Anatomy of Apartheid in South Africa

The Alexander Defense Committee was formed in February, 1965, to help eleven opponents of apartheid in South Africa, headed by Dr. Neville Alexander. Arrested in July, 1963, they were convicted under the „sabotage“ law even though the prosecution made no attempt to prove them guilty of any acts of violence or sabotage. As the United Nations Special Committee on Apartheid reported (Dec. 10, 1964): „The prosecution case consisted largely of evidence that the accused had felt the Coloured people had to stand up for their rights and that armed struggle to liberate the non-whites should be contemplated. Evidence was led that they attempted to persuade various persons to their point of view and formed cells.“

On such evidence the Alexander eleven were given prison sentences ranging from five to ten years. In March, 1965, the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein rejected their appeal. All eleven are now in prison-the men incarcerated in the notorious Robben Island concentration camp.

Since the exhaustion of legal recourse in South African courts the ADC has continued to publicize the facts in the case and has contributed to the support of the prisoners’ destitute families.

The ADC is also giving financial assistance in other casesfor legal defense where that is still possible and for the support of families left destitute by the imprisonment of their breadwinners.

Among those whose families are being aided are Mr. Leo Sihali, a prominent member of the Cape African Teachers Association imprisoned on Robben Island; Mr. Louis Mtshizana, a lawyer who after defending hundreds of political defendants is himself now imprisoned on Robben Island; Mr. P. Gcabashe, 61, a former teacher imprisoned in Pondoland, and Mr. Moloyi, a peasant leader in Zululand, arrested in the spring of 1965 and still jailed on unspecified charges.

In 1965 the ADC brought Mr. I. B. Tabata, exiled President of the Unity Movement of South Africa, to the United States for a lecture tour. Mr. Tabata was able to give American audiences from coast-to-coast details about the Alexander and other cases as well as a first hand description of the situation in South Africa.

At present (1966) the ADC is sponsoring the speaking tour of Mr. Franz J. T. Lee, author of this pamphlet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Franz J. T. Lee was born in 1938 of poor Coloured parents in the Cape Province, not far from the Transkei „peasant reserve.“ The extreme poverty of his family-three of his five brothers and sisters died before they were one year old-forced him as a young boy to go to work on white-owned farms and factories.

While working he attended Anglican and Roman Catholic mission schools, and he completed the requirements for university entrance by taking correspondence courses. In 1959, he moved to Capetown where he became active in the liberation movement. During the witch-hunt following the Sharpeville, Nyanga, and Langa incidents in 1960, Mr. Lee was fired as a „security risk“ and black-listed. For the next two years, he was unable to get a job of any sort.

In 1961, he joined the newly-formed African People’s Democratic Union of Southern Africa, a political party committed to a program of full democratic rights for all citizens and radical land reform. During this period, he met Dr. Neville Alexander and the ten other young men and women who were later sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to ten years for their opposition to apartheid.

In 1962, Mr. Lee received a scholarship to study philosophy and political science at the University of Tübingen in West Germany. His departure from South Africa in October of that year probably saved him from sharing the fate of the Alexander Eleven.

In Germany, he organized the Alexander Defense Committee and became its executive secretary. This committee raised the bulk of the funds for the legal defense of the Alexander Eleven and carried on an intensive publicity campaign.

In 1965, Mr. Lee became European Representative of the African People’s Democratic Union of Southern Africa. He is now writing his doctoral dissertation, The Influence of European and American Social and Political Theories in South Africa, at the University of Frankfurt. While continuing his studies, Mr. Lee has written and lectured extensively on South African affairs. He is currently touring the U. S. on behalf of the Alexander Defense Committee here.

THE ANATOMY OF APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA

From the publicity, one could conclude that in the West no struggle of an oppressed people receives so much sympathy as the non-white liberation movement in the Republic of South Africa.

The American press, for example, is surprisingly unanimous in its condemnation of the barbaric „apartheid“ policy of the Afrikaander (Boer) nationalists.

