18 October 19631
While I am most grateful for the opportunity of speaking here, it may seem strange that anyone like myself should ask to be heard by this Committee. The reason for my request is that in the course of my work as Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg I was for eleven years in constant and intimate contact with South African affairs. Arriving in South Africa in 1949 from Liverpool (where I had been Rector of that city for seven years) I lived in Johannesburg until in the autumn of 1960 I was detained and deported by the South African Government. At that time I was informed that it was not in the public interest for me to remain in my diocese.
As early as 1950 the passing of the Suppression of Communism Act had alerted me to the possible grave consequences of the policy of apartheid. As the years passed the implementation of this racialist ideology convinced me that apartheid is an affront to the Christian gospel and makes nonsense of the saving death of Jesus Christ. It was on this conviction that I based my continuing opposition to apartheid; a conviction which was again and again strengthened by the actions of the Government in South Africa. For example, their conduct of affairs made tremendous inroads into the rule of law, culminating in the power recently conferred on the Minister of Justice to detain indefinitely any person who the Minister thinks may continue his activities against the Government after his release from prison. Under the same Act of Parliament any person may be arrested and detained by any police officer for interrogation for ninety days, or until the authorities get satisfactory answers from a detainee to their questions.
Similarly, a succession of laws have increasingly restricted the movement of people in South Africa, both within and without their country. Other laws have been passed which, either directly or indirectly, have restricted the freedom of people to express their opinions, to criticize Government policies, and to assemble for these purposes. In some ways those laws which have done this indirectly have been the more serious, because they have exposed people to the subtle, sinister pressures exerted by officials. In such ways many who have opposed the Government have been constantly harried and intimidated. In much the same way successive laws have whittled away the few rights that Africans had in the urban areas, until the Bantu Laws Amendment Act of this year removed the last vestiges of freedom and security from them. Both the Bantu Education Act and the Separate Universities Act have dealt serious blows at educational freedom for Africans. Certainly there has been a spectacular increase in the number of African children receiving some education since the Bantu Education Act was passed in 1954, but this increase has been more than offset by the serious decline in educational standards in the last nine years. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the education now being given to Africans is education for serfdom. Not that the Africans are the only non-Whites in South Africa to suffer from this continuous encroachment on basic human freedoms. The economic life of the Indian community, numbering half-a-million, has been deliberately and systematically attacked by Government legislation and administration, notably through the application of the Group Areas Act. Coloured people, of whom there are a million and a half in South Africa, have also suffered greatly in many ways, especially through the enforcement of job reservation and similar measures in the economic field.
This mass of legislation which restricts, and at time denies, freedom of movement, as well as economic and educational freedom and the freedom to express opinions, and which denies all participation in political life to four-·fifths of the population is a crime against humanity. To the religious man such legislation is more than a crime. It is a sin to humiliate human beings in this fashion.
Laws of this character are an insult to human dignity and a denial of the Divine work of creation and redemption. No man, however powerful he is, has the right to degrade human beings in this way and to brand them with the stigma of inferiority and serfdom. Still less is it defensible when this stigma is attached to them merely because of the colour of their skin.
It may be said that even if this condemnation of apartheid is justified it ignores the change of opinion that is taking place in sections of the White community in South Africa, recent policy of creating Bantustans as homelands for the African inhabitants of South Africa, and takes no cognizance of the possibility of partitioning South Africa between the Whites and the Blacks. These are important matters, but they must be examined as objectively as we can so that we do not allow our evaluation of them to be clouded by wishful thinking. Take, for example, the supposed change that is now taking place among influential sections of white opinion. Without in any way wishing to minimize the courage of Dr. Naude in resigning his office as Moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Southern Transvaal to become Director of the Christian Institute of South Africa, which has already been condemned by the South African authorities, I find it difficult to believe that his action in any way indicates any substantive change among most churchmen in South Africa. Against such a fact as this has to be set the fact that although the majority of the Dutch Reformed Church representatives signed a quite moderate statement issued at the conclusion of the Cottesloe Consultation between leaders of the non-Roman churches in South Africa, their action was repudiated by their own churches and these churches then withdrew from the World Council of Churches. More than that, I am convinced that it is easy to overestimate the role the churches can now play in South Africa, for as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban pointed out recently, they have to bear a large share of responsibility for the present state of affairs in South Africa because by and large they had sadly failed to be the conscience of the nation. Also we have to remember that churches by their very nature change very slowly. This is not to deny that there is unease among some white people both inside and outside the churches. But there always has been and so far I have not found any evidence that their number is growing. On the contrary, the number of white people who express their unease is growing steadily less as the repressive measures against the opponents of apartheid grow more severe. Perhaps we need to take seriously Dr. Verwoerd's repeated assertion that the policy of apartheid is like granite. I respect him sufficiently to believe he means what he says. He is as resolute and as inflexible as Hitler was in the 30's.
What then can be said of Bantustans? At once it has to be emphasized that as recently as 16 March this year the South African Prime Minister made it clear that there is no intention of increasing the amount of land in South Africa held by Africans. And it has to be remembered that the combined land of the 110 African Reserves constitutes only 13 per cent of the area of South Africa. These Reserves contain none of the known mineral resources of the Republic; none of its major commercial or industrial areas; none of its ports.
Some years ago the South African Government set up a Socio-Economic Commission under Prof. F. R. Tomlinson. When this Commission reported in 1955 it estimated that in order to rehabilitate the land in the Reserves alternative employment would have to be found for 2,500,000 of their present inhabitants if these areas were to be made economically viable for farming. If the millions who are now living and working in the White areas were ever to make their homes in these Reserves then work there would also have to be found for them. This in turn would mean the creation of over a hundred new towns and cities in the Reserves, and a vast expenditure of money. Even then Prof. Tomlinson recognized that these proposals depend on both the incorporation of the British High Commission Territories in South Africa and also that White capital will be available for developing the Reserves. So far the British Government shows no signs of being willing to hand over the Protectorates, and the South African Government has rejected the use of White capital for the development of the Reserves on ideological grounds. When it is realized that at the moment the South African Government is only spending 2 per cent of its total budget on the Reserves, of which only a half is for economic development, it is difficult to believe that this Government means business.
If the South African authorities are only tinkering with the real economic needs of the Reserves, the type of "self-government" which is being taken for granted is even more of a sham. So far only the Transkei has been granted a Legislative Assembly. This will consist of 109 members made up of 64 Chiefs and 43 members elected by citizens of the Transkei. The majority of the members will thus be men who ultimately depend on the White Government for their positions. Further, this White Parliament in Capetown will retain control over defence, external affairs, currency, public loans and banking, the maintenance of internal security, immigration, and the constitution of the Transkei. As the Director of the South African Institute of Race Relations said in February of last year, "the Institute rejects these plans for the creation of self-governing, or independent 'Bantu states' as any real solution of the human problems of the country, economically or politically." Indeed, we can go further, and assert that unless words have completely lost their meaning, self-government is the last word that ought to be used to describe what is now happening in the Transkei.
Secondly, there is "partition." This is now being advanced as an alternative both to integration and to apartheid as a solution for the tragic situation in South Africa. Briefly it is suggested that the country should be divided into a White State in the south with a Black State describing an arc around the northern and eastern part of the country and including the High Commission Territories. As in the Tomlinson report, here again is a plan which depends upon the incorporation of the High Commission Territories in South Africa. It may well be that the time has come when the United Nations should guarantee these Protectorates against the violation of their borders until such time as they become independent, and to guarantee their sovereignty once they are independent. It would seem fanciful to suggest that Great Britain would hand over their Protectorates either to further South Africa's plan for Bantustans or to help in the partition of South Africa; still less that the inhabitants of the Protectorates would desire to share in any such schemes. But I believe that the rights of the peoples in these Protectorates ought to be watched extremely carefully in any consideration of possible developments in South Africa.
