Tragic Absurdities Of Apartheid

Press, Volume C, Issue 29709, 30 December 1961, Page 10

Tragic Absurdities Of Apartheid

Reports of race classification judgments illustrate the appalling jeopardy in which the Republic of South Africa puts thousands of its decent citizens by the apartheid laws. When is a man, woman, or child white? The tragic absurdity of this question, so important to the Afrikaner, is revealed by the statutory definition of a “ white per- “ son “ one whose appear- " ance obviously is white, “ or who is generally ac- “ cepted as a white person ”, The last year, with its constitutional changes and General Election, has seen the completion of the Boer State and the reinforcement of the racial rigidities that distinguish it from other Western-style democracies. Changes in Dr. Verwoerd’s Cabinet implied an obstinate determination to pursue the doctrinaire policy of apartheid uncompromisingly. But the tragic absurdities multiply as racial theorists grope for administrative formulae to regulate or disrupt human lives in a manner

shamefully incompatible with natural justice. It is not long since the Nationalists, for reasons of economic and technical expediency, decided officially to classify Japanese as “white” Accordingly, a Japanese can now buy a bouse in a white area of a South African town, and can enjoy amenities from restaurants to lavatories in common with white South Africans. Chinese, also, may be classified as “ white ” where they are visitors; but their case is complicated by Chinese born in South Africa who hitherto have been in the coloured category. To South Africans persecuted under the apartheid laws it is cold comfort that similar absurdities of administrative bigotry have occurred probably in all periods of history What is so dreadful about South Africa is that there humanitarian progress, Christian tolerance, and compassion for the under-privileged are being thrust deliberately underground by fanatics whose sincerity nobody can doubt