Gesture against South Africa

Press, 3 December 1985, Page 20

Gesture against South Africa

Sir, — I appreciated your wellbalanced and factual editorial of November 30 about sanctions against South Africa and the opposite effect they are likely to have from those intended by the Governments imposing them. Your reference to ’increased censorship of television filming in South Africa warrants comment. Quite recently my wife and I stayed at the Indian Maharani Hotel on the foreshore at Durban. We enjoyed walking along the beach, talking to and socialising with locals of every colour, creed and race. There were no restrictions. Soon after returning home, we watched an obvious jacked-up television film claiming segregation and ill-treatment of the blacks on the beach at Durban. The film was deliberately false. Any censorship of television there has been brought about by deliberate distortions, lies and the bias of foreign television crews visiting that country. If they cannot tell the truth, why do they go there at all? — Yours, etc.,

BERT WALKER. November 30, 1985.

Sir,—Your editorial on South Africa was well balanced, comprehensive and, above all, realistic and timely. South African whites must, not and will not be pushed. They too have inherent rights, moral and legal, and are obviously prepared to fight for them. Morals, like fears and hopes, are rightly fashioned by the circumstances of the people who have to live them out. In the same issue, Allister Sparks dictates from some ivory tower his recipe for democracy in South Africa, knowing as he must, it has utterly failed in all other independent States, and is impossible in South Africa. He suggests no reform by the blacks is simply inflammatory. Critics should exhort the blacks to apply more virility to their work and family welfare, and less to breeding. This would promote a more amenable climate for justice all round.— Yours, etc., R. B. OLAUSEN. December 1, 1985.