And yet the sympathy is nowhere so insincere as in this case. The press persistently conceals the consequences that would result from abolishment of the apartheid system.

The racial discrimination policy is intended to secure more than the political predominance of the white „Herrenvolk“-the supporters and members of Verwoerd’s Nationalist Party.

It is the indispensable basis for the slave system of the white farmers and the phenomenal profits of mining of English and other foreign-controlled industries.

Only when this is understood does the question of liberating the non-white population in the police states of Malan, Strijdom and Verwoerd come into proper focus.

The liberation of the Africans in South Africa is impossible without liquidating the present economic system. Those who oppose apartheid without acknowledging the need for a radical transformation of the South African society commit a serious error unless their sympathy is feigned.

It is perfectly clear that South African capitalism depends on the exploitation and oppression of the toiling masses.

If we leave aside the white proletariat, which has been bought off by the Afrikaanders to support them in the elections, by wages second only to those of the United States, the secret of this capitalist system is revealed by a difference in skin color.

AFRICANS DISPOSSESSED

Of the blacks (Africans), forming the overwhelming majority of the South African population, nearly 75 per cent live outside the cities.

Official figures for October, 1964, were 11,915,000 Africans, 1,703,000 Coloureds, 520,000 Asians and 3,335,000 whites in South Africa.

Of these again, 3,000,000 work practically under slave conditions on the white farms; while the rest, 5,250,000, must struggle to keep body and soul together in the so-called Reserves - and future „Bantustans“ (the present „independent“ Transkei being the first) - which comprise only 13.7 per cent of the total land area of South Africa.

According to the Land Act, 1913, and its Amendment, 1945, „no African is allowed to possess, buy, or sell land anywhere in South Africa“ (Art. 25, Sec. 6 ). The Africans can only stay on-and cultivate-land in the reserves.

Thus 20 per cent of the population-mainly Boer farmersown 86.3 per cent of the land.

Still more accurately expressed: the total area of South Africa is 472,359 square miles; whites own 416,130 square miles, the remainder - some 56,000 square miles - comprise the „Bantu homelands“.

Even among the white farmers the land is not equally distributed, since 63 per cent possess 12 per cent of the total land area; 27 per cent possess 32 per cent; and 10 per cent possess 56 per cent.

As the Africans in the reserves have no modern agricultural implements, their economic status grows worse year by year. The primitive methods of their forefathers were economically supportable when the Africans still had the whole of South Africa to themselves.

As a result of the ten „Wars of Dispossession“ - so-called Kaffir or Xhosa Wars (in South African and even international history books), ranging from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century - the Africans were forced into the „Native Reserves“ of South Africa and the three „British Protectorates“ which, climatically and economically, are far from the best areas.

Thus pastoral farming and animal-drawn ploughs became uncompetitive. On top of this, heavy taxation was imposed on the Africans; the poll tax, for example, is raised whenever the demand for cheap labor increases. Other taxes are the „Union Tax“ and the „Bantu Authorities Tax“.

It was not only the ravenous expansionist drive of the whites that led to expulsion of the native peoples from their ancestral lands.

A system was developed to force them to accept low-paid jobs outside their “labor concentration camps“ - the reserves (the Transkei, Zululand, Zeerust and Sekhukhuniland being the largest).

Dispossession transformed independent African farmers into „squatters“ - having no legal title to land originally belonging to them - tenants and migratory laborers on white farms; and drove others through hunger, poverty and heavy taxes to the industrial towns and mines in search of work.

The „Border Industries Project“ of today intends shifting the Afrikaander industries nearer to the reserves, but the capitalist exploiting system and its compulsions remain fundamentally unchanged.

The social and judicial position of the African farm laborer is inconceivably bad. Working 60 hours and more a week, he often earns scarcely enough to clothe and feed himself in meager fashion. He is legally subjugated to a system that parallels, if it does not surpass, slavery in brutality.

