL, author and journalist, was
born in South Africa in 1932. After graduat¬
ing from the University of Cape Town, hetook a further degree at Cambridge, having
previously played a leading part in SouthArican student organizations. After a short
stay in the United States where he had afellowship at the University of Virgina, hereturned to South Africa and established the
quarterly "Africa South" which quickly becamean international front against racism. Nine
days after the Sharpeville shootings, Segalfled South Africa to escape arrest. He
settled in England where he published "AfricaSouth in Exile" until 1961 when he became
editor of Penguin Books' African library. In1963, he published his autobiography "Into
Exile". The following year he convened inLondon the International Conference on
Economic Sanctions against South Africa.His most recent book is "The Race War"
(Jonathan Cape, London, 45/-].
I T is piteous and appalling,the ecstasy in which all but a veryfew whites in South Africa pursuetheir own degradation. There arethose among the victims of apartheid,white and non-white, who consum¬mate themselves in their refusal to
submit, discovering in resistance acourage and a loyalty and a love thatseem1 the final meaning of humanity.
But inevitably apartheid degradesmany of its victims. There are thosewho give way under torture by thepolitical police, betraying their collea¬gues and so, desperately, themselves;there are those who take service with
their own subjugation, as informersand police, or like the docile chiefs
as administrative instruments, seekingsanctuary in a little power and a pre¬tended indifference to contempt; and
there are those, the still silent majority,who do not resist, and whose degra¬dation is their own shame, the vio¬
lence that they do, passively, to them¬selves. Yet these, the acquiescent,the betrayers, even the collaboration¬ists, are the afflicted; and theirawareness of affliction secures them
from that other, deeper degradation,the atrophy of the mind.
For there are those who afflict and
do not care, or deliberately cease to
know any longer enough to care. Inwhite South Africa the repugnantquickly becomes the ordinary; and theordinary, the ignored. A new law yet
further savaging the lives of the non-whites, in the cause of security orseparate racial development, stirs ashort rustle of consideration and then
settles into the unnoticed natural wayof life.
IHE emaciation of white
thought is everywhere evident. Theorgans of fundamental opposition havebeen suppressed or survive only under¬ground. The English-language news¬papers, once the source of a vociferousif superficial questioning, are now
overwhelmingly subservient to thedemands of white supremacy.
Where the persecution of a few boldjournalists and the steady encroach¬
ments of censorship have not suc¬ceeded, the prosperity of racial re¬pression has promoted an eager sur¬
render. Indeed, like the official parlia¬
mentary opposition, the bulk of theEnglish-language press has taken toattacking the government, when at all,for being too liberal and endangeringwhite rule by bothering about separatedevelopment for non-whites. Criticismis safe only if it is directed at clearer,closer, still more certain domination.
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
Photo © Ian Berry - Magnum
An old Afrikaner couple on May 31, 1961 when a republic was proclaimed and theUnion of South Africa, which had left the Commonwealth two months earlier, becamethe Republic of South Africa. Such were the country's reactions to the many criticismslevelled by other Commonwealth states at its apartheid policy.
25
THE DYING MINDS (Continued)
The South African BroadcastingCorporation engages in ever moreextravagant propaganda, with pro¬grammes on the Communist Menaceat home and 'abroad so contemptuous
of reality that only minds wasted overthe years can receive them without asense of outrage. There is no tele¬vision. The government long agodecided that television would requiretoo many imported programmes forthe security of white South Africanassumptions, and white South Afri¬cans have accepted, with a propersense of proportion, the sacrificerequired by the survival of their civi¬lization.
The cinema is heavily censored, andfilms which reflect a racial impartialityare either banned altogether or so cutas to become incoherent a drawback
of apparently small consequence, sincequeues still form to see them.
T,
26
HE English-language univer¬sities, especially the long unsegregatedones at Johannesburg and Cape Town,were once centres of intellectual rest¬lessness and resistance. But the non-
whites are being removed from the"open" universities to their own racial
and, for the Africans, separate tri¬bal institutions; the staff has beencowed by particular government inter¬vention, like the expulsion of thosenamed as Communists from teaching,and by the general intimidation ofdissent; and the diminishing numbersof disquieted students, the more out¬spoken of their leaders selected forsalutory persecution, satisfy themselveswith the formality of increasinglymeaningless protests or withdrawcompletely from public communicationto find their way through undergroundpassages of rebellion.
From the bookshops and the libra¬ries, private as well as public, dis¬appears an ever lengthening list ofbanned books, pamphlets and news¬papers, published abroad or once upona time legally in South Africa itself.Yet this is not sufficient to stop up theleaks of intellectual enquiry.
The government bans the morefeared of its opponents not only fromall gatherings, but from the publicationof any statement anywhere in thecountry. How much further can fearof the single mind, of the individualstruggle against the atrophy ofthought, be taken?
