[A reply to the speech of Mr. Eric Louw at the Foreign Press Association
luncheon on October 22, 1948]

Mr. Eric Louw, the chief
South African delegate to the United Nations and Dr. D. F. Malan's
representative at the Commonwealth Conference
just concluded, waxed virtuous in his speech at last Friday's luncheon
of the Foreign Press Association. The whole purpose of this speech
is to lull the British public and the world generally into a false
idea of the true character of the Malanite Government and to dampen
the justifiable alarm and fear that is being expressed in informed
quarters of opinion about the course of violent race hatred which Malan's
Government has let loose upon the country. The hymn of hate by all
members of the Malanite administration, including Mr. Louw, against
the non-white peoples of South Africa in particular, as well as against
the Jews and English, and Malan's emergence during the war years as
the apostle of national socialism, is primarily responsible for what
has been said about the Nationalists in the British and American press.
To Louw, this is "a campaign of sowing suspicion." The best
answer to such charges would be to quote from the statements of leading
members of the Malanite administration and, in the words of Mr. Louw, "without
telling you what a Nationalist is, leave it to you to draw your own
conclusions... as to whether a Nationalist in South African politics
is a fire-eating racialist - a narrow-minded bigot - and above all
a man who hates everything British to the depths of his soul."

"England is fighting only in her own interests and not, as she
pretends, to guarantee democracy and freedom. General Smuts is docilely
following in the footsteps of England and, in the difficulties in which
he finds himself today, he is seeking the help of the Afrikaners. Why
does he not look for it among the Jingoes (British), the Jews and the "loyal
Dutch" who look for war? General Smuts must give way for a Nationalist
Government, and the next day we shall negotiate with Germany and Italy
for peace."

-Mr. Eric Louw speaking at Merweville. Reported in Die Burger, July
25, 1940.

"I quite frankly admit
this - the Jew is an alien in any country and cannot be assimilated
- but let me point out that even old established
Jews in this country are discriminated against in society and hurt
more than we newcomers."

-Mr. Eric Louw in the Assembly, 1939.

"As long as we remain
in the British Commonwealth as a Dominion or a sham republic, we
shall be continually hindered by British liberalism
in our attempts to solve the colour problem and the Jewish question."

-Mr. Eric Louw, reported in Die Burger, January 20, 1944.

"The United States
is arming only in her own interests. She is not arming for war but
for peace because she wants a say in the
armistice and wants to be the heir to Britain's estate."

-Dr. Malan at Pietersburg, June 11, 1940.

"Gallows are being erected where they themselves may hang in years to come.
We say so not only to the Jingoes but we say so to the Jews. You are putting
up gallows for the Germans, but beware, the day may come when you yourselves
may hang from these same gallows."

-Mr. A. J. Worth, Nationalist M.P., in the Assembly, February 25,
1942.

South Africa is in the
grip of a violent race hysteria and is likely to experience the most
terrible race convulsions in the near future
if the present drift to totalitarianism continues. The country is like
a diseased body, the toxic poison of race mania is flowing swiftly
into the vital arteries of its heart and mind. The basis of democracy.
resting on the precarious sands of "white supremacy" and "European
culture and civilisation," is so narrow, and each day growing
narrower, that the party wielding most effectively the cult of race
and colour poison against the disenfranchised non-white population,
which forms the majority, is returned to power by the electorate, which
is 98 percent white. That Dr. Malan was able to climb into power because
he was successful in whipping up an hysterical campaign of race hatred,
is largely due to his skill and technique of wielding a weapon common
to the arsenal of fascism. Any observer of the South African scene
would discern the resemblance and parallel that exists between South
Africa and Nazi Germany. Politics, commerce, industry, labour, culture
and education are all steeped with the most cruel manifestations of
colour despotism. A pattern of hate akin to Nazism against the person
who has not the blessings of a white skin is pursued. He is deemed
inferior by the colour bar doctrine of the State and is unable to share
the rights of citizenship and perform skilled work.

Mr. Louw would have his
audience believe that "there is a spirit
of quiet confidence among all sections of the population." I challenge
Mr. Louw to give evidence to justify such a statement. South Africa
is today seething with unrest and discontent never before equalled
in its history.

Apartheid, the Nationalist prescription for the non-white peoples,
is regarded with the greatest terror by them. Mr. Louw will fail to
give the name of any accredited representative, mild, moderate or left,
of the Africans, Coloureds or Indians, or of any of their organisations,
which has approved in any form the policy of apartheid.

It is the most cruel policy yet adopted by any government in South
Africa to reduce the non-white peoples to a perpetual position of inferiority
and degradation, without dignity or the most elementary rights.

The first brief instalment
of apartheid has meant the removal of the franchise clauses of the
Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation
Act of 1946, the promise that this Act was to be further extended to
the Cape, a change in the electoral laws so as to exclude a large proportion
of the handful of Coloured voters in the Cape from registration, the
Parliamentary declaration that the Coloureds would be removed from
the common voters' roll and given the limited representation at present
given to the Africans who have the right only in the Cape to elect
three white persons to an Assembly of 153 members, the decision to
remove altogether even this miserable representation from the eight
million Africans, the introduction of segregation on the suburban trains
of the Cape where the non-white people were permitted the small mercy
of freedom of travel (this new restriction was accompanied by violent
protests, demonstrations and arrests) and the promulgation of Proclamation
1890 which makes it illegal for any organisation, the African National
Congress, the trade unions or cultural bodies to collect subscriptions
or any form of contribution from Africans - a move ostensibly designed
to make all the organisations of the African people illegal. Louw says: "Apartheid
is the policy of European races." This policy springs from the
philosophy that the non-white people are inherently inferior beings,
fit only for the most servile and menial tasks. Therefore they must
not be allowed to mix in any way with the white people. The Dutch Reformed
Church, to which the members of the Malanite administration belong,
believes that the white man has been ordained by God to rule over the
black man. There is no moral basis in this age for such a doctrine.
It has been rejected by the nations and will continue to be rejected
by all civilised peoples.

But such a policy could
only be put into operation by repression, bringing in its train squalid
misery, poverty and degradation for its
victims. Segregation has made South Africa a vast prison house for
its non-white population - the country which now enjoys the reputation
of having the largest jail-going population in the world in relation
to its African population; segregation has been responsible for the
fact that it is difficult in South Africa to find an African who has
reached the age of 25 who has not seen the misery of a prison wall;
in South Africa the expenditure on the police force and prisons is
beyond that spent on African education (£ 3 million as against £ 2
1/2 million); segregation has foisted upon the African a rigid system
of passes to control his movements, restricting in the most cruel way
his liberty of movement. There are about 12 types of special passes
which control his movements, and failure to carry any one of these
is a criminal offence. Once the African reaches the age of 18, he must
have a special pass if he wishes to (a) leave his reserve, (b) seek
work, (c) go to a school, (d) buy a train ticket, (e) enter a town,
(f) visit a friend after curfew hours i. e., between 10 p.m. and 4
a.m., (g) show he has paid his taxes, and several others. In 1945 alone,
the pass law convictions were 74,109; this was 12,000 more than in
1936.

Mr. Louw claims that large tracts of the most infertile parts of
South Africa have been set aside as Native reserves. Only 13 per cent
of the land is reserved for four-fifths of the population, and as to
the state of this land, I will quote from the report of the Native
Laws Commission, pages 14, 15 and 16:

"... when we still
have the position that more than half of the Natives in the Union
are in the so-called European areas, and less
than half in the Native areas (approximately 60 % : 40 %). The idea
of total segregation therefore assumes that it will be possible to
develop and extend as Native areas on a scale sufficient to render
them capable of providing a home for more than twice the number of
Natives which they hold today, together with the further increase,
which up to the present has been at an average rate of something like
2 per cent per annum."

"...It is desirable
at this stage to note two prime facts which have so far emerged,
namely;

(a) That nearly 30 per cent of families are landless in spite of
the fact that the average unit of arable land is sub-economic and that
at least 20 % of all arable land is not suitable for cultivation; and

(b) that over 60 % of families
own 5 or less cattle, including 29% who own none, in spite of the
fact that the Reserves are carrying double
the number of stock that should run if deterioration is not to take
place."