FREE MOVEMENT PROHIBITED

The 1932 South African Law on Contract Labor, for example, provides that an African, living on the farm of his master, cannot leave unless he can produce an identification document signed by his employer.

He cannot take a new job unless he can produce a document, signed by his previous employer, stating that in the coming time he has no duties to perform and is thus discharged from work.

The law further provides that a labor service contract applies automatically to the African’s children between the ages of 10 and 18, without their approval. They are subject to punishment, including „flogging“.

The pass laws are chiefly designed to channel cheap labor to the mines, farms and industries. The pass, which is compulsory for all African men and women, town and country dwellers, from the age of 15, contains the following:

Section A.

Name and address of the holder; the address of the Office of the Labor Bureau, Efflux and Influx control; and the registration of the pass-holder. Ever- time the pass-holder loses his job he has to go to this office. If he or she does not find a job within 21 days then the holder must leave the area.

Section B.

Signature and address of the employer and the date of starting work. The employer must sign the pass once a month. He must also indicate the date of discharge after which a discharged worker can be arrested, even on his way to the Labor Bureau, and sentenced to a fine of $28.00 or two months’ imprisonment-which means working gratis for the Boer farmers.

Section C.

This concerns the Union Tax. Every year a married man must pay 56.30, an unmarried one, S4.90.

Section D.

The Bantu Authorities Tax. The African chiefs charge certain taxes at will and are authorized by the government to punish those who refuse to pay them.

Section E.

Special permit to be allowed out after 8 p.m. In general, no African is allowed to be out or on the streets after 8 p. m. in white South Africa.

From the above it becomes quite clear that the pass system is designed to control and enslave the African. The result is that not only the Africans in the reserves but also the farm workers, if they succeed in getting away from their masters, swarm into the towns and mines for employment-exactly in accordance with government plans.

CHEAP LABOR SYSTEM

That the mass migration of cheap black labor to the industrial areas was not merely the result of the operation of laws of the labor market was confirmed at a government conference as early as 1897.

To keep the wage level desirably low, an essential for high profits, it was explained that „a constant and abundant supply of native workers is necessary“.

Appropriate laws, high taxation of the peasants, and an ingenious recruiting system assure a constant flow of cheap African labor from the labor reservoirs.

For Africans - not for whites - it is a criminal offense if they do not pay their taxes. Above the age of 18 years each African male must pay a minimum tax of $4.90.

The whites only pay tax when their income is $840.00 or more per annum.

In addition to the already mentioned taxes, an African has to pay local tax, tribal levies, levies to various Bantu authorities, a Bantu Education tax, grazing, dipping and ploughing fees.

In 1957 statistics showed that an African contribution of nearly $140,000,000 per annum in indirect taxation enters the government coffers-this amount is again used to develop and apply the various apartheid schemes and paying government quislings enormous wages.

The poor people are taxed to further their own misery and oppression - one of the most heinous crimes of the Herrenvolk government!

Since 1936, some 400,000 blacks - a quarter of them virtually imported from the territories under Portuguese ultracolonialism - have been employed alongside 40,000 whites in the gold mines.

These Africans are hired as unskilled laborers-being paid today nearly a similar wage as in the 19th century at the beginning of industrialism and mining in South Africa.

Better positions at higher wages are forbidden by law. This is intended to preserve for whites, even as wage workers, their privileged position in society.

The Job Reservation Act (Clause 77 of the Industrial Conciliation Act, 1924 - now newly amended in Determination No. 13 of May 9, 1963), reserves specific jobs in various industries exclusively for whites. The worst-paid jobs - the hard, dirty work - are left for the Africans.

Mr. J. N. le Roux, South African Minister of Agriculture, expressed the official view as follows:

„We should not give the Natives an academic education. If we do this, we shall be burdened with a number of academically trained Europeans and non-Europeans, and who is going to do the manual labor in the country?... I am in thorough agreement with the view... that to a great extent he (the Native) must be the laborer in this country.“ (Hansard, Volume 11, 1945).