The truth is that fear is far more
profound within the white communitythan the non-white. The non-whites
fear the whites; the whites fear not
only the non-whites, but themselves.The Immorality Act has made sexualrelations between white and non-white
punishable by long imprisonment and,among whites, social horror. Yet thenumber of contraventions steadilymounts, with an embarrassing paradeof such responsible whites as DutchReformed Church clergymen and
Photo © Emil Schuitess - Rapho
A permanent curfew prohibits Africans from entering "white" urbandistricts between 1 1 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless they have the necessarypasses. Above, a Johannesburg street.
police brought before the courts.There is fear at the consequences foreven the pretence of white race purityin such flouting of the law, and deeperfear still at the consequences whichmight attend scrapping the law alto¬gether.
And who is white? After more than
300 years of miscegenation, few fami¬lies beyond first generation immigrantscan feel confident of a completelycolourless pedigree. The PopulationRegistration Act provides all SouthAfricans with compulsory racial classi¬fication and suitable identity cards sothat, as the Minister of the Interiordeclared in 1958, "To many a certaintyhas been given that they never hadbefore."
But fear is not removed by such offi¬cial adjudication; if anything it is for¬tified. For now there are formal enqui¬ries, with race tribunals, and whispersor unco-operative genes can soonenough cancel, beyond concealment,one classification for another.
Fear breeds, indeed, around the verysource of protection against fear.Whites who indulge only their imagin¬ation by supposing themselves of
interest to the political police, whoseviews are no less orthodox than the
conventions of parliamentary opposi¬tion can comfortably contain, refuse todiscuss, politics on the telephone oradmit any criticism of the governmentin private letters. The frenzy withwhich many whites pursue luxury andleisure their obsession with sport isinternationally remarked cries outtheir fear of the risks in any interestdemanding more of the mind.
The refusal to think at all offers
itself as the one escape route fromfear. For, surely, to think is to reco¬gnize the implications of racial repress¬ion, and to reject its capacity to sur¬vive in a sane world. And so white
South Africans perpetuate their privi¬leges by surrendering their minds, andin the name of civilization sacrifice
civilization's essence.
What is left is fear and the appetitefor domination, feeding insatiably uponeach other. If is the gangrene of huma¬nity, and its amputation is imperativeif the sickness is not everywhere tospread. History belongs to the victims,for their human purpose is in their verysuffering sustained.
THE EFFECTS OF APARTHEID ON CULTURE
The fettered spiritby Breyten Breytenbach
"I want to express by meansof the plague the suffocationfrom which we all suffered,and the atmosphere of men¬ace and exile in which we
all lived." (Albert Camus.)
THERE are certain concepts
and principles which, in the Republicof South Africa, must be stated and
restated until one is blue in the face.
This is necessary because of the con¬stant modification, erosion and exploi¬tation these concepts undergo in thecountry at the present time. To theextent that leaders and members of
the white community justify their lawsand actions and aspirations in terms of
the universally accepted meanings ofthese concepts and principles, thepretence must be shown up. One mustapply this constant debunking to nearlyevery form of organized human acti¬vity: education, legality and the laws,politics, the racial concept, the right towork, trade unions, private and public
BREYTEN BREYTENBACH is an Afrikaner
writer, poet and painter. He was born in1939 in South Africa and studied art at the
University of Cape Town. In 1960 he leftSouth Africa and travelled around the world.He now lives and works in Paris as a
painter. Exhibitions of his works have beenheld in several European countries and in theUnited States. A writer in Afrikaans, he isthe author of several collections of poemsand essays and a volume of short prosepieces entitled "Katastrofes".
business, travel, marriage and the freeassociation of individuals, etc. And, ofcourse, culture. And here, we touch
not only upon the organized manifes¬tation of culture, but also the right andfreedom of the individual to create,to entertain or be entertained, to think,
to express himself to laugh or to cry.
Culture, to me, is the uttering of anation's dreams, hopes, fears, fantasiesand desires. It is national insofar as
the individual or group of individualsformulating and expressing these, be¬long to a nation sharing a commonheritage, living in the same country,exploring a mutual present and mould¬ing a brighter future. Culture is theway in which the members of a nation
find themselves and their countrymen.It should never be a privilege the freeexpression of culture through the visualand performing arts and literature, andpolitically free access to cultural mani¬festations should be a right never evenquestioned. This is patently not thecase in South Africa.
Tribal white man has imposed a wayof life on the nation which has reduced
culture to folklore, or rather, has den¬
ied the progression from folklore toculture. Apartheid, which puts theaccent on and favours that which
distinguishes one group from another,inevitably means the glorification ofthe banal and the local as opposed tothe original and the universal (or evenmerely national): handicrafts and post¬cards as opposed to sculpture and
painting, the beating of the tom-toms asopposed to the discovery and enjoy¬ment of richer musical forms, inferior
journalism as opposed to creative
writing.
Freedom is inseparable. There canbe no rich cultural life when man can
hardly aspire to the possibility of
attaining political and economic free¬dom.
