CHRONIC CRISIS IN SOUTH AFRICA

...This comprises the large African National Congress, the only major organization among the country's 9.5 million Africans...

...South Africa now has its first two-party parliament, but it is probable that the United Party will soon split under the shock of its third successive election defeat...

...The medium of instruction is tribal vernacular and, in introducing the relevant legislation, the minister of native affairs stated that "there is no place for the Native [African] in white society above certain forms of labor...

...and a minute handful of white radicals organized in the Congress of Democrats...

...Its continued expansion has been hampered by three major factors...

...Institute of Race Relations for fact finding and research, but they may now find a political home in the Liberal Party...

...The key to the Nationalists' mentality is their belief that they are engaged in a war of survival, in which disagreement with, or opposition to, their actions is regarded as treason...

...The Nationalists campaigned on two simple issues: the maintenance of white supremacy, and the ascendancy of the Afrikaners among the white group...

...Since then a spate of legislation, much of it enacted during the past two years, has deprived Africans of the right of habeas corpus, made it illegal for them to strike under any circumstances, and given the executive powers—which it has used—to banish any African from his home without a hearing and confine him indefinitely to any area...

...Most urban Africans are unskilled laborers, with a statutory minimum wage of only one-third of this subsistence income...

...Under a United Party government the degree of oppression would certainly be less intense than it is now, but the return of the Nationalists to power for a third term was in any case guaranteed by a favorable new reapportionment and the traditional weighting of the largely Afrikaner country vote...

...In the meantime, 1,000 Africans are arrested every day of the year for criminal offenses under the "pass" laws, which require them to have permits for being in an urban area, looking for work, holding that work when found, and being on the streets after curfew hours...

...In this effort it may find allies among the large Afrikaner financial interests which have established themselves in industry and commerce since the war...

...It would, in fact, be true to say that while race relations have never been worse in South Africa, there are also more people than ever, of all races, who are seriously concerned about this deterioration...

...Despite police harrying and government threats, they gained their point, and the sympathetic attitude of the large English language press brought their desperate economic plight to the notice of most whites for the first time...

...Where women have refused to take out passes, the government has deprived whole tribes of such scanty social services as it provides and has backed the pro-government chiefs with armed force...

...Ever since the Union of South Africa was created at the turn of this century, extremist Afrikaners (Dutch origin) have also nursed a resentment engendered by their defeat at the hands of the British in the Boer War...

...So far there has been only one major attempt to use the other obvious weapon which the non-whites possess —the economic boycott...

...It is here that the United Party, which is the political mouthpiece of old established English and American capital, differentiates itself from the Nationalist Party...

...The potential importance of the African as a consumer is increasingly being appreciated by secondary industry, which now makes a larger contribution to the national income than mining...

...The form and success of the protest in other areas varied, but it served as a sharp demonstration of the indispensability of African labor and of the strength which non-whites could exercise through collective action...

...chronic crisis in SOUTH AFRICA by JAMES FAIRBAIRN Johannesburg fT^he overwhelming victory of the Nationalist Party in South Africa's recent general election, combined with the failure of preceding non-white protest demonstrations, calls for a reexamination of much current thinking about that unbeloved country...

...Both condemned the principles of Bantu Education and have closed their mission schools rather than implement it...

...Although many Afrikaners still vote for the United Party, the Nationalist beating of the racialist drum resulted in a decided swing in their favor, so that for the first time they can claim to have the support of half the white electorate...

...the difficulty of communication with and among them is increased by illiteracy and the diverse languages used by various tribal groups...

...In addition, a system of housing urban Africans according to their ethnic group, or tribe, is being ruthlessly enforced and has already borne fruit in bloody, large scale riots by semi-urbanized groups of laborers of differing tribes...

...These problems, and many others, were among those discussed last December in Johannesburg at the largest and most representative multiracial gatherings ever held in South Africa...

...Last year, when the Minister of Native Affairs, Dr...

...The arrest, in December 1956, of 156 men and women of all races on charges of high treason attracted world-wide attention, as did the release at the end of last year of 65 of them—before their defense counsel even had opportunity to establish their innocence...

...It is from these groups, especially from the African National Congress, that almost all organized opposition to the Nationalist government has come, but it would be misleading to romanticize their organization, which is ramshackle, or their "pulling" power among non-whites, which can be small...

...One of ..the main hopes for the future lies in the fact that these Afrikaner interests face the same problems resulting from Nationalist policy as do other profit-seekers...