The African, being a constant migrant worker, contracted as a rule for nine to 18 months at a stretch, is refused normal status by the white government as „laborer“ or „employee“. He is thus officially discriminated as a „tribal native“ (see Article 36 of the law of 1937 ).

The African lives virtually with one foot in his place of employment and the other in his reserve. In this way it is difficult for Africans to organise trade unions or to become experts in a specific field.

Moreover, their whole family life is destroyed- another atrocity of the Herrenvolk!

And then one should remember that non-whites (chiefly Africans) constitute 99 per cent of the unskilled workers in industry, 66 per cent of the semi-skilled, and 17 per cent of the skilled workers. The main branches of the South African economy - mining, industry and agriculture - are dependent on African labor.

The abyss between the wages of the white and black workers has widened over the years, as the following table from the minim; industry shows: (Average annual cash earnings in mining, at constant prices).

Group	1935	1960	% change
White	$2,264	$3,214	plus 42.0%
African	$ 203	$ 196	minus 2.8%
Gap	$2,061	$3,018	plus 46.4%

Today a white mineworker earns 16 times more than his black „colleague“. Yet mining profits exceeded $392 million in 1962.

On most white farms an African earns nearly one-twentieth of that which a white worker earns. I witnessed African farm laborers earning on the average $5.60 to $8.40 per month in 1962 in the border towns of the Transkei.

Accommodations for the black masses, streaming into the towns and industrial areas, are unspeakable.

URBAN CONDITIONS

The recruited Africans are separated according to tribe and race. The migrant male workers live far from the white „suburbs“ in jail-like barracks and locations.

Normally the women - the „Kaffermeide“, „Aias“, or Kaffernennies“ (kaffir-maids) - who work in the kitchens and houses of the „Baas“ (overlord), „Nonna“, or „Missus“, live in a single room in the backyards of the white settlements.

There are numerous examples in South African historytoday still-of poor African girls returning home to the reserves, expecting a „Coloured“ baby from some white „manager“, „bank director“ or „secretary“ of some Minister - facts that normally never reach the press (which is nothing unusual in our bourgeois society) - but all signs of how strong the „colour bar“ of the Afrikaander nationalist is!

From these African townships-situated miles from the central industrial areas-the workers are transported daily to their jobs by means of buses, at fares they can scarcely pay. The big bus strike of Alexandra-township in the fifties proved that raising the fares by one penny meant for the Africans sinking below the bread line.

The living standards, in any case low enough, have worsened lately-in spite of the government „showpiece“ African settlements all over South Africa for tourists and foreign imperialist visitors who return and tell their countrymen: „Nowhere do the colored people have it so fine as in South Africa!“

COST-OF-LIVING RISES

A commission established in 1954 „to raise the living standard of the Native“, proved that in the machine industry around Johannesburg the weekly wages of the African worker from 1950 to 1954 remained unchanged and that cost-of-living increments rose from $1.68 to only $2.16 a month.

In the building and commercial industries it was not much better-today on the average the situation is similar!

At the same time, between 1950 and 1954, however, the price of mealiemeal - the staple food of the African, on which millions live for the greater part of their life - went up by 63 per cent, and meat 58 per cent.

It should also be noted that in 1950 the average family income of the African wage earner equalled 72 per cent of the „minimum level necessary for existence“, as calculated by social scientists in South Africa.

By 1954 this figure had sunk to 63 per cent- and according to Ronald Segal (in „The Agony of Apartheid“) in 1960 this figure sunk below 50 per cent in Johannesburg.

