The result of the 1948 election dismayed Britain, South Africa's principal foreign investor and trading partner. But with the shadow of the Cold War falling over the world, the priority for Western governments was to prevent South Africa, with its minerals and strategic location, from falling under communist influence. The British Labour government under Clement Attlee concluded that this aspect was more important than its revulsion for apartheid. He would soon offer South Africa access to the intelligence secrets of Britain and the United States.

In the southern states of America, segregation still held sway. A survey in 1942 found that only 2% of whites favoured school integration, only 12% residential integration, and only one-fifth thought the intelligence of blacks was on the same level as that of whites. Even among northern whites only 30-40% supported racial integration.

The West did not insist on a popular democracy in South Africa, arguing that such a system was impossible for the time being. During the 1950s it was not uncommon for Western leaders to express racist views. In 1951 Herbert Morrison, foreign secretary in the British Labour government, regarded independence for African colonies as compar­able to 'giving a child often a latch-key, a bank account and a shotgun'.

Still, the defeat of Nazi Germany and the horror of the Holocaust had discredited racial ideologies, and speeded up pressure for racial integration, particularly in the United States. The granting of independence to India in 1947 was a major turning point in world history that intensified the pressure to grant subordinated ethnic groups their freedom. The General Assembly of the United Nations became an effective platform for the nations of the Third World to vent their anger over centuries of Western domination, and apartheid soon became the focus of their wrath.

back to top