The real horror of the South African situation is that as a result of the Nationalist government's policy of apartheid herrenvolk attitudes of separateness and superiority are becoming ever more firmly entrenched in the White community. Appalling crimes are committed against the non-Whites, particularly the Africans, and are tolerated because, after all, 'they are not the same as us'. The Nationalist claim that race relations have never been better is demonstrably false. For the most part there are no race relations at all. With the persecution and virtual outlawing of all the multi-racial political and social organizations, the exclusion of non-Whites from the 'open' universities, the constant growth in the apparatus of segregation, White and Black seldom meet except as master and servant. For many non-Whites the most significant contact with Whites is with an official who, at worst bored and contemptuous, at best harassed and burdened with the administration of hateful laws, projects the worst possible image of the White supremacist. The overwhelming majority of the White population lead a soft and sheltered existence, completely unaware or careless of the countless cruelties endured in the locations on the other side of town from their own garden suburbs.
South Africa is not yet Nazi Germany, with its concentration camps and gas ovens. But the attitude of mind which produced such inhumanities in Nazi Germany is there, and it needs only the whiff of a crisis for White South Africa to throw aside its remaining civilized pretensions and grasp in a frenzy of panic at any weapon for preserving its privileges. If there are not yet street gangs and private armies, it is because the police have so far proved a very adequate first line of defence. Let the South African armed forces, police, and soldiers show signs of being unable to cope with rebellion, and a ferocity will be unleashed by White South Africa which will make the atrocities of the O.A.S. in Algeria pale into insignificance. Speaking on Republic Day, 31 May 1963, Vorster, then Minister of Justice, declared: 'We have reached the stage in our national life where we realize more and more that there are times in a nation's history when not only reason must speak but blood as well - and that time is now.' No more sinister pronouncement was ever made by any of the leaders of Hitler's Nazi government at the height of their power.
Meanwhile, the crimes that are being committed in the name of White supremacy are debased and debasing enough: the deliberate educational stunting of the non-White peoples to hold back their development; the banning, jailing, banishment, and executions of political opponents; the destruction of family life; the mass removals of population.
These atrocities would never be tolerated if the victims were White, for Whites have votes and must be considered. The non-Whites have no vote and can be ignored - until their anger explodes. A riot breaks out or sabotage takes place. Amongst a section of the Whites there is then a wringing of the hands and a desire to mend their ways before all is lost, but the majority harden their hearts. Fierce new laws are passed, and the police get even tougher in their handling of suspects.
Here are reports which have appeared in the South African Press during recent years:
On rail sabotage charge: Indians Allege Torture by Police . . . H. Wolpe, for four of the men, and R. N. Bhoolia, for Nanabhai, told H.S. Bosman that they were instructed that Vandeyar was hit and kicked at Langlaagte police station and there appears to be a considerable possibility that some of his ribs are broken. Also at Langlaagte police station, a wet sack was tied round Nanabhai's head and twisted until he was choking. Electric charges were applied to wires attached to the big toes of Chiba and Jassat by the Railway Police at Park Station and they were suspended upside down by sacks tied over their bodies and were struck to the ground and pulled up by the hair. Vandeyar was told he would either sign a confession this afternoon or be subjected to further physical violence by this afternoon, the defence alleged. (Cape Argus, April 1963)
Torture by Electric Shock, court told .. Allegations that electric shock torture was used on two men charged with being members of an illegal organization were made by J. Kudo in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court today.... 'Unorthodox methods have been used and the men have burn marks on their little fingers which they say were caused by electric shocks.' (Cape Argus, 22 April 1963)
Accused Alleged Assaults . . . Allegations that some of the thirty seven alleged Poqo members, including several students from native high schools, had been assaulted by the police to extract information, and were being detained in 'shocking circumstances' were made by A. Chaskelson, their defence counsel, when the thirty-seven appeared before H.S. Bosman in the cells of the Johannesburg Magistrate's Courts yesterday on charges of arson. (Cape Argus, 8 May 1963)
Third Degree Methods in East London.... One night they [the police] awakened W. Bongco at his home and after searching his house took him to the police station where they used strong-arm tactics to elicit information about the firearms they are searching for. They handcuffed him and hung him up against the wall. Then they assaulted him, some using sjamboks and others pulling him by his sexual organs. Bongco fell unconscious and they untied him. When he recovered they trampled on his face and kicked him with their boots, using obscene language. They were mad with anger, some crying and shouting that if Bongco continued to be stubborn they would take him to the bush and shoot him dead as one who was escaping from custody. At this time blood was already oozing from their victim's ears. After some rest they resumed their work and, squeezing him by the neck, gave him hard blows which rendered him partly deaf. He went unconscious again and this time they took him to shower in his clothes and washed him before they could release him.... Today Bongco is in bed at the Frere Hospital as a result of the beatings of the police. A charge of assault has been laid. (Spark, 14 March 1963)
Similar cases of assault were reported from Port Elizabeth during the period that sabotage cases were being investigated there. Usually there are no witnesses, and courts are reluctant to disbelieve the police version of what happened. Justice Bekker declared, when the case of the Indians came before the Supreme Court: 'It is unnecessary for me to return a verdict on the alleged assault as it is not relevant to the issue and it is impossible to state from the evidence that the accused were assaulted by the police after their arrest.'
It was not so long ago that the same sort of bestiality was reported from Algeria, and the allegations, at first denied, were eventually proved to be true. The French, who had themselves been the victims of Nazi atrocities during the war, were now committing the same crimes against the Algerians. And for the same reason. The Nazis had treated the French as racial inferiors; the French treated the Algerians in the same way. And in South Africa it is the same story. The herrenvolk attitude lends itself to cruelty and sadism because the victims are regarded as being different, inferior. Just as carelessly as one swats a fly one can torture a Jew, or a kaffir. The cult of difference leads straight to the cult of violence and death.
The assassination of Dr Verwoerd by the deranged Tsafendas, on 6 September 1966, following the unsuccessful attempt by the deranged Pratt during the state of emergency in 1960, was not merely the consequence of individual aberration. Like the assassinations of the Kennedys in the United States, it is a symptom of a disturbed and disordered society, where conflict and tension in the community lead to conflict and tension in individuals, who then seek to escape from their torment by striking at the public figure they hold responsible. Tsafendas said that he was impelled to his crime by what he conceived to be the workings of a diabolical tapeworm in his intestines. Pratt defended himself in court with an impassioned indictment of apartheid, openly accusing Verwoerd of leading the country to ruin. It is a melancholy thought that he, while speaking what would seem to the world to be the truth, was found by the court to be insane.
Most White South Africans would probably wax indignant at any suggestion that they are conniving at the torture or ill-treatment of non-Whites. Like the Germans who claim that they never guessed the significance of the columns of smoke rising from the chimneys of the Nazi crematoria, they will spread their hands out and say: 'But it's not true', or 'we didn't know'.
For many, this excuse may even be partly valid. The isolation of one community from the other makes it possible for many Whites to go through life without thinking that anything very wrong happens around them. The mass removals of people from one area to another, the endorsements out of town and the breaking up of homes, the beatings in police stations, the arrests and imprisonments -all happen to other people, not to the Whites. Announcements that so many 'terrorists' have been sentenced to death or executed can be accepted without a murmur because none of one's friends or relations will be involved. One need never be haunted by the thought, 'There but for the grace of God go I', for by law one cannot be placed in the same position. The difference comes to be accepted as permanent, immutable. The concept of change is rejected as not merely undesirable, but impossible.
This, certainly, has been the tradition of the past, but it is a tradition which is becoming ever more difficult to maintain. As the years of Nationalist rule take their ever mounting toll, the facts cry out with ever more strident urgency. Apartheid is a horror which can no longer be hidden or denied. The whole world condemns and execrates it; the United Nations General Assembly has called for the imposition of sanctions to end it. When the time comes for the settling of accounts, White South Africa will have to bear its full burden of guilt and atonement.
When the time comes . . . this is the outstanding question in South Africa today: when will the time come when apartheid can be abolished and a new society produced in which discrimination will be outlawed and all men and women will enjoy equal rights and opportunities? When will Nationalist rule be ended? How long can the Vorster government survive?
There is no easy answer. As this book has set out to explain, the Nationalist government is powerful, not merely in the possession of a well-equipped and disciplined army and police force, but by virtue of its firm political foundation. This is not a cluster of old-time colonists or settlers who can be ejected from the continent the moment that the protection of some metropolitan country is withdrawn. The Nationalist roots go deep into history, and Nationalist policies enjoy the support of a substantial section of the White population. Afrikanerdom maintains itself in power through its own independent strength, without requiring the aid of foreign troops. The Nationalists are not the colons of Algeria, who could retain control only for as long as the French were prepared to deploy an army of 500,000 men to protect them.
