South African Reply To Criticism Of Apartheid

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28537, 17 March 1958, Page 6

South African Reply To Criticism Of Apartheid

The following letter, commenting on a leading article about apartheid in South Africa, has been received by the editor of “The Press” from Mr R. M. Rhoodie, information officer at the South African High Commissioner’s office in Canberra: —

“Your leading article of February 8 came as a complete surprise to me. South African players and others who have been to New Zealand have always told me of the prevailing ‘fair-play’ spirit in. New Zealand newspapers. To my mind your observation on South Africa’s segregation policy has shown an appalling lack of discretion, which, if it was not wholly unintentional, should have given you food for much regret if you had to make an independent observation in South Africa.

“The whole of your observation consisted of remarks and statements by Australian newspapers, by outspoken critics and opponents of the Government’s segregation or separate develop-

ment policy or statements by the defence in the treason trial, but not a single statement on policy which could be attributed directly to a Government source. Your whole article is so one-sided that one cannot blame any New Zealander for getting a hopelessly distorted picture of conditions ii» South Africa. Why don’t you live up to your reputation and give the other side a chance? “The position in South Africa today is that the whole of the English press is solidly in opposition to the Government. In addition, we have a violent political climate. Any policy statement by the Government is normally taken up in the English press in the form of a summary. Because of political reasons, for which you cannot blame any party newspaper, all the poison is sucked out of a statement and the honey left behind. The result is that the whole world is being fed a one-sided version of conditions in i South Africa. S.A.P.A. and the United Press, as well as S.A.P A.Reuter, certainly don’t attribute their reports to the Afrikaans press; it is usually attributed to what the “Rand Daily Mail” or the “Cape Times” or the “Natal Witness” has to say on a particular subject. The result is that the real attitude and the wishes and policy of the Government, no matter how sincere they are, can never be put to the world. We are up against the frustrating language barrier. “Are you prepared to face the facts and present to your readers the ottier side of the story? Or will you persist in using and quoting only what opposition and the anti-Government supporters have to say? “Misconceptions”

“Looking through your leader, I can point out five glaring misconceptions and inaccuracies. You stated: ‘The recent outburst by a Government member of Parliament .. has indicated the lengths to which the Government may be prepared to go . . . for no better reason than disagreement

have laid South Africa open to the reproach of being a police State.’ If every irresponsible remark by a back-bencher in the heat of a political argument in the New Zealand, Australian, or British Houses of Parliament were rushed to the corners of the earth to be displayed as the general feeling of the Government and the people regarding a certain matter, imagine what a state of affairs we would Jiave! “You indicated that because the Archbishop of Cape Town had criticised the Government’s policy, an invitation for him to , preach at the Simonstown Naval Dockyard was withdrawn. It is naval law in South Africa that such ah important leader of the Church would not be invited to preach if the Naval Chief of Staff or his second in command could attend. Similar incidents have happened in the past. Why didn’t you give it such prominence then? “The treason trial is called a ‘discreditable affair.’ With all the remarks made by the counsel for the defence which you quoted and the comments by opposition papers and persons, you need not have any fears that your readers won’t get the impression that the whole affair was just a put-up case to silence the critics of the Government! I must ask you to give South Africans credit for not being a nation of scheming reactionaries imbued with base and inhuman motives nor a nation of fools, as you would make us out, blind to the gravity of our vital problems. We have a great love for our country and we don't intend to destroy love or country by not acting in the best interests of South Africa. Sir Arthur Harris said in London: “The issue is a simple one, whether it is tit. proper, or wise action for citizens of one self-governing Commonwealth country to subscribe financial support for citizens of another self-governing Commonwealth country, who are or may be indicted for treasonable activi-

ties against the laws and elected Government of their own land.’ How would New Zealand feel if a plot to overthrow the Government is suspected, and the people of South Africa and the world react the way you did? It would not help to argue that under present conditions such a thing would never happen in your country.

