The Press TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1961 The Afrikaner Wilderness

Press, Volume C, Issue 29526, 30 May 1961, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1961 The Afrikaner Wilderness

In their trek towards the Promised Land the Afrikaners have never flinched from loneliness or isolation. Tomorrow, when South Africa becomes an Afrikaner republic, separate from the Commonwealth, the heirs of Kruger and Malan will begin a new, grimmer loneliness in which, temporarily at least, they will be free to impose yet more rigorously the harsh restraints of racial bigotry. A republic was always the goal of the South African Nationalists, who saw in monarchic institutions unwelcome reminders -of antique Boer grievances. Secession from the Commonwealth appeared much less inevitable. However repugnant the Union’s domestic policies, however brutal their effects, there remained compulsive reasons for desiring no formal breach in the “Old “ Commonwealth ” the original group of founding Dominions with whose aid has been evolved the present structure of the Com- / monwealth.

Economic and many other consequences of tomorrow’s act are likely to be minimised through the continuance of Commonwealth links, sometimes in altered forms. Except through Afrikaner eyes, the Commonwealth itself will be seen as more cohesive and more truly purposeful because of South Africa’s withdrawal That is not to deny the profound change in the Commonwealth’s

racial balance that has occurred through the admission of newly-independent African and Asian members; rather it emphasises the inescapable role of the remaining “ white ” Dominions in friendly partnership with former colonial territories. Nevertheless the Commonwealth sadly bids farewell to the country not only of Strydom, Louw, and Verwoerd, but also of Smutsand Botha. Rhodes, Oppenheimer, and de Villiers Graaf; to a constitutional experiment of unionism, forged through a great, liberal gesture of Boer-British reconciliation: and to the millions of South Africans, both white and black, who detest apartheid but cannot escape its net. The announcement of

constitutional changes aggravated fears that the Verwoerd Government was about to intensify its discrimination against the Bantu, Coloured, and Eng-lish-speaking communities. Immediately there were plans for anti-Govemmc-nt demonstrations, strikes, and-non-co-operation of the kind made familiar by Gandhi. After quickly warning his white compatriots against panic, Dr. Verwoerd set in train extraordinary measures to; preserve order. For weeks; his police have been busier than ever, raiding, searching, confiscating, and ransacking. There have been vague warnings about “injudicious” press reports; normal processes of justice have been set aside; the Government has reinforced the police, alerted the militia, and stepped up the manufacture of munitions. Widespread . arrests have not deterred native agitators who see in the emergency—for that is what Dr. Verwoerd has created—an opportunity to increase African unrest and European disquiet. Albert Luthuli, leader of the banned African National Congress, has called upon all Africans to “ rededicate ourselves to “active sacrificial service”; and the Bantu and Coloured peoples have been driven into an alliance that previously might have been inconceivable. The emergency has gone far, also, towards convincing the world that Dr. Verwoerd is at war not only with African nationalism but with the rights of all individuals, irrespective of race or colour, who oppose apartheid. As the Afrikaner ox-cart creaks heavily into the wilderness, the changed significance qf May 31 to the African continent invites reflection. Fiftynine years ago to the day, the Treaty of Vereeniging ended the Boer War; eight years later the Union was constituted. Tomorrow will mark the rebirth, not of Afrikaner nationalism—for that did not die in 1910— but of the republican system destroyed in the collapse of the Boer States. The wheel has turned full; circle. Has it stopped turning?