S. Africa

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29378, 3 December 1960, Page 3

S. Africa

[Reviewed by C.E.S.I Curtain Up on South Africa. By Garry Allighan. Boardman. 276 pp. My Beloved Country. By Tommy Boydell. Nasionale Boekhandel Bpk. 204 pp. Mr Allighan’s book deserves to be widely read, although for one who is described on the dustjacket as a former Fleet street "star” reporter, Mr Allighan has only a rough and ready command of the English language. Nevertheless he is an acute observer and draws interesting conclusions from the facts he has gathered. The first part of his book—he calls it the stage setting—is the record of a tour from Cape Town up to Johannesburg, a thousand miles away, and then south-east, via Newcastle and Ladysmith, to Durban. From Durban he travelled along the coast, heading westward after East London to Port Elizabeth, George and Mossel Bay, then back again to Cape Town. The account of the agricultural and industrial development of this great country is most impressive; and the turgid style of description probably suits the vigorous materialism that marks certain aspects of South African urban life. A brief account of the history of the Cape Province follows. Mr Allighan does not mince matters. “Relinquishing the colony, after having perceived its potentialities, was too much for the British. By force of arms they compelled the peaceful colonists to surrender the fertile lands which they, and their forefathers, had spent 150 years in cultivating.” As he puts it, “the sword-wielders soon gave place to the Bible-carriers. The missionaries did their duty. They did it so well that the whole area was soon in a turmoil. The preaching of the equality of black and white upset an arrangement that Mr Allighan, like the Dutch settlers, seems to regard with approval—the master-man relationship. “As neither of the two groups had any illusions as to their respective stages of civilisation, the natives found it both agreeable and profitable to be servant to the white-man master. This the missionaries taught the heathen natives and tried to persuade their Calvinistic masters, was un-Chris-tion, and the natural acceptance of separate existence was made unnatural at a time when it was both acceptable and normal.” The author goes further. By means of an ingenious argument he blames the missionaries for “the present apartheid incubus.” To begin with there was not only the difference of colour, there was also the difference of religion. The natives “agreeably accepted” their inferiority, because they recognised that the white man’s god was greater than theirs. “When the missionaries ‘converted* them, that basic differentiation was removed. From that time it was skin-hue that established separation and superiority—the colour-bar was let down.” It can be taken for granted that not. all readers will respond to Mr Allighan’s zeal. He is on stronger ground when he discusses the traditional Bantu social organisation. “Apartheid—apartness—is traditional with them. It was the rigid policy throughout their tribal history—the aristocratic Zulu tribe lived distinctly apart from the Xosas, and they from the Lesothos and the Mashonas and the Felcani and the Tembus. They practise apartheid against the people of mixed blood and tjie Asiatics today. It is not the principle against which they protest, but the inhumanities and injustices with which the Government, apply it.” In fact, the author protests, “their animosity is not directed to the white man but to the white man’s laws.”

At the same time there is considerable emphasis in the idea that the Bantu “is still, basically, a savage, unready to exercise political control.” About a third of the total 11 million Bantus still live in Reserves, and their outlook differs greatly from that of their brothers who live in urbanised conditions. Mr Allighan enters into their problems with considerable attention to detail, and this part of his book will appeal to the general reader much more than his rather contentious apologetics.

Mr Boydell’s book traverses some of the same ground as that covered by Mr Allighan. But the tone is very much lighter. For many years Mr Boydell was a member of the South African legislature. He was a Cabinet Minister and senator, and was always a devoted supporter of General Smuts. Since his retirement from polities he has been travelling around the world, “at my own expense, as a selfappointed ambassador of goodwill trying to run the country up, when so many run it down.” “My Beloved Country” is made up of reports of speeches and interviews given by Mr Boydell in performing his mission. Appreciative comments labelled “audience reaction” are freely quoted; and the book contains 10 full-page photographic illustrations, in seven of which the author himself appears.