Nor is the White population outnumbered to anything like the extent that it is elsewhere in Africa. The Whites constitute only one fifth of the total population, it is true, but the remaining four fifths do not constitute a homogeneous group. The proportion of Africans to non-Africans is only two to one - by far the lowest in the continent. In Algeria it was nine to one, in Rhodesia it is nineteen to one. Elsewhere the proportion of Whites to the total has been insignificant, and Black power, once aroused, has been overwhelming.
Consideration of these facts explains why the liberatory movement in South Africa, though enjoying the longest history of struggle and in some ways the most advanced level of ideology and organization, has not made the same spectacular progress as elsewhere in the continent. The reality of White power must never be overlooked. If a measure of non-White leadership, ability, and struggle is wanted, it may be sought in the record of the ever more vicious counter-measures to which the Nationalists have had to resort in order to maintain White supremacy. It is above all non-White pressure which has reduced South African government to the level of rule by arbitrary decree and imprisonment without trial. And the pressure is growing all the time.
There are those who feel that White supremacy, like the fascist regimes of Spain and Portugal, can be maintained in power indefinitely. This, however, is to ignore the main ingredient of South African society, its essential dynamism, flowing from the very contradictions which this book has tried to outline. It is also to ignore the direction in which the world as a whole is moving, however slow and jerky the pace.
The peoples of the so-called 'third world' - underdeveloped, impoverished and oppressed though they are - are not standing still. When the Nationalist Party came to power in 1948 there were only two independent Black countries on the African continent - Liberia and Ethiopia. Today virtually the whole continent is Black beyond the White supremacy states in the south. The pessimistic idealist may be inclined to look at Africa today less hopefully than he did ten or fifteen years ago. The distortions and convolutions of African society have, admittedly, been discouraging - political instability and economic backwardness, the manifold reports of treachery and corruption in high places, the adventures of tribalism. The failure of independent Africa to produce instant democracy and prosperity has blinded many to the reality of what is happening. The agony and the suffering are the accompaniment of an Africa in the process of regeneration.
Both external and internal forces are at work in the shaping of the new Africa, just as they are in the world at large, and to a not insignificant extent the setbacks in African development are a reflection of the counter-revolutionary impulse which has swept over the world during the last decade. The year of African liberation, 1960, was the year of Sharpeville, in which the combination of internal and external pressures almost broke the back of the South African government. Today, on the crest of the economic wave and with increasing support from powerful forces in the Western world, South Africa looks at Africa with contempt and hurls defiant challenges in all directions. Speaking at Nigel, Transvaal, in November 1968, South African Prime Minister Vorster proclaimed: 'The country is becoming more important and will be the leader of Africa in every field. Black states will accept that, too ' (Sunday Express, 5 November 1968).
He speaks from a position of power and confidence, and his approaches to Africa are not without response. Yet it was in this very same speech that Vorster expressed his concern at the situation in Rhodesia and called on the Rhodesian and British governments to 'do everything within their power to find a solution to the independence issue. For at the same time as South Africa feels itself strong enough to 'extend its influence beyond its borders', the African liberation movement has decided to launch its biggest counter-attack. And one week after he spoke, the United Nations General Assembly in New York called on Britain to use force to put down the 'White rebellion' in Rhodesia and urged the Security Council to impose punitive economic sanctions against South Africa and Portugal for aiding the Smith regime. The resolution, which was passed by eighty six votes to nine with nineteen abstentions, also urged all states to 'render all moral and material assistance' to African guerrillas and the extension to them of the protection afforded by the Geneva convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.
This is not to suggest that the liberation of the South African people will come from outside the country alone. It will not. But the struggle of the South African people cannot be seen in isolation from the world-wide struggle of the dependent peoples for freedom and independence. With each citadel of colonialism that falls, the position of the White supremacists in Southern Africa becomes more exposed. The Nationalist government finds it ever more difficult to implement its policies and maintain its economy on an even keel.