"In the ninth report
of the Social and Economic Planning Council (U.G. No.32/1946) we
read, at page 44 (para 173):

'Another important factor,
which has already been referred to in the case of the Union's Native
Reserves, is the incapacity of the Native
Reserves to provide even the minimum subsistence requirements under
present conditions. In the words of the Mine Wages Commission, "a
considerable percentage of the Reserve Natives have to work for hire
almost continuously with relatively short breaks to earn a living." (U.G.
21/2944, para. 207). The Native Reserves at their present stage of
development, are both overpopulated and overstocked.`

"In any event the
figures and other data we have quoted lead to the irresistible conclusion
that it would be utterly impossible
to put the Native population which is already outside the Reserves,
back into the Reserves, or even to keep the whole of the increase there
in future."

The rich dividends that the segregation policy has yielded in matters of health,
education, etc. for Africans are worth noting. Facts speak louder than words.

Infantile mortality: 400-500 per 1,000 births in certain areas.

Tuberculosis: 800-1200 per 100,000. Europeans 32 per 100,000.

Malnutrition: In Letaka, Northern Transvaal, in the schools, 90 per
cent of the African boys and 80 per cent of the girls suffer from malnutrition.
The National Health Commission appointed by the South African Government
reported in 1944:

"One factor stands
out pre-eminently - the grinding poverty of almost all the non-European
(non-white) population ... almost eight
million Natives must be classed as paupers ... The evidence we have
received strongly suggests that in the (Reserve) territories, on the
(white) farms and in the towns their poverty is increasing and their
health deteriorating."

Blindness: 24,442 registered cases of blindness, of which 95 per
cent is preventable.

Education: 90 per cent illiterate;
7 per cent, that is, one million children of school-going age are
without schools. Less than £ 3
million per year is spent on African education, while £ 35 per
head is spent on the white population. Education is compulsory and
free for the white child, but not for the African.

Search the length and breadth
of South Africa and try to find a single African engineer, electrician,
architect, engine driver. Search South
Africa to find a single technical college, a single theatre, a single
swimming pool for Africans, while millions of pounds are spent annually
in providing hundreds of these amenities for "Europeans only." I
ask Mr. Louw, is it not a fact that there are actual laws on the statute
book which prevent the vast majority of its black folk from doing skilled
work, such as the "Colour Bar Act" of 1925? Was not his party
the foremost in finally preventing the training of African builders?
Is it not true to say that South Africa has now far outdone Nazi Germany
in the number of racial laws on its statute book? The whole of South
Africa is littered with offensive notices like "Europeans only," "Non-Europeans
not allowed," "Non-Europeans and Dogs not allowed." A
person coming from Mars or Jupiter to this earth would have no difficulty
in picking out South Africa.

What a tremendous waste of money and human worth is involved on this segregation
policy, to say nothing of the restrictions it imposes on the progress of the
country. There must be separate entrances to post offices, railway stations.
etc., for non-whites. Trams, buses, coaches, latrines, restaurants, etc., must
be separate and often the worst type made available for Non-Europeans. The
Railway Department has spent over a million pounds on a station in Durban so
that there should be separate entrances and entirely different platforms for
whites and non-whites. A similar project has been launched for the Johannesburg
Park station.

The report of the Native Laws Commission states (page 19):

"From what we have
already said it should be clear firstly, that the idea of total segregation
is utterly impracticable; secondly,
that the movement from country to town has a background of economic
necessity - that it may, so one hopes, be guided and regulated, and
may perhaps also be limited, but that it cannot be stopped or be turned
in the opposite direction; and thirdly, that in our urban areas there
are not only Native migrant labourers, but there is also a settled,
permanent Native population. These are simply facts which we have to
face as such. The old cry 'Send them back!` - still so often raised
when there is trouble with Natives, therefore, no longer offers a solution."

The archives of the Union
Government are full of reports of Government Commissions which are
in themselves an indictment of segregation. Segregation
is retarding and killing the development of South Africa. Apartheid
is the most violent expression of the policy of segregation. Recently
a journalist, Oliver Walker, was given an assignment by the Union Government
to formulate a comprehensive report for the express purpose of answering
the world-wide criticisms and condemnations of South Africa's treatment
of the non-white majority. The factual data that he presented were
of such a revealing character that his report has been shelved. He
has now written a book, Kaffirs are Lively, which should shame any
spokesman of the Union Government from having the effrontery to stand
in public and talk of "huge tracts of land" for Africans
and of "developing along their own lines and in accordance with
their own customs and traditions." All this talk is mere verbiage,
to conceal the oppressive and racial character of a policy designed
to keep the non-white peoples in a state of serfdom.

Mr. Louw says that the Union of South Africa is an outpost of European
civilisation and solicits support for its racial policies on this ground.
I say this in all seriousness, that if it is European civilisation
or Western democracy to deny elementary rights and opportunities on
the basis of the colour of a person's skin, to disregard a man's worth
and his ability, to stop him from acquiring skill, to spurn him and
treat him as a chattel and a pariah in the land of his birth, to subject
him to hundreds of racial laws and notices, then that civilisation
is a menace to mankind and we will have no truck with it. Such a civilisation
would condemn the overwhelming majority of mankind to perpetual inferiority.
The sooner such a civilisation disappears from the face of the earth,
the better for us all.

I may ask further, is not racial discrimination a fundamental and
gross violation of the United Nations Charter, Western democracy and
European civilisation? Neither the African nor the Indian is asking
for his blood to be mixed with the white peoples of South Africa. We
are not asking for privileges in South Africa, but we are fighting
for our rights to live as decent human beings in the land of our birth,
without all the stigma of inferiority that is daily heaped upon us.
We claim citizenship rights for every human being, regardless of his
race or colour, and there is no power on earth that is going to stop
us from attaining our birthright.

It is Mr. Louw who is trying to conjure up pictures of black hordes
threatening the two million whites of South Africa, when we ask for
citizenship rights! But let me warn Mr. Louw and those who think like
him, that they are building up a vast reservoir of hate for the white
man if they continue their present mad career of violations of human
rights, and Mr. Louw and his ilk will rue the day when the flood gates
break loose in South Africa. No people can go on watching passively
their rights being hacked away and humiliation heaped upon them. That
is the lesson of history, and Mr. Louw would do well to acknowledge
it.

The Indians

Mr. Louw calls "all moonshine" the
discriminatory treatment of Indians in South Africa. Twice already
the United Nations, the highest
tribunal of mankind, has passed large majority decisions against South
Africa on this question. But white South Africa has flouted the conscience
of the world and seems well set to take the mad plunge of open defiance.

The appeal to the United Nations was made in 1946 by the South African
Indian Congress, the mouthpiece of the Indian people of South Africa.
Malan's envoy expresses doubts whether 5 per cent of Natal Indians
were interested in the complaint. The registered membership of the
Natal Indian Congress alone is 35,000 in a total population of 228,000,
a figure inclusive of the non-adult population. Mr. Louw speaks for
less than one-fifth of the total population of South Africa, but the
South African Indian Congress delegation to the United Nations carries
with it the good wishes and support of the nine million people, non-whites,
constituting four-fifths of the South African population, and representing
their deep urges, hopes and aspirations.

Mr. Louw's charge that the Congress was dominated by Communists is
a canard which I hurl back into his teeth. Anyone that challenges South
Africa's racial doctrines is a Communist, according to the Nationalists.
The whole of its press at present is filled with charges of Communist
against the Hon. J. H. Hofmeyr, former Deputy Prime Minister, simply
because he has dared to raise his voice in protest against some of
the policies of racial oppression enunciated by Dr. Malan.

The Natal Indian Congress was founded by that great apostle of truth
and non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi. He has given it the great tradition
of his matchless weapon of passive resistance which he first tried
out in South Africa. It is that spirit and resolve not to yield to
injustice which permeates the Congress. For the last two years, two
thousand brave men and women in the true spirit of passive resistance
suffered imprisonment and untold hardships, exposing South Africa's
racial practices to the glare of world opinion.

Mr. Louw claims that the
South African Indians are Union nationals, while Dr. Malan, his Prime
Minister, has been busy in Parliament stating
that the Indians are "a foreign and outlandish element. They do
not form part of the permanent population and must therefore remain
in the country under restrictions".

