Sth African war ‘inevitable’

Press, 14 June 1984, Page 9

Sth African war ‘inevitable’

Makgolo Ansley Makgolo does not look like a saboteur, but he is out to destroy South Africa’s apartheid system and myths that migrations of Dutch settlers and blacks arrived in the country's interior about the same time.

Mr Makgolo. a postgraduate archaeology student, aged 30, a political exile from his homeland since the 1976 Soweto uprisings, was in Christchurch yesterday as part of a national speaking tour.

For Mr Makgolo. a Black Consciousness Movement member, the time for peaceful change in South Africa has passed. “I think that personally I have lost hope," he said. Even though South Africa's military machine was “armed’ to the last tooth." that wouid not stop the large black population's determination to topple the svstem.

’ When that would happen was anybody's guess, he said. lan Smith, the former Prime Minister of Rhodesia, had said in 1978 that majority rule in his country would not occur in his lifetime. Mr Makgolo was working as a clerk at a civil engineering factory in Germiston in 1976 when’his developing political awareness led him too close to the edge of what was permitted in South Africa.

He tried to encourage factory workers to join "stay-away strikes" in support of the Soweto fight against the use of Afrikaans for teaching. He was arrested on a sabotage charge and held in police custody. He suffered regular beatings until he was released on bail after three weeks.

"I just had to flee.” said Mr Makgolo. "The possibilities of being acquitted were ■very, very slim. 1 would

have been rendered immobile if I had been in prison.” The police beatings had been aimed at finding out if his strike activities were sparked by outside influences.

He walked long distances during his escape, and eventually crossed the border into Botswana, where he had relatives and friends.

A scholarship took him to Nigeria, where he went to high school for two more years to qualify for university. He then completed an honours degree in archaeology and African history. At the University of Auckland the Southern Africa Scholarship Trust sponsored by the Students’ Association is allowing him to work towards a master's degree in archaeology. Until now, South African histories had restricted their treatment of black activities to the period after 1652, when Dutch settlers arrived. There was evidence of an iron-smelting site in the Transvaal dating from about 400 A.D., Mr Makgolo said.

"There is also anthropological evidence that people of negroid stock, aside from the Hottentots and Bushmen. have been in South Africa from time immemorial."

Conditions were so harsh on the African continent that migrations could not have occurred "all of a sudden" in about 1100 A.D.. he said. That was simply a myth used to shore up the white man's claim that the land was “up for grabs" when thev came.

There were also signs of very early man in South Africa, similar to the hominid sites in Kenya. "So how is it possible to say that part of the continent was not populated?” Mr Makgolo said. ... He would not retrni to

South Africa even if blacks were included in any future constitutional changes designed by whites.

The new constitution, which called for three Parliamentary houses for whites. Coloureds, and Indians, still excluded the majority blacks and was "based on the pillars of apartheid." he said. Only a total destruction of the apartheid system would be sufficient. Even then. South Africa's problams would not be over. Any replacement system after "liberation" would have to correct the severe standard-of-living imbalances that oppressed the

black working majority

So far. the white man's solution had been separate development, in bantustans. with the attempted shifting of blacks to 13 per cent of South African land.

Peaceful change had been sought by blacks since the early 1900 s. but their pleas had been ignored. Mr Makgolo said. "United Nations organisations have tried to put pressure on the Government, and Churches have tried, but nothing has happened." he said. "So the black population are prepared to employ anything at their disposal. War is inevitable so long as the apartheid sys-

tern exists." South African armed forces were among the world’s strongest, but their might would be "irrelevant" in a guerrilla war. The fight was not only against apartheid but against a capitalist system that did not protect the rights of workers.

“Most people would still make a lot of profit from the cheap labour of black people, even if apartheid disappears." he said. Mr Makgolo wants to see an Azania (South Africa) where religion does not play any role in determining the status of individuals. Religions should not be able to discriminate against one another.

"We must live together as Azanians and human beings." he said.

New Zealanders could help in the struggle by cutting all cultural and sports ties with apartheid. Mr Makgolo would not be drawn on whether the Labour Party's policy of not banning sportsmen’ from travelling to South Africa would go far enough. "Any government should do anything within its power in efforts to persuade the AU Blacks not to go to South Africa." he said. New Zealand was creating employment problems for itself by importing South African products that could be made here.

Mr Makgolo. who grew up in a three-room house in the black township of Natalspruit. with five other family members, said that the black majority would eventually be freed from inside the country, not from outside. His mother had died in 1981. Since his escape, he had not communicated with his stepfather or other family members, for their own good. |