In which way does apartheid then
destroy culture? It seems senseless topoint to recent laws which, for example,prohibit racially mixed audiences orcreate a board of censorship so ob¬
viously politically motivated. Com¬plaining about these is what I would
term "giving battle", a token (or real)resistance to what is considered ex¬
cessive whereas the whole Ideologyunderlying apartheid must be abolish¬ed before we can think in terms of
culture, and therefore in terms of
human dignity. Advocating the libe¬ralization of a situation is another wayof condoning the status quo. It islike treating the patient for bilharziawithout purifying the water.
It is the basic ideology of the whitepeople in power (and those they re¬present) as embodied in all the apart¬heid laws, which denies culture and
human dignity to all the people ofSouth Africa, including themselves.
And this ideology is one of Chris¬tian-Nationalism or Calvinist-Tribalism
by which one tribe is trying to perpe¬tuate itself (according to the image ithas of itself) by monopolizing all powerand dictating to the other tribes theirsupposed lines and forms of cultural,
political and economic development.This development must always exist inrelation to the white man's central per¬petuation of exclusive power. This tribedictates to its own members in that
it refuses any opposition to or ques¬tioning of its ideology of supremacywhich may undermine the monolithicpower structure.
flPARTHEID stifles the cultu¬ral contributions of the black, brown
and yellow man but in its denial of
morality, humanism and dignity, it isprobably well on its way towards kil¬ling the contribution of the white man.
Other contributors will be able to
show in greater detail how the apart¬heid laws prevent the growth of cul¬ture, or affect the existing culture.My intention is more general to tryand define this death for myself.Apartheid is the big effort to curb theforming of a South African nationpolitically, economically, culturally and
therefore also racially which shouldbe one of the most normal things onearth given our interdependence and
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
27
THE FETTERED SPIRIT (Continued)
A cultural and national death wish?
mutually hybrid origins. And culture andcultural exponents would have beenthe links. Now it has become futile
to hope that one ethnic group may fer¬tilize another, and the brittle contact
established previously among writers,artists and musicians of the different
groups is being dismantled progres¬sively. It seems to be part of ageneral movement of contraction andfalling apart a cultural and nationaldeath wish.
At this stage of the contraction andthe spasm we have influential culturalleaders of the Afrikaans community
asking the Government to stop theflow of immigrants from non-Germaniccountries (as they fear the extinctionof Afrikaans culture) while launchinga campaign to replace English by Afri¬kaans among the "Bantu."
We are going to have a new law tobe tabled during the present Parliamen¬tary session which is to seek the
prohibition of one race "interfering"in the political affairs of another: theProhibition of Improper InterferenceBill. For political affairs read anythingfrom social gatherings to plays or jamsessions or writers' discussions.
One would hardly have thought itnecessary to pass new restrictivelaws. It is estimated that 1,800 people
were punished without trial for theirpolitical beliefs in recent years. Atthe moment, there are about 70 peopleunder house arrest, 600 more are ban¬
ned or restricted, another 40 are liv¬
ing in banishment in remote areasand over 2,000 people are in prisonas 90 and 180-day detainees.
Every Government Gazette adds tothe list of people whose creativeworks are no longer allowed in SouthAfrica. The Classic, a literary quar¬terly had this to say in a recent issue:"Classic regrets... present rules thatwriters of the calibre of Ezekiel
Mphahlele, Lewis Nkosi, Can Themba,Todd Matshakiza, Bloke Modisane,
can no longer be read in the maga¬zine or country." There are manymore.
It is not surprising. In the atmo¬sphere engendered by these laws onecan see how simple human acts or
the description thereof can be givenquite fantastic values, interpretations
and implications. For a black man tokiss a white woman is revolutionary.
If this act were to be described (enthu¬siastically!) by a writer in a book oron stage, or even shown by a painter,the life of the work would be endan¬
gered. And in this environment unfor¬tunately a "literary" or "artistic-importance would be ascribed to this
work far beyond the import of the sim¬ple description. The daring young manon the flying words.
And to the extent that culture must
also be the expression of social ideas
28
The policy of theGovernment of South
Africa is to reinforce
tribal traditions so
as to promote tribalnationalism as opposedto country-widenationalism.
Photo © Paul Almasy,Pans
Trade unions set up bynon-white workers
are not legallyrecognized in SouthAfrica. Non-whites are
forbidden to strike
in any circumstancesand heavy penaltiesare imposed for failureto observe this law.
In certain cases,
according to anInternational Labour
Organization report,strikes may be treatedas "sabotage" whichis punishable byhanging. Right, aWitwatersrand goldmine in the Transvaal.
and values, the writer, the artist andthe musician must use It as such, and
use it to fight for political freedom,for dignity and for justice. Man onlylives in other men, he only expresseshis dreams in human terms, his onlyreal fear is of other men. It should
be up to the individual to decide howmuch "message" or propaganda hiswork can carry, and in which form.
Already the final decay has set inin South Africa's cultural world. If
the coloured people of Cape Towncan no longer attend concerts in thenow all-white City Hall, then musicmust eventually suffer. If our painters
are relegated to painting esotericpastoral scenes and "Bantu" motifs,
then our paintings will be just decor¬ations on the wall. If plays with a
mixed cast can no longer be staged,then the spirit of the theatre must
become atrophied. The non-white
writer may, if he is lucky, leave the
country for a bitter exile. If the whitewriter, to be able to continue writing,must compromise his humanism (hislove) for apartheid is practised alsoin his name then the illness has
touched and discoloured the very
blood of his being, and his writingwill be an aberration of European
culture. Perhaps the fact that no Afri¬kaans writer has been banned yet, isa measure of this.
And that Is where the catch lies.
Most white South Africans have sim¬
ply never opened their eyes to thereality of there being other humansbeside the whites in this country.
They do not "do unto others," butunto an unidentified mass of Natives."
Nat Nakasa.
As long as we have apartheid andthe mutual fear, distrust and hate this
inspires it will be impossible forSouth Africa, or any of its ethnicgroups, to develop a living culture.
29
SOUTH AFRICA'S
WASTED MANPOWER
Every year since 1965 the International Labour Organization has carriedout a survey of developments in connexion with the apartheid policyas it affects labour. The following text is condensed from the 1966survey (1). Examining the economic consequences of racial discriminationin South Africa, the report notes that apartheid artificially obstructsthe flow of potential skilled manpower which South Africa needs to agrowing extent and that the Government seeks to keep this movementunder control, even at the expense of greater prosperity.
S
30
OUTH Africa is outstand¬
ingly rich in minerals. It has for gener¬ations been the world's chief producer
of gold, output of which continues torise. It is the second largest producerof diamonds, chrome and asbestos,
has the world's largest known reservesof uranium, and vast reserves of ironand coal. It is also a large producer ofcopper, limestone and manganese.Agriculture, which with 30 per cent, ofthe economically active population atthe time of the 1960 census employed
more labour than any other sector,produces many and varied productsboth for internal consumption and
export.
Manufacturing has experienced par¬ticularly rapid growth in the past20 years, and now constitutes thelargest sector of the economy in termsof output, accounting for a quarter ofthe national product. South Africawhich employs a higher proportion ofits African population in the modernsector than any other African countryhas the most developed and diversified
economy in the entire continent.
These developments have materiallyaffected the composition and utilizationof South Africa's labour force, setting
off trends which are a growing chal¬lenge to the purported objectives andbasic policies of apartheid. Thus,instead of the separate development ofat least Africans and Europeans in theirown territories, economic development
Is drawing an ever greater number ofthe former into the white areas, creat¬
ing a symbiotic relationship in whichthe African worker is becoming in¬
creasingly dependent on wage-earning
(1) Second Special Report of the Director-General on the application of the Declarationconcerning the Policy of "Apartheid" of theRepublic of South Africa, International LabourOffice, Geneva, 1966. Price : 50 cents ; 3s. 6d.
in the white economy and at the sametime ever more indispensable to it.
The increasing demands for skilledmanpower and the insufficient supplyof white labour to meet them are
also opening up to the non-white popu¬lations rungs in the industrial ladderto which conventional as well as statu¬
tory colour bars previously denied themaccess, thus giving them a growingstake in the white economy.
The strained manpower position haslikewise served to emphasize the eco¬
nomic wastefulness of the migratorylabour system and the colour bar,which reduce the volume of produc¬
tively employed African labour, perpe¬tuate instability and low productivityand bar the way to utilization of vastpotential sources of skill.
T,HE inflationary pressures
in the South African economy haveincreased the urgency of making morerational use of the country's man¬power resources. Unless opportunitiesfor training of Africans are substan¬tially increased and African educationadapted accordingly, the depressiveeffect of apartheid on the quality of thelabour force will become an ever grea¬ter drag on South Africa's industrial
progress.
African manpower in the white eco¬
nomy is treated as an imported commo¬dity, as undifferentiated labour unitsdeprived of ordinary human rights: the
rights to free choice of employment,to security of residence and employ¬ment, to the development of Inherent
capacities, to a say in how the eco¬nomy of which it forms an essentialcomponent should be run.
That Is why the South African Gov¬ernment maintains its adherence to
the migratory labour system, influxcontrol, the colour bar and the denial
of trade union rights to Africans.Whatever the new openings and mat¬erial improvements which South Afri¬
ca's spectacular development are
bringing within the reach of its non-white population, the status reserved
for African workers in an economywedded to the principle of white domi¬
nation is thus scarcely distinguishablefrom one of servile labour. The con¬
tradictions inherent in such a situation
are pregnant with danger to thecountry's social peace.
The measure of bitterness engen¬dered by apartheid is to be found inthe repressive apparatus which hashad to be built up concurrently with theprogressive development of apartheidlaws and practice in the social and
economic spheres. Without attemptingany exhaustive enumeration, it shouldbe remembered that the repressivemeasures adopted include hangings,detention without trial, house arrest,
and bannlngs of persons, organizationsand publications. To maintain apart¬
heid, South Africa is living in a per¬manent state of emergency.