“The question is, if it did happen, how would you react? Remember, the law of evidence in South Africa is as strong as in your own country. These people have been accused, and evidence is now being laid to prove guilt or innocence. You must be blind to the realities in Africa if you think that there are no grounds for suspecting such Communist activities. Your method'of giving priority only to what the accused say is casting grave reflections on the whole judiciary system in South Africa. Would you give as much publicity to a number of people who may be arrested

for a mass murder, or would you leave it to the courts to decide? Your attitude is that the treason trial is a battle of ideas between that of the Government and that of its opposition. We reject this interpretation. ‘The trial is solely an attempt by the State to protect itself against a group of lawbreakers bent on making South Africa a Soviet satellite,’ was how Cyril Dunn described it. The Americans have a permanent committee for investigating un-Ameri-can activities. There have been similar trials in other Western countries, in Kenya, etc., perhaps

not on such a scale, but then nowhere elsfe in the world can the South African situation with its complexities be paralleled. These other trials you benevolently ignored! Statement By Mr Strydom

“You create the impression that what the Prime Minister (Mr Strydom) said in 1948, 10 years ago, 10 years before the treason trial, regarding treasonable attitude towards solving the South African racial problem, could be interpreted in terms of the pre-

sent court case. What utter nonsense. Before the first test match against the Springboks, I heard a prominent New Zealander say that if the selectors did not choose that particular man, it would be nothing short of committing treason. And he was deadly earnest when he said that! To suggest that the Prime Minister meant that everyone who did not sub-

scribe to the maintenance of white leadership would be guilty of treason, and therefore, in your own interpretation, open for con-

viction, is making a laughing stock out of you. “Would you say that only the Nationalist Government was wrong and that all the Huddlestons, Reeves and de Blanks, those fiery men who use the Church of God to preach racial politics, are the only ones who are right? Do you honestly believe that a country, who through her actions in harbouring the Western ships during the Suez crisis, harbouring Hungarian and Dutch refugees during the Hungarian and the present Indonesian crisis, sending squadrons of planes to Korea and spending millions on a war that did not remotely affect her, proved that she was on the side of the West and fulfilling her obligations towards the United Nations; that the people of a country who fought so gallantly in two world wars, would twice elect, with increasing majorities, a Government which* did not act in the interest of South Africa and to the welfare of its people? It would be an insult to our intelligence. “Do you know that the Leader of the Opposition recently completely rejected the plea by Archbishop de Blank for integration of white and black schools? Do you know that the main attack

against the Government by the Opposition during the last session of Parliament was that it did not sufficiently provide for the maintenance of white leadership and the safeguarding of the future of the’ white South African nation? Did you know that 5,000,000 blacks in South Africa, last year, through their 80 paramount chiefs, accepted the Government’s Bantu Authorities Act, one of the cor-

nerstones of the segregation policy because it provides for local Bantu self-government in their own freely elected areas?

‘‘Who would choose to see the identity of their own people lost in a confused, cosmopolitan society? Would you be prepared to do that if, on the basis of the most acceptable population forecast, your country will have 27,000,000 non-whites against barely 5,000,000 whites in another 30 or 40 years? Do you deny us the segregation which countries like Germany, France, and England have enjoyed for so many years, They discriminated against other nations. How would they otherwise have preserved their identities as Germans, French, or British? We are a South African nation and proud of it. Why can’t we discriminate between a black and a white nation and solve the problems ctf our multiracial country by providing for each in his own territories a na-

tional home to enjoy his own government, independence, and freedom? The blacks in South Africa own nearly 60,000 square miles of the most fertile land in South Africa. It is theirs. No white man may acquire any land in those areas.

“By blindly condemning South Africa you are not only doing South African whites a disservice; you are also doing it to the blacks. You are robbing them of the chance to enjoy unlimited opportunities, freedom, and the fullest development possible in the atmosphere of their own administrated lands. What more do you expect of us? “We, who should know best, are trying, desperately trying, to solve a most complex problem. Already we have provided for the blacks social services, welfare schemes, pensions, houses, health services, and education which the rest of Africa simply cannot equal, not even if they combine. “Would we blindly persist on this road if we • knew it wpuld mean the end of a nation? Forget the colours of the people in South Africa for a moment, and try and visualise two different worlds facing each other, as different from each other as black and white. Segregation would mean the continued existence of both the white and the black nations. Integration would result in a mulatto State where the vast black majority would soon cover the last traces of a 'highly civilised nation. “Why don’t you give us a chance to state our case? Why do you persist in being so onesided that your whole insight tn the matter seems lopsided and unreal?

“I sincerely hope that you would be prepared to give prominence to this letter. By cutting it to pieces you can, of course, always leave just enough to condemn the issue. Some papers arc very skilful at doing this. Sucking all the poison from the flower, leaving the honey behind.”