BELOW HUNGER LINE

Mrs. Joy de Gruchy, a social scientist of South Africa’s Institute for Racial Relations, cited the following hard and bitter facts in her analyses:

„The income of each African family of five persons in Johannesburg is on the average 20 per cent under the minimum for a normal existence: 50 to 75 per cent of all the African families in Johannesburg earn less than the amount which the bread line requires. Millions of Africans suffer from hunger, while they are forced to save for schooling of their children, for medical and burial services, and even for insurance. Even when the wife works, an African family in Johannesburg has an average family income of L19 10 ($54.60) sterling per month.” (Translated from a German news agency report in the Weser Kurier, April 6, 1960).

Another German newspaper, Die Welt, published the following on January 5, 1960: „Every third non-white child in South Africa dies because of undernourishment before it is one year old. Many of the remaining ones perish before they are four years old.“ (Translated from the German version.)

In a Penguin Special - „Sanctions Against South Africa“ - Oliver Tambo, the Deputy President-General of the African National Congress of South Africa, writes: „Apartheid keeps African labour cheap. It has to in the interests of the ‘people’ (the 3,335,000 whites). Cheap labour keeps Africans underfed. In the urban areas four out of every five families are starving. The rate is higher in the country areas. The result is that the African population is exposed to the ravages of diseases easily traceable to poverty. The average life expectancy of an African is 37 to 42 years. For whites it is 67 to 72 years, a difference of 30 years!

CHILD MORTALITY

„In breathless praise of the Government’s ‘showpiece’ hospital, Baragwanath, the Director of Information of the South African Embassy in London declares: ‘Every hour of the day and night a baby is born in the maternity ward.’ But out of every 100 African babies born, 57 die before they reach their fifth birthday. The rate for whites is 5 per cent. The mass destruction of innocent babies is the work of apartheid.“ (Penguin Special, Edited by Ronald Segal, May, 1964, page 23.)

Nobel Prize winner Albert John Luthuli, in his book „Let My People Go“, states: „Whites in South Africa rank fourth in the world’s standard of living when 60 per cent of the Africans live below the bread line. Mostoftherestare just above it.“ (Fontana paperback edition, page 182).

In spite of the relatively progressive industrialisation of the country, there are no trade unions worthy of the name among the African workers.

A law passed in 1937 defined trade unions as „unions of employees“. Since African workers are denied the status of „employees“, no legal basis exists for the formation of recognised trade unions.

Only unregistered - mostly white-controlled - African workers’ unions exist. The African worker is forbidden by law to strike (see Law of 1953, No. 48, Article 18), hence these unions are useless in practice.

The enormous profits made at the expense of the exploited Africans are indicated by the following examples:

(1) From 1870 till the end of 1934, the South African diamond mining industry on an invested capital of $100 million paid out more than $400 million in net dividends. In 1961 British investors in the mining industries altogether got $52.9 million as net dividends.

(2) The gold mining industry-including the successful and unsuccessful companies-paid between 1886 and 1932 on an invested capital of $100 million more than $1,275 million to its stockholders as net dividends.

(3) After sixty years of exploitation, in 1945 the net dividend figure paid out reached $2,395 million! (Figures from Decision in Africa, W. A. Hunton, New York, 1960. )

(4) Further, the dividend payments of the Orange Free State goldmining companies rose from $4.2 million in 1955 to $46.8 million in 1959. (Figures from Africa-The Roots of Revolt, J. Woddis, New York, 1962, p. 228. )

(5) It has been calculated that American investments in South African mining companies brought a 30% net return on investment in 1964.

APARTHEID - „MAGIC FORMULA“

Clearly such gross and brutal exploitation can be maintained, in the long run, only if the oppressed population accept prevailing conditions as unchangeable or due to „God’s Will“ and if they are blocked from political recourse.

The Afrikaander ruling class believe that they have found this magic formula in apartheid.

Under this policy, a „white“ parliament, representing 3,335,000 whites is supposed to rule 11,915,000 Africans, 1,703,000 Coloureds, and 520,000 Asians.

With the present socio-economic conditions suffered by the Africans as an example of Herrenvolk’s strategy, the Coloureds, Indians, Malays and Chinese can presage their own future situation. The present house arrests, detention and tortures have proved this already.