Parallel with these internal difficul¬
ties, on the international level South
Africa finds itself in a position ofisolation ¡n a world hostile to the
course upon which it is set. The Inter¬
national Labour Organization is not theonly organization from which it haswithdrawn under the pressure of inter¬national opinion. South Africa left theUnited Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (Unesco) in1955, and in 1964 it withdrew from the
Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations. It has been
expelled from the United Nations Eco¬nomic Commission for Africa and has
resigned from the Commission forTechnical Co-operation in Africa. Itsparticipation in the Scientific Councilof Africa has likewise ceased.
In the United Nations, South Afri-
In 1964, the apartheidrules were provisionallymade more flexibleso as to allocateAfrican miners to
certain supervisorytasks. In 1965, theGovernment terminated
this experiment"in view of the
detrimental implicationsinvolved". Yet the
International Labour
Organization's reportstresses that SouthAfrica continues to
suffer from a serious
shortage of skilledlabour. The
Government's economic
development planforecasts that in 1969
there will be a shortageof 47,000 whiteworkers, but at thesame time there will
be 240,000 non-white
unemployed.
ca's racial policies and consequentialrepressive measures have been under
Investigation by a special committee,and the whole pressure of world opin¬ion has been brought to bear on theSouth African Government to aban¬
don a policy held to constitute a threatto international peace and security.
Because of its tremendous wealth
and developed institutions, SouthAfrica could play a major part in pro¬moting the progress of the Africancontinent, through investments, trade
and technical assistance. An extended
market for South African goods wouldnot only greatly strengthen the coun¬try's industry, but also bring immea¬surable benefits to the entire Southern
African region.
The educational system, now biasedin favour of the white population, couldhelp to spread literacy. The countrycould offer advanced technical know¬
ledge and participate in fighting dis¬ease. However, the possibilities for allsuch developments must remain strictly
limited so long as South Africa's pre¬sent racial policies are pursued.
No country can easily bring itself toreconstruct the very bases of its bodypolitic, particularly in relation to anIssue so charged with passion asapartheid.
The choice lies between a stunted,
frustrated, bitter and isolated societyand a community built on purposeful,constructive co-operation both withinthe national borders and within the
wider family of nations.
31
From the Unesco Report on Apartheid
32
Apartheid and African rights
During the reading of the 1964 Bantu Laws Amendment Act,a Nationalist Party member of the House of Assembly, Mr. Grey-ling, stated that "there is no such thing as 'the rights of a Bantu'in the White area. The only rights he has are those which heacquires by performing certain duties. Those duties which heperforms give him the right of sojourn here. The officials inthe labour bureaux, in considering whether they are going toallow a Bantu to remain here, will have to give priority to theconsideration of whether that Bantu has carried out his duties
as a worker, and not whether he has a supposed right whichhas been invented for him by members of the United Party."
Apartheid and international news
One of the South African Government's main aims is to see
that international information is slanted so as to conform with
its general policy and particularly its apartheid policy. Everythingpossible is done to prevent the introduction into the country ofoverseas information deemed "undesirable" from this angle.
Apartheid and films
Films for Africans are subject to strict censorship. Mostcountries have some sort of film censorship but in South Africait is used as an instrument to further "separate development."The Censorship Board may prohibit the showing of films beforea particular race or class. On many occasions it has decidedthat, while a film may be shown in a non-white cinema, childrenbetween 4 and 16 together with Africans may not be admitted.There is a tendency to ban any film which does not presentnon-whites as inferior to whites.
Apartheid and creative writing
Commenting on the situation of creative writers in SouthAfrica, the exiled African author Ezekiel Mphahlele pointed outthat, "Our energies go into this conflict to such an extent thatwe don't have much left for creative work. One might ask,'Why could this not be a spur towards creative writing?' I thinkit is paralysing. . . We are in two ghettoes, two different streams,and you can't get really dynamic art in this kind of society. Youwon't get a great white novel, I think, and you won't get a greatblack novel until we become integrated. As soon as the whiteman has learned to realize that he is an African and no longera European, he will then begin to write an African novel or anAfrican poem."
Apartheid and sport
In 1963, the South African Olympic and National Games Asso¬ciation (SAONGA) was reminded by the Minister of the Interiorthat participation in international sports competitions by mixedteams representing South Africa as a whole could in no circums¬tances be approved. South Africa was unable to take part in the1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.
The International Table Tennis Federation refused to recognizethe all-white South African Table Tennis Association as thenegotiating body for South Africa.
South Africa was asked to leave the International Football Asso¬ciation.
In sport, as in drama, as in entertainment, South Africa blackand white is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest ofthe world.
Apartheid and libraries
In Durban there are 11 municipal library depots and onereference library for whites, one library for coloureds and onebranch library for Africans. In the Orange Free State there isa free "whites only" library service and no similar service for
Africans. The demand for books, moreover, is governed by theAfrican's social and economic situation: he often grows up ina home where there are no books, he has little money to spendon them and he has had few opportunities to acquire a taste forreading. Regarding school libraries, the poverty of the bookstock in non-white public libraries makes it impossible to supple¬ment the inadequate book supply of the non-white school libraries.In 1959, of the films provided for library users, 2,319 films werescreened for Europeans and 180 for non-Europeans.
Apartheid and social science
Social science field work in South Africa is greatly hamperedby the apartheid policy. Permission to carry out research in a"Bantu Reserve" is essential and may be withdrawn at any timewithout any reason being given. . . Field workers have theimpression that they are under continuous police surveillance andare permanently apprehensive that they may lose their permitsto work in specific areas or, in the case of foreigners, their permitsto remain in South Africa. Even more serious is the suspicion andhostility displayed by the people being studied. Even wherethere is no open hostility there may- well be a reluctance totalk since any white investigator is regarded as likely to be alocal official or a member of the special branch.
Apartheid and education
In 1965, the salaries paid to African teachers were less thanhalf those earned by white teachers---41-9 per cent for men and37.9 per cent for women. In 1965, the gap widened when whiteteachers salaries were raised. It is impossible to claim that sepa¬rate development in education promotes good race relations. Theinequalities inherent in the educational system would in themselvesbe damaging to racial harmony but one of the aims of the educa¬tional system set in policy statements by both the Government andinfluential groups in the white sectors of society is group natio¬nalism.
Apartheid and the universities
The extension to higher education of the principle of separatedevelopment has had serious repercussions on the universities.In 1961 it was reported that 25 staff members from Cape Townhad left, that Natal had lost 35 and that eight professorships, ninesenior lectureships and nine lectureships were vacant at theUniversity of the Witwatersrand. Some of the scientists whohave left had played a major part in the intellectual life of thecountry. And losses have continued on a considerable scale.
Apartheid and beaches
Racial zoning has been extended to beaches and, in December1965, the Minister for Planning announced that the beaches of themunicipal areas should be allocated to different population groups.Certain beaches, traditionally used by non-whites, but situatedopposite areas reserved for white residential districts, werehenceforward to be used by whites only.
Apartheid and the theatre
In conjunction with the anti-apartheid movement, playwrights inGreat Britain, U.S.A., France and Ireland have instructed theiragents "to insert a clause in all future contracts automaticallyrefusing performing rights in any theatre where discrimination ismade among audiences on grounds of colour." The protest byforeign writers arose from their personal abhorrence of the evilof racism, but their action was based on the Berne Conventionwhich gives artists and authors the legal right to authorize thepublication and performance of their works. In 1965, SouthAfrica passed a new Copyright Act, including a clause designedto prevent authors from prohibiting the performance of theirworks in South Africa on ideological grounds. . .
APARTHEID
AND THE CHURCHs EVENTY two per cent of
all South Africans and 94 per cent ofall white South Africans are Christians.
The doctrinal approach of the DutchReformed Churches in South Africa
to race relations was that the Dutch
Reformed Church "could not associate
itself unreservedly with the generalcry for equality and unity in the worldtoday ... It is mostly a surrogate unityand brotherhood, that men seek torealize without Christ in a world
disrupted by sin . . ." The unity ofman already exists in Christ, and is
a supernatural organic unity... Oneof the factors causing the imperfectrealization of the existing unity inChrist is racial contrasts and racial
tensions, in South Africa as in therest of the world.
In April 1950 a conference of DutchReformed Churches was held at Bloem-
fontein to define the church's policytowards the African. Apartheid was de¬fined as a way which seeks to lead eachsection of the people In the clearest
and quickest way to its own destinationunder the gracious providence of God.The only way in which the permanentsubordination of one group to anothercould be avoided was by totalseparation; the nature reserves wereto be converted into true "Bantu
Homelands" with full opportunity fordevelopment and self-government andthe replacing of the African in theEuropean industrial system.
After the riots at Sharpeville andLanga in March 1960, nine leadingministers of the Nederdultse Gerefor-
meerde Kerk issued a statement,
which, after protesting the "continuousbesmirching of our country, peopleand church by untrue and slantedinformation," and declaring that thecondemnations of South Africa "do
not always spring from Christianresponsibility but show signs of...the hysterical efforts of the West tooverbid the East for the ' favour of
the non-whites of Africa for the sake
of the ideological slogan of self-deter¬mination," went on to say:
"The Nederduitse Gereformeerde
Kerk has made it clear . . . that it can
approve of independent, distinctive
development, provided that it is carriedout in a just and honourable way,without impairing or offending human
dignity. The Church has also acceptedthat this policy, especially in its initialstages, would necessarily cause acertain amount of disruption andpersonal hardship, for example, in
connexion with the clearing of slums.The whole pass system must be seenin this light."