...More than any other measure, this attempt to make women carry passes has aroused the Africans to opposition, for the women realize from the universal experience of their menfolk that it will mean motherless children and deserted homes...

...the growth of a significant non-white press is of recent origin...

...The Party's future course was stated unequivocally just after this election triumph by Prime Minister Johannes Strydom: its color policy will be "relentlessly pursued...

...In addition, the Nationalists have tried to establish the country's two million Afrikaners as top-dogs over the one million English speaking whites, and have done their best to smash the liberal tendencies which challenged their course...

...It has, however, made little impression on the Nationalists, and today, for lack of American and other support, finds itself in severe financial difficulties...

...In view of the record of the past ten years, this may well prove to have been the point of no return for the exponents of white supremacy at the foot of Africa...

...It is against this background that recent developments must be viewed...

...Here the Nationalists have tried to perpetuate tribal loyalties—and divisions—by ostensibly increasing the powers of tribal chiefs, while at the same time making these chiefs utterly subservient to the minister of native affairs...

...Worst of all may be the complete banning of the African National Congress...

...During the past year alone a Native Laws Amendment Act has given the minister of native affairs the power to prohibit all inter-racial meetings, whether in church, school, cinema, or home...

...Almost all white South Africans are, for selfish reasons, allergic to having moral principles brought to bear on their materially comfortable lives...

...the small South African Colored Peoples Organization, which has failed to organize the almost 1.5 million South Africans of mixed blood...

...world...

...If one asks why the white electorate permits all this, the answer is simply that most of it appears to be in their economic interests, and that although the government's Draconian powers extend also to the whites, they are used only against the anti-racialist—and therefore "lunatic"—fringe...

...they have drawn much help from the efforts of overseas groups like the American Committee on Africa...

...Convinced that the future of the Afrikaners as a separate entity could be ensured only through baas-skap (white supremacy), they set about reversing the unacknowledged, but real, trend towards racial integration which had been set in motion by wartime industrial expansion...

...the Indian National Congress, which speaks for the half million Asians...

...Late last year a process of reserving differing categories of work for specific racial groups was begun, and additional power given to the executive to speed up the compulsory uprooting and relocating of tens of thousands of non-whites in racially "pure" ghettos euphemistically known as Group Areas...

...An urban, married African having the average number of three children, needs $70 a month just to transport himself to work, to keep his family from actual malnutrition and bodily exposure, and to maintain a substantial roof over his family...

...Even the present representation of 9.5 million Africans in parliament by seven whites will be abolished...

...Most of these Africans have become urbanized only during the past 15 years...

...The elections were confined to South Africa's three million whites, and the choice made in a record 88 per cent poll shows that, in the face of racial tensions heightened by ten years of Nationalist rule, the whites are more determined than ever to deny eleven million non-whites all political rights...

...While this clearly shows that there is no hope of the Liberal Party ever gaining parliamentary power through an all-white electorate, it does indicate that a growing but still small group of whites is giving increasingly serious consideration to the problem of worsening race relations...

...The new Anglican Archbishop of Capetown, the Rt...

...The ability of Africans to unite in determined and disciplined action on practical issues was proved last year in Johannesburg, when 5,000 of them walked as much as 18 miles a day rather than pay an increased bus fare...

...At a time when multi-racial gatherings of all kinds are vocally frowned upon by the government, this one created a new feeling of solidarity and personal contacts between leaders of widely differing anti-racialist groups...

...Until a few years ago, tribal mixing in the towns and the spread of elementary education under mission aegis were rapidly overcoming tribal differences and creating a unified black proletariat...

...Realizing this, the Nationalists have taken education away from the missions and, while greatly increasing the number of African children attending schools, have created a special system of Bantu Education...

...This stand of the Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops is certainly a sign of progress, but it would be a mistake to think that they are carrying more than a few of their mainly English-speaking flocks with them on their outspoken path...

...Although individual purchasing power is extremely low, its combined effect is immense...

...These people have hitherto been content to draw heavily on the S.A...

...The presence of the latter was symptomatic of the outspoken opposition to Nationalist apartheid into which both churches have lately been forced...

...This is not surprising when one considers the odds against which they work...

...Joost de Blank, has gone further and attacked the "traditional" system of migratory black male labor, which breaks up family life by leaving mothers and children to struggle in overpopu-lated and endemically famine stricken rural "reserves" lor as long as the men are needed in the white towns...

...In South Africa today, those who continue with inter-racial activities do so only by virtue of loopholes in, or the partial and temporary non-enforcement of, the law of the land...