The oppressive laws of recent years-the Sabotage Act of 1962, the Bantu General Law Amendment Act of 1963, and the Bantu Law Amendment Act and „180-Day No Trial Law“ of 1964 have worsened the situation and introduced a „reign of terror”.

Yet political power is still firm in the hands of Afrikanerdom only a successful uprising of workers and peasants can dethrone Verwoerd-Vorster-Muller, the „triumvirate“ of the white Republic.

The Dutch Reformed Church is the Afrikaanders, prayer for the success of the „chosen people“; the Broederbond is the underground organisation to keep everything strategically controlled; the Afrikaander universities and other institutions of „ChristianNational Education“ are the dedicated suppliers of Afrikaander nationalism; and the „Reddingsdaad“ is aimed at destroying the economic power of the English-speaking group.

All these organisations conspire to ensure that political power is based on social and economic control.

The white proletariat and the Boer farmers form the base of apartheid - they decide the destiny of South Africa today. In fact, they represent less than 40 per cent of the electorate and only a little more than 1,500,000 whites - out of a total population of over 17,000,000 today!

Yet the English-speaking community still controls 99 per cent of mining capital, 94 per cent of industrial capital, 88 per cent of finance capital and 75 per cent of commercial capital.

SEVEN FINANCE HOUSES CONTROL OVER 1,000 COMPANIES, HAVING A CAPITAL EXCEEDING $2,800 MILLION.

Foreign capital constitutes a large part of the investments in South Africa. These investments affect the attitude of the West toward the apartheid policy.

Up to 1946 over $3,750 million had been invested in mining and government loans. By 1953 this figure had passed $5,150 million.

IN OTHER WORDS, AFTER WORLD WAR II OVER $1,400 MILLION WAS INVESTED IN SOUTH AFRICA BY CAPITALISTS OF VARIOUS COUNTRIES- CHIEFLY ENGLAND, AMERICA, WEST GERMANY AND FRANCE.

U.S. OWNERSHIP

At the end of 1964, direct American investments in South Africa amounted to $467 million. Of this, $192 million was invested in manufacturing and $68 million in mining. Net earnings on invested capital of U. S. direct investments were $87 million for all industries, $41 million for manufacturing, and $20 million for mining. The rate of return on the average 1964 level of investment was 19.8% for all industries, 23.8% for manufacturing, and 30.6% for mining.

These figures make clear why the Department of Commerce’s encouragement in 1955 of American businessmen to invest in South African concerns was completely superfluous. By 1955, the $50 million direct investment of 1943 had increased five times, and by 1965, it had increased over eight times.

At the end of 1964, the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the World Bank had loans totaling more than $125 trillion outstanding to South African firms.

Thus, in the last ten years, U.S. investments have increased tremendously. No wonder that U. S. officials-like Senator Hickenlooper in 1953 after a trip through South Africa-have considered South Africa a „reliable friend“.

Lately in the United Nations’ resolutions and those of other „special committees“, concerning diplomatic and trade relations, or sanctions and the banning of arms to South Africa, one can clearly see how England, America and France, together with some other capitalist countries, show their true colors-tinted with African blood-more and more!

ARMS BUDGET RISES

The South African Military budget increased by $67.2 million in 1962, reaching $168 million.

Another $56 million were added in 1963. Between 1960-61 and 1963-64 the defense expenditure was quadrupled to $291.2 million.

By December, 1964, the Herrenvolk had 104,000 men for the army ready for action at any emergency, as compared to 9,000 in 1960.

A Citizen Force and Commandos - consisting partially of white youths (male and female) over the age of 18 years, 15,000 armed white police, co-ordinated with the army, and a Police Reserve, whose target is 50,000 - partly of Coloureds and Indians, but not, of course, Africansare ready to assist should any national revolt break out.

Further, researches into poