Great Racial Problems Of South Africa Today

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28429, 8 November 1957, Page 2

Great Racial Problems Of South Africa Today

Although it was impossible to; forecast the future of South Africa —whether it would remain a Dominion or become a Republic | —the probability was that the tension between white and white and white and coloured peoples would increase and become more embittered, said Mrs L. G. Pocock in a talk on South Africa at the annual meeting of (Tie Pan Pacific and South-east Asia Women’s Association, last evening. Mrs Pocock. who has visited .South Africa several times, said I that the fundamental causes of the country’s troubles were the relationship between the two white races (Dutch and British) and the relationship between the white races and the non-white races, which consisted of black, brown and half-cast peoples. The first problem affected the second. Treatment of Natives After tracing the history of the settlement of South Africa by both the Dutch and the British, Mrs Pocock said that the question of the treatment of the natives separated the two white races and intense ill-feeling arose, as did the difference in language and legal systems. This bitterness had grown as the years had passed and the Dutch, who had always outnumbered the British continued to increase at a much greater rate so that today, when democracy and majority rule was the system, the South African government was predominantly Dutch. The party which had been in power since World War II was bitterly hostile to the British. "The Government has made rules which are very irksome to the British; they talk a great deal about forming a South African Republic independent of the British Crown; they hate the Union Jack. Above all, they have quarrelled over the question of non-white people of South Africa,” she said. I The people of mixed blood, known as the coloureds, the Kaffirs and the Indian population were also at loggerheads. These ! groups of non-whites outnumbered the whites by about six to one. “Guilt Complex” “I think it is time to say that the Dutch were more determined to keep the native down than the British were,’’ Mrs Pocock said !*‘The harsh attitude of the Americans of the Southern States to-1 wards the negro has been said to I arise from a guilt complex, the I 'outcome of their having been; I slave-owners. It may be equally! true of the South African Dutch.’’ ! On the whole, the British had 1 given the non-whites a better • deal than had the Dutch. I The storm-centre tdday was largely Johannesburg, described : as the richest town south of the : equator, she said. After World 'War II Johannesburg became the centre not only of the gold in- ; dustry but of greatly-expanding •industries arising out of the war. j This meant a greater need for . native labour. It was no longer j possible to house this population in compounds, and the natives l lived in unbelievable misery and squalor. The situation had been aggravated and made desperate

by the Government’s policy of apartheid—keeping the white and non-white societies completely apart. ‘‘lt does not even seem a possible, much less justifiable solution,” she said. Knowing that there was a tremendous reserve of labour to call upon, the Government has resolved that the natives who worked in Johannesburg should only be temporary residents. Every now and then the people of Sophiatown. the native labour area, had been uprooted and removed to the veldt, without any arrangements for their accommodation being made. Apartheid ‘‘lf the non-whites were given a vote on the same terms as the whites they would obviously outnumber them, and the Government would no longer be in the hands of the whites,” Mrs Pocock said. ‘‘To avoid this the Government goes to the extremes of apartheid and denies the nonwhite all the political and many of the economic and social rights of citizenship.” Mrs Pocock said she once asked a South African Dutch professor, then lecturing at Berkeley University, California, whether he thought the colour question was worse in the Southern States of America or in South Africa. He replied that he had been very anti-native in his youth, but since living in America he had changed altogether, and he could only, say with great sadness that the situation was worse in South Africa. In the United States the negro could rise to be a professor. doctor, actor, artist, or mus’eian if only in his own community. but a South African native could not. except in rare circumstances. “It is not to be imagined that so rich a field as South Africa is left unsown by the Communist world. The Dutch think this justifies their repressive policy, but it would be a more enlightened attitude to realise the danger of the situation and meet it halfway by very great concessions,” Mrs Pocock said.