...It is certain that the Nationalists will clamp down even harder on all forms of opposition and even criticism...

...Three token Liberal candidates opposed United Party nominees, and -~ one voter in ten in these contests voted for them...

...All this has been accomplished by the manipulation of white parliamentary government...

...In Johannesburg, the center of the country's largest industrial complex, this took the form of staying home from work which was 70 per cent effective...

...Americans may find it difficult to comprehend the extent to which Africans are controlled by the state...

...Under the impact of Nationalist degradation, all non-white groups have increasingly come to realize that their only hope lies in concerted endeavor...

...the English language press will be muzzled...

...there has been no coup d'etat...

...An organization like the internationally respected, multi-racial South African Institute of Race Relations, which has concerned itself with finding both facts and their moral implications, has pointed to the integration of all races as the only just and feasible solution to the country's problems...

...Worse still, of the almost two million Africans now in urban areas, 80 per cent live below the level of mere subsistence...

...Verwoerd, took powers to prohibit the attendance of Africans at churches in white areas, both churches came out in open defiance...

...Broadcasting is a state monopoly...

...But when the minister tried to use the chiefs to extend the hated men's "pass" system to women, a wave of resistance of unprecedented strength sprang up...

...The process goes on...

...The general election also saw the end of the long-waning South African Labor Party which, though all-white, had a progressive and courageous leader in Alex Hepple...

...Large sums of money have had to be found for the defense of the accused, the support of their dependents, and the eventual rehabilitation of those acquitted...

...It was particularly noteworthy for the joint participation of Congress movement leaders and bishops of both the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches...

...Coming to power in 1948, after South Africa had fought with Britain in a war of which they disapproved, the Nationalists dedicated themselves to establishing the dominance of their own group...

...As a result, many tribes have revolted against their chiefs, creating conditions of near or actual civil war in many parts of the country...

...A surprising, and encouraging, recent development has been the emergence of African women into the political field, especially in the traditionally backward rural areas...

...Such a development would, of course, run counter to the Nationalist's vision of a black people held eternally in serfdom, tolerated in the towns only as long as their unskilled labor is needed...

...The United Party, on the other hand, which concerns itself primarily with the profit motive, advocates enlarging the existing economic integration of the races, but continuing their social and residential segregation...

...There is no revolution around the corner in South Africa, but if the Congress is driven underground in its present ill-organized state, its dissident black chauvinists, who have hitherto confined themselves to heated debate at annual conferences, might easily start throwing home-made bombs instead...

...They have stripped the non-whites of even those few civil liberties which they possessed before 1948, and limited those of the white groups to an extent which would scarcely be accepted even under war conditions in any western democracy...

...Of these, the shortage of foreign investment capital, which in a period of general scarcity naturally tends to seek its long-term returns in areas less explosive than South Africa, is beyond industry's control...

...It was also the first parliamentary election to be contested by the recently formed, tiny, multi-racial Liberal Party, which is pledged to parliamentary reform but has lately been speaking of common practical action with the Congress movement...

...This belief has been embodied in a series of laws so restrictive that they have given the present government a greater degree of normal statutory power over its subjects than has been legislated in any other country in the JAMES FAIRBAIRN is the South African correspondent of Reynolds News, London, and a regular contributor to the New Statesman...

...But the other two roadblocks—lack of a mass home market and the shortage of skilled and semi-skilled labor —could both be solved by the admission of settled, urbanized Africans to more skilled—and better paid— work...

...The tragedy of this resistance is that the Africans themselves are the greatest sufferers...

...Encouraged by this victory won through spontaneous action, the African National Congress called, on short notice, a one day non-white protest against low wages and "passes...

...To achieve these ends, the Nationalists have subverted the country's constitution and politicized its civil service and its judiciary...

...Here the Nationalists will gain even more strength, though the Liberals may also benefit a little...

...The 65 released and the 91 accused now committed for trial are all connected with the Congress Movement...

...Americans who are puzzled by the apparently suicidal policies implemented by the Nationalist government should remember that the Nationalist party represents the aspirations of a young Afrikaner nation which has established its identity through conquest of primitive Africans...

...Despite all this, the South African picture is not completely dark...

...and any white suspected of working with the Africans for their advancement will be "named" as a "Communist" and left to the tender mercies of a government appointed economic "liquidator...

...Long before the Nationalists came to power in 1948, previous white governments had deprived them of freedom of movement, residence, property, personal privacy, occupation, and of equality before the law...