The nine ministers issuing thisstatement then approved of the prin¬ciples of the policy of apartheid, butalso called for an improvement ofthe wage structure for Africans, thatnon-whites be treated by whites in amore dignified manner so as not toreap a harvest of hate and that "re¬
sponsible and law-abiding" non-whitesshould not be "misled by the falsepromises of agitators who are notconcerned about the utmost good ofthe non-whites . . ."
In December 1960, as a result of an
Initiative on the part of the AnglicanArchbishop of Cape Town who had
publicly repudiated compulsory. segre¬gation the World Council of Churches
sent a six-man delegation to consultwith representatives of its eightmember churches (1) at the Cottesloe
residence of the University of theWitwatersrand. Five of the churches
sent inter-racial delegations.
T,heir report, known as the
Cottesloe Consultation Report, statedthat while being united in rejecting allunjust discrimination, widely divergentviews were held on the basic issues of
apartheid. Nevertheless it was possi¬ble to make certain affirmations con¬
cerning human needs and justice asthey affected the races of South Africa:
No one who believed In Jesus Christ
should be excluded from any Churchon the grounds of colour or race;adequate facilities should be providedfor non-white people to worship in
urban areas as well as in segregatedtownships, there should be more
(1) Church of the Province of S.A., theNederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk of the
Transvaal, the Methodist, the Presbyterian,
the Congregational Union, the Bantu Pres¬byterian, the Nederduitse GereformeerdeKerk of the Cape, the Nederduitse Her-vormde Kerk of Africa.
effective consultation between the
Government and the leaders acceptedby the non-white people, there wereno scriptural grounds for the prohi¬
bition of mixed marriages, althoughcertain legal, social and cultural factors
might make such marriages inadvi¬sable.
It was pointed out that migrantlabour had a disintegrating effect onAfrican family life, that the vastmajority of non-white people received
wages which were below the generallyaccepted minimum standard for healthyliving, that the job reservation systemshould give way to a more equitablemethod of employment, that the rightto own land where one was domiciled
and the right to participate in thegovernment of the country was partof the dignity of all adult men.
Simultaneously, the Neder¬
duitse Gereformeerde Kerk of the
Transvaal and the Cape Issued another
statement which said that a policy ofdifferentiation could be defended from
the Christian point of view andprovided the only realistic solution tothe problems of race relations. TheNederduitse Hervormde Kerk of Africa
the next day issued a press statement,In which they dissociated themselvesfrom the resolutions passed and re¬affirmed their faith in racial separationin the belief that the ideals of Chris¬
tianity would best be served in thatway.
Opposition to the Cottesloe report
continued to grow. During March 1961,the Nederduitse Hervormde Kerk
Synod met and decided by 487 votesto 13 to withdraw from membershipof the World Council of Churches.
The Transvaal Synod of the Neder¬duitse Gereformeerde Kerk meetingin April 1961 also decided to withdraw
from membership of the World Councilof Churches, since the Cottesloe reso¬lutions were at variance with the
policy of the Church and wereembarrassing to the Government. InOctober the Cape Nederduitse Gere¬
formeerde Kerk Synod decided by a QOlarge majority to reject the Cottesloe UÜreport as "undermining the policy ofseparate development"; the Synod
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
APARTHEID AND THE CHURCH (Continued)
34
also decided to leave the WorldCouncil of Churches.
Individual members of the DutchReformed Churches continued to
question South African racial attitudes.In November 1960, 11 leading theo¬logians of the Nederduitse Gerefor¬meerde Kerk, the Nederduitse Her¬vormde Kerk and the Gereformeerde
Kerk published a book "VertraagdeAksie" calling for a new outlook onSouth African racial attitudes.
This resulted in the heresy trial ofProfessor Geyser, one of the authorsof the book, before the SynodicalCommission of the Hervormde Kerk inDecember 1961; he was found guiltyon one of three charges of heresy.He decided to contest the findings inthe court of law, but an agreementwas reached out of court (in 1963) andhe was reinstated as a minister ofthe Church.
In August 1963, the Christian Instituteof Southern Africa was established; itwas inter-racial and inter-denomi¬national. The Director of the Institute
was the Rev. OF. Beyers Naudé, whohad been elected Moderator of the
Southern Transvaal Synod of theNederduitse Kerk, had defended theCottesloe resolutions and was editor
of an inter-church monthly magazinePro Veníate.
The Christian Institute came underattack from certain Dutch Reformed
quarters. Prof. Verhoef of Stellen¬bosch for example, felt that membersof the Christian Institute had made an
error in judgement: the Institute gavethe impression that it understood theproblems and the aspirations of theAfricans better than the "Boorekerk."
That apartheid is compatible withChristianity has been denied by manydenominations in South Africa. TheMethodist Conference in 1947 and
1948 stated clearly that every humanbeing is entitled to fundamental humanrights. In 1952 the Conferencerejected the policy of apartheid asbeing impracticable, contrary to theinterests of all sections of the South
African community and inconsistentwith the highest Christian principles.This was reaffirmed in 1957, in 1958,in 1959 and in 1960.
In 1960, the Conferenceoutlined a programme of Education inRace Relations which included inter¬
racial study groups, pulpit exchangesand visits between church organiza¬tions. Moreover the possibility was tobe explored of setting up a pilot citycircuit scheme of a racially inclusiveChurch.
In 1961 the Conference resolved to
proceed with the removal of racialdemarcation from its official records
and legislation. In 1963 the Confe¬rence elected an African, the Rev. SethMokitlmi as Its president.
The 1950 Provincial Synod of theChurch of the Province of South Africa
a self-governing church within theworldwide Anglican communion (thesupreme legislature body within theChurch) made the following statementon race relations:
"The Conference is convinced thatdiscrimination between men on
grounds of race alone is inconsistentwith the principles of Christ's Reli¬gion . . . (we) believe that the effectof much recent legislation is likelyto be the rigid division of the popu¬lation into social classes with unequalrights, privileges and opportunities,and the relegation of the non-Euro¬peans to a position of permanentinferiority, and for this reasoncondemns this legislation as incon¬sistent with the respect for humanpersonality that should be characte¬ristic of a Christian society..."
S1 everal Anglican clergymenhave made individual statements
against the policy of the South Africangovernment. Trevor Huddleston hasprotested particularly over the demoli¬tion of Sophia Town; the Rev. AmbroseReeves has been outspoken in hisopposition to the government's policyand was deported in September 1960;the Rev. Michael Scott was imprisonedfor taking part in a non-violentcampaign against segregation, leftSouth Africa to take the case of SouthWest Africa to the U.N. and has notbeen readmitted to South Africa.
In addition, in 1963 several AnglicanBishops in South Africa made state¬ments condemning the apartheidpolicies of the government. In 1963the Minister of Foreign Affairs wasreported as having said at a NationalistParty meeting that the time had cometo tell the bishops that it was not Inthe interests of their Church to inter¬
vene in South Africa's political issues.The Synod of Bishops meeting inNovember 1963 issued this statement:
"In these circumstances, it seems
necessary to the Bishops of theChurch of the Province of South
Africa, now meeting in Synod inBloemfontein, to reaffirm theirunanimity in proclaiming their con¬viction that the Church must openlyand fearlessly condemn all that itbelieves to be evil and false In the
social, political or economic life ofany nation and, whenever the claimsof obedience to the State and God
are in conflict, it is to God that ourobedience must be given."
In 1952, 1957, 1960 and 1962, theCatholic Bishops of Southern Africaissued joint pastoral letters on thesituation in South Africa. In 1957 the
pastoral letter entitled "Statement onApartheid" condemned apartheid andwent on to say: "there must be agradual change . . . but change mustcome, for otherwise our country facesa disastrous future . . . This involves
the elaboration of a sensible and justpolicy enabling any person, irrespec
tive of race, to qualify, for the enjoy¬ment of full civil rights . . ."
The pastoral letter of 1962 washeaded "We Dare Not Remain Silent"
and said in part: "As Christian peoplewe dare not remain silent and passivein the face of the injustices inflictedon members of the unprivileged racialgroups..." In July 1966 the Bishopsagain denounced apartheid and allforms of discrimination which it
engenders.
Since apartheid, two great theolo¬gical debates are being fought out inSouth Africa.
The first, illustrated by the positiontaken by the Bishops of the Churchof the Province of South Africa, is anold one the obedience which a
Christian subject should give to aState which promulgates what heholds to be intolerably evil laws andthe right of his leaders to criticizethese laws.
The second theological debate isprimarily a debate of this century, andin its acute form was initiated preciselyby the system of apartheid In a countrywhose leaders were prominent Chris¬tians. It was the meaning to be givento racial equality and whether or notthe doctrine of the brotherhood of all
Christians pre-supposed a multiracialChurch.
ithin South Africa the lines
drawn were principally between theDutch Reformed Church, on the one
hand, and the English speaking Church,on the other. But even within these
groupings the argument continued.Geyser and Naudé and others withinthe Dutch Reformed Church took
theological positions not unlike thoseof the Bishops of the English-speakingChurch and that in spite of the strongsanctions which could be imposed onthem to conform to the main trend
of thinking of the members of theircongregations and of their Synods.Within the English-speaking Churches,too, there were some missionaryleaders who advocated separatismfor Africans.
This debate was not confined to
South Africa, it was part of theworldwide ecumenical debate of the
1950s and 1960s, although certainlyby 1965 the idea of a multi-racialchurch was accepted by most churchesoutside South Africa, and racialequality took on the meaning ofmulti-racialism, as opposed to racial,separatism in the statements ofmajor Christian religions. The DutchReformed Churches in South Africa
are being increasingly isolated, nntonly by the withdrawal of some of theirgroups from the World Council ofChurches, but by their theologicalassumptions on the question of race.
o»X
O
This text is part of a chapter from
the Unesco Report on Apartheid.
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