Coloureds insist on recognition

Press, 28 November 1979, Page 21

Coloureds insist on recognition

By

PIERRE HASKI,

Agence France-

Presse, through NZPA

There are two and a half million South Africans who speak Afrikaans — the same language as the descendants of the Boer pioneers; who attend the same church as the Afrikaners, the Dutch Reformed Church; and who read the same newspapers. But their dark skins ban them from voting, mean they earn lower salaries, live in separate residential districts, go to separate schools and hospitals. . . For they are South Africa’s “Coloureds” — people of mixed descent. The fate of this important community is a major headache for the Pretoria Government and a dramatic problem of conscience for many Afr i k a n e r s , particularly those in Cape Province where 80 per cent of the Coloureds live. The problem recently came into the limelight again when a meeting between Prime Minister Pieter Botha and the elected leaders of the Coloured community provoked an exchange of extremely hostile remarks and threats of a break in relations between Pretoria and the Coloureds’ leaders. The dispute arose over the refusal of the Coloureds’ leaders to give evidence before a Parliamentary committee of inquiry on constitutional reform and their insistent demands for universal suffrage in a united South Africa. Who are these Coloureds? With a touch of humour, some reply that

w’ithout the whites they would probably never have existed. The Coloured community is extremely diverse and the laws class in this category all persons who are neither Indian, nor African, nor white. The first settlers to land in the Cape in the middle of the seventeenth centuryhad fewer scruples than their descendants about sexual relations with the women of the Hottentot tribe already settled in the region, or with freed slaves, mostly Malays. Most of the people of mixed descent reject the official name of “Coloured” which the Government has given them. The new generation prefers to des-

cribe itself as “black” or, as the Rev. Allan Hendrickse, president of the Coloureds’ Labour Party, says: “I do not want to be labelled Coloured. All I want to be known as is South African.” Today’s bitterness among the . Coloureds’ leaders stems from the fact that they were once close to assimilation with the whites, as the majority of them want to be, and which is accepted by many whites. Until 1969, the Coloureds could, despite major restrictions, vote for the central parliament, though they were

not eligible for election themselves. At the start of the century a Coloured leader, Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, sat on the Cape municipal and provincial council. Certain residential districts, such as the former “district, six” at Cape Town, were considered largely integrated into the white districts. But the coming to power in 1948 of the Nationalist Party, with its doctrine of apartheid, changed all that. Basing its policy on the separation of the races, it strove, with an unparalled legislative arsenal, to undo all that existed. Indirect representation of the Coloureds in Parliament was abolished after the “Group Areas Act,”

a long battle. A new law imposed separate residential districts, leading to the death of “district six,” and the Government set up the “Coloured Representative Council” (C.R.G.), a mini-Parliament for the Coloured community. But that fell far short of solving the problems. The C.R.C. was rapidly controlled by the Labour Party, which, as an increasingly radical antiapartheid movement, has paralysed its functioning for several years. Faced with the growing dissatisfaction of the com-

munity, which erupted violently in 1976 when young people from the Coloured districts in the Cape joined in the antiapartheid riotings launched from Soweto, the sprawling black township near Johannesburg, the Government appointed a commission of inquiry. This commission, presided over by a well known white university professor, Mrs Erika Theron, made 220 important recommendations. But the Government’s reply, in a white paper in 1977, disappointed many. It rejected 31 of the main recommendations including, in particular, direct representation in Parliament. Mr Hendrickse, a former political detainee, says: “They (the Government) have told us that we will continue as second-class citizens, shackled to the system of apartheid.” His Labour Party recently published the results of its own inquiry. Its conclusion was that South Africa must have a single, integrated political system and a Parliament elected by universal suffrage. This position, unacceptable to Pretoria, is all the more embarrassing as the Labour Party controls an institution set up by the Government and seriously threatens to compromise the new policy of Prime Minister Botha. The premier hoped, in fact, to integrate the 2,500.000 Coloureds into his “total strategy” aimed at saving South Africa

from revolution. He sought in particular the support of these leaders for the extension of military service to the Coloureds — something they refuse “as long as apartheid remains intact.” After missing several opportunities to reach an agreement acceptable to the Coloureds — a community torn between its fear of the African majority and its rejection of white domination — the Government must again face Coloured leaders who are asking for all or ingAnd Mr Botha’s anger during his recent meeting with Mr Hendrickse indicated that he has no answer to give them.