Mr. Louw is a brave man in South Africa, where he has become the
most bitter race-baiter known to the land. The short experience that
be has had at the United Nations in its various Commissions, and particularly
in the Human Rights Commission, must forcibly have conveyed to him
that the mental climate in the rest of the world is not the same as
in South Africa in as far as race hysteria is concerned; that the tirade
and race contempt that he has been able to pour upon the people who
are unrepresented in the House of Assembly, filled mostly with the
apostles of colour despotism, requires far less courage. He has therefore
changed his tune and now engages in deception of the worst kind. Deception
may be a great weapon for some, but for Mr. Louw and Dr. Malan, their
vile record of race hate is too well-known and cannot be easily camouflaged
by a few pious statements.

We are tired of the spokesmen
of the South African Government, who from time to time speak with
two voices, one for South Africa as champions
of the creed of race and colour superiority and the other for the outside
world as "trustees" of the South African sanctuary where
black men and women are periodically given doses of the white man's
civilisation.

The Indians of South Africa have never claimed any privileged position.
All they say is that if they are regarded as Union nationals, they
have full rights as Union nationals without the sixty-six racial laws
that deny them elementary citizenship rights and civil liberties. As
long as these rights are denied them, they will continue to appeal
to India, to the United Nations and to the conscience of the world.
Legally it has been established by the United Nations that the Union
Government must respect, as binding and as treaties, the agreements
with the Government of India under which the Indians came to South
Africa.

The Indians did not go as aliens or oppressors to dominate the Native
population of South Africa. They were taken to South Africa to work
on the plantations and to develop the country. They were persuaded
to remain after their terms of labour were over by inducements of land
grants. Ninety per cent of Indians in South Africa have descended from
the loins of those early labourers. They constitute the third and fourth
generation of those born in the country. They know no other land than
South Africa and they say that under no circumstances would they agree
to any form of repatriation. They have contributed to the prosperity
of the country, and they have a right to share it with all sections
of the population. This is their simple claim.

Mr. Louw has indirectly appealed to the press not to support the
fight against the injustice in South Africa, not to comment on the
racial measures that are being put into operation by the Malanite administration
and not to give the truth of what is happening in this Dominion, on
the pretext that this will help Moscow. It is not for us to tell the
British or foreign press what they should or should not do. The press
have an important role to fulfil, and as long as they maintain truth
in the true perspective we shall have no complaints. But I do want
to refute it. Louw's claim that in as much as nationalisation is a
matter for the United Kingdom, it is not the concern of the people
in Britain or elsewhere to take cognisance of the indignities, injustices
and oppression that is taking place in South Africa. Hitler used arguments
of a similar character when he carried his policy against the Jews
to the dreadful conclusions that he had envisaged. There is no parallel
between nationalisation and the race tyranny to which a small minority
is subjecting the vast majority of the population in South Africa.

It will be a sad commentary if there are no voices of protest raised
against the violation of fundamental human freedoms and human rights.
This cannot remain the especial concern of a Government bent upon race
and colour rule. I do, however, want to say that the majority of the
people constituting the Commonwealth are not white. They cannot view
with indifference the idea held by a member of the Commonwealth of
the inherent inferiority of the black man. The population of India
alone constitutes more than the population of all the dominions put
together. The people of India will never acquiesce in any form of inferiority
for those who have sprung from their kith and kin. The treatment meted
out to Indians in South Africa will be a constant source of affront,
not only to the brown Dominions, India, Pakistan and Ceylon, but to
all the peoples of Asia. New pages of history are being writ there,
and the effects are being felt in Africa also.

The days of slumberous
calm and peace for the white despots in South Africa have fled. The
non-white people of South Africa have been witnesses
too long of the history of dwindling rights, of promises unfulfilled,
of solemn undertakings flouted and of agreements violated. They have
now refused to remain any longer to be passive spectators of this process.
They have raised the cry "We shall resist", to add fresh
chapters of history for the rights of man with the help of the United
Nations, and have declared that they are no longer willing to be dumb
slaves of white masters.

CLOSE WINDOW