It is urged that such a division of South Africa as is envisaged in these proposals for partition would be an alternative to outside pressure, which it is frequently pointed out primarily cause suffering to the non-Whites which it is designed to help and would also strengthen the resolve of the White minority keep all the power in their own hands. I must confess that I am somewhat puzzled by the contention that the non-Whites would be the chief sufferers as a result international pressure. Not that I question the fact that they would suffer, this is not the same thing as declaring that they would be the chief sufferers. Before we can estimate the relative effects of such pressure on the various ethnic groups we must look objectively at their present position. In the last fifteen years African earnings have risen by 11 per cent and White earnings by 35 per cent. More seriously, Professor W.R.J. Steenkamp, Chairman of the Wage Board in South Africa, said that with few exceptions the real wages of Africans had fallen in the last decade. A recent report (No. 172) of the Council for Social and Industrial Research showed that a half of urban African families are living well below the poverty datum line. Opening the Rand Easter Show this year, Mr. H. Oppenheimer declared "It is only the European group in South Africa which has, as a whole, retained a reasonable standard of living". I mention these facts simply to make it plain that in addition to all the suffering that Africans are enduring in so many ways they are also suffering dire poverty at the present time. For that reason I am puzzled when it is maintained that they would be the group that would suffer most as a result of international pressure. Moreover, I am not greatly impressed when some who show this sudden concern for the non-White peoples in South Africa are the very people who have grown wealthy on their poorly paid labour. Then I am not merely puzzled. I am shocked by their hypocrisy. The contention that outside pressure only strengthens the resolve of the White minority is a familiar one in the United Nations, but it is only valid so long as outside pressure is ineffective. Once the nations decide to act together the situation will in all probability be very different. If that is doubted we have only to recall the fact that overseas reaction to Sharpeville, withdrawal from the British Commonwealth, the onset of the boycott in Britain, all produced splits and confusion within White minority. It was only when it was seen that this opposition was not going to be pressed to the point of effective action that White unity was re-established. But more importantly, we ought to ask what will be the effect of the division of South Africa in this fashion? Superficially it may seem attractive, but is incredible that the Africans would give up their claim to a share in the really wealthy areas of South Africa which they have helped to create, all of which would lie outside their borders. Further, it is fantastic to imagine that such a division would resolve anything. It would mean that a White South Africa would be surrounded by an aggrieved, hostile Black state, intent on securing a real share in the total wealth of the present South Africa, and which would be supported in its efforts, by entire African continent.
It is frequently urged that partition is the only practical solution of the South African problem, but the truth is that it is not even a theoretical solution. Partition ought to be dismissed for the pipe-dream that it is; a proposal which is as much an escape into fantasy as is apartheid. We shall be wiser to keep our attention on the situation as it is in South Africa, resisting any temptation to indulge in flights of fancy which will solve nothing, and may effectively prevent us from doing anything of value. Outwardly South Africa appears to be a stable and prosperous country. But the fact is that South Africa is already in the throes of conflict, war is already taking place even if for the moment that conflict is waged on the one side by a massive force, and on the other by acts of sabotage and terrorism.
Even if most people outside South Africa do not recognize this, the South African Government appears to know it only too well. At least it is difficult to explain the present massive build up in arms that is now taking place in South Africa if this is not so. Since 1960 the expenditure on defence and the police has arisen from £40,000,000 to £104,000,000 in the current estimates. Within the last four years the Permanent Force has increased from nine to fifteen thousand men, in addition to which there is a Citizen Force of 40,000, and a Commando Force in which every White male citizen is required to serve for four consecutive years if he has not previously been a member of either the Permanent or Citizen Force. If anyone has any doubt as to the object of this massive increase in the armed forces the Minister of Defence made it clear on 24 June this year that the first of the three main tasks of the armed forces is "to assist the police to maintain internal order".
However imminent or far away open conflict on a large scale may be in South Africa, the present situation there demands action if further deterioration in the situation is to be prevented; and action on an international scale. It is worse than useless for some delegates to the United Nations to use vehement language in which to condemn apartheid, and then to do everything in their power to prevent 'the Member States taking effective action. Admittedly certain Member States have financial interests in South Africa and considerable trade with the Republic. At the same time it is difficult to understand why financiers and industrialists in these countries do not recognize before it is too late that a country in a near revolutionary situation (as South Africa now is) is both an unreliable trading partner and an insecure guardian of overseas capital. But the fact that some of them still fail to do so ought not to blind delegates to the realities of the South African situation. Further, it is time that we all recognized that there is no painless way in which the present injustice and suffering in South Africa can be ended. Any realistic approach to this problem will demand sacrifice. Some people will lose their dividends. If they allow the present situation to continue they will probably lose their capital as well. The loss of trade may cause temporary hardship to some and perhaps many workers. But isn't it time that we ceased using these possibilities as an excuse for inaction? Is it not time that we have done with speculating on the possible consequences of action and get down to a detailed study of the ways in which international pressure might be applied, and make plans to deal with at least some of the losses that will be sustained by some countries as a result of international action? And when we think of international action I would make a special plea for devising some way through which the resources of the specialized agencies of the United Nations may be made available, probably through the International Red Cross, for the help of the families of those who suffer because of their opposition to apartheid. As Chairman of the Trustees of the Treason Trial Defence Fund for the accused and their families at the treason trial which lasted for more than four weary years I know something of the desperate plight that can overtake the wives and children of such accused.
As I see it, the choice before the world is now a clear one. It is between effective international action and the probability of bloodshed on a vast scale in South Africa. And the choice cannot be evaded by maintaining that all that exists in South Africa is a form of government which many people find repugnant. That I suppose is true of most governments. But in South Africa there is a situation in which the majority of the inhabitants at this moment are living in a fully fledged police state, under a tyranny which is a flagrant contradiction of the basic principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
Even more serious, there is a possibility that within the next few years South Africa will become the cause of and the focal point in a race war which even the United Nations might find it impossible to contain. Some will dismiss this as a wildly exaggerated statement. But there are already signs of a new solidarity of non-White peoples being forged across the world: a solidarity which is increasingly concerned with the fate of twelve million non-Whites in South Africa in their desperate struggle for freedom, status, and dignity.
And the White minority in South Africa must not be overlooked, for many of them have no other homeland. Action is needed to save them from themselves. No group of human beings can for long act unjustly and inhumanly towards other groups of people without disastrous consequences to themselves. Indeed it is probable that in the long run they will be more deeply corrupted by the policy of apartheid than any other ethnic group in South Africa. Here it is important that some way is found of giving the White minority adequate guarantees for their future in South Africa, even though such guarantees will have little meaning for them until effective international action compels them to recognize that they cannot any longer maintain the policy of apartheid.
Month by month the situation in South Africa deteriorates. An increasing number of people are detained without trial. More and more men and women are imprisoned because of their opposition to apartheid, or banished to places hundreds of miles from their homes, or summarily deported from the country. Unnecessary suffering to human beings mounts relentlessly. Injustice follows on injustice. Scarcely a day passes without news of such happenings. Within the last fortnight the Minister of Justice has launched a venomous and unwarranted attack on the National Union of South African Students, of which I have the honour to be a Vice-President. He has called on students, to "eradicate this cancer" which is "tainted with Communism and has become the mouthpiece of leftists and liberalists". While his immediate object appears to be the disruption of the National Union of South African Students, it is also probable that he is anxious to smear those universities which resist Government policy in order that they may be discredited.
South Africa has now been before the United Nations for seventeen years. During the time that I was there I saw one after another of the lamps of human freedom extinguished by the actions of the South African Government. Year by year I saw frustration, fear and bitterness increase, but the struggle for liberation continued. And the struggle still goes on. The Government will never succeed in silencing those men and women, White and Black, who know this tyranny for what it is. People like Helen Joseph, who has just finished her first year of house arrest. During that time she has reported 301 times to police headquarters and travelled 600 miles from her office to the police station and back. For four years more her home will be her prison. In order to obey the order to report to the police she has still 1,200 times in which she must visit the police station and travel 2,400 miles to do so. Yet when I spoke to her by phone a few weeks ago she was as determined in her opposition to apartheid as ever. Helen Joseph, like thousands of others in South Africa, in common with millions of people throughout the world, waits anxiously for the day when the representatives of the nations will agree that the situation in the Republic is too tragic for them to be content with words, and still more words.
Certainly those who wait are encouraged by those Member States who understand clearly that the struggle in South Africa is one of justice against injustice, even as they are bewildered and dismayed when representatives of other countries urge their nationals to increase their investments in South Africa. If the non-Whites in South Africa are at last driven to widespread violence then those who covertly or openly support the present state of affairs in South Africa will have to bear a large share of responsibility for what may occur. If the struggle in South Africa becomes a bitter racial struggle then it will be in measure the fault of those nations who refuse to act while there is time to act. In common with civilized men everywhere, the victims of apartheid ask that the United Nations should take effective action both to end the present intolerable situation in South Africa and also help to plan some better way of life for those of all races in that great country than that which they know at present. Pray God that they will not ask in vain. Pray God that action will be taken before it is too late.