Despite all South Africa's apparent invulnerability and strength, the problems with which it grapples cannot be solved within the framework of apartheid. The tensions are already so great that they can only be suppressed by the exercise of force both inside and outside the country on an unprecedented scale. At home, the rule of law has been abrogated, and no citizen is safe from arbitrary arrest and torture. An observer at the 1967-8 Pretoria trial of thirty-five South-West Africans under the Terrorism Act, Richard A. Falk, Professor of International Law at the University of Princeton, U.S.A., noted in his report:
The Tuhadeleni trial and the expectations of additional so-called terrorist trials appear to be part of an overall drift toward totalitarianism in South African society.... Rumours abound in South Africa about the vindictiveness of the Special Branch, as well as about its police methods and totalitarian affinities. Naturally, it is hard for an outsider to assess such rumours, but it did seem clear from my observations in court that prominent members of the Special Branch behaved in a rather sinister fashion and evoked the fear of white South Africans of liberal persuasion. The most reasonable interpretation of these obviously deliberate choices [in relation to the conduct of the trial] appears to be an effort to convince the majority of the white population that a state of war exists in South Africa between the regime and its enemies; and that, as a consequence, a condition of emergency prevails such as to vindicate extreme police methods to stifle opposition of all varieties. (Erosion of the Rule of Law in South Africa, published by the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, in August 1968.)
That Professor Falk's conclusion is not fanciful is confirmed by the speech made in the House of Assembly as long ago as 26 March 1963 by Dr Verwoerd. After claiming that there was peace and order in the country, thanks to the work of a strong police and defence force, he added:
'On the other hand nobody will deny that a crisis exists in South Africa.... All over the world there is a crisis. One sees this in the United Nations, in developments in Africa and in threats to South Africa by agitators. These agitators will not be able to achieve anything, but it is a time pregnant with trouble. The government will continue to take the necessary steps to preserve peace and order....'
Dr Verwoerd made it clear that the Nationalist government would not surrender. 'If it becomes necessary to combat Communism and the deeds which flow from Communist agitation, I will not hesitate to place the security of the State and its citizens above technicalities . . . in the ordinary administration of justice.' To maintain White supremacy, in other words, he was prepared to abandon the rule of law altogether.
His successor, Prime Minister Vorster, holds to the same creed with possibly even less respect for the outward forms of legality. And to confirm that reliance on the use of force is not confined to South Africa, Vorster has sent his troops beyond his own borders to prop up the Smith regime in Rhodesia and to frustrate the aims of the liberation movement in southern Africa.
Thus the Nationalist government, by its actions both inside and outside South Africa, has now abundantly confirmed the judgement of the United Nations that apartheid is a threat to peace. Those who once thought this a ludicrous overstatement of the case now witness the phenomenon of civil war in southern Africa, with the forces of South Africa used not only to subdue their own 'terrorists' but also to threaten all those in Africa who aid and abet them. Men, women, and children are being killed in the course of this struggle at this very moment.
To those who assert that the Nationalists have the right to protect themselves against the use of violence by 'terrorists' and 'saboteurs', let it be said that White rule is in itself an act of violence against the non-Whites, arbitrarily deprived of the franchise. The democratic doctrine that there shall be no taxation without representation has long been flagrantly violated in South Africa.
The source of South Africa's expansionist and aggressive policy in Africa springs not from the external threats of her enemies, but from the heart of her own apartheid policy. The fundamental conflict between the White supremacists and the mass of the South African people has now spread across the borders of many countries. The same mad logic of racism which drove Hitler to seek beyond his borders the final solution he could not achieve inside them is driving South Africa on a collision course with her neighbours.
The stage is thus set for a massive conflict in South Africa. No one can confidently predict how this conflict will be resolved. But one thing is certain: the scope of the conflict and the amount of damage that is caused will be determined, not only by the strength of the participants in southern Africa itself, but also by the influence which world opinion can bring to bear upon the situation.
It took a world war and the loss of thirty million lives to dispose of the Nazi menace - simply because those who had the power refused to use it in time to stop Nazism from overrunning Europe. Let us hope that the cost of ending apartheid will not be so great. There are those, both inside and outside South Africa, who have the power to stop it, before the cost in life and resources of establishing a democratic order exceeds the bounds of reason and makes the task. of reconstruction infinitely more difficult.
A new South Africa, based on freedom and equality for all, is struggling painfully to be born. Who has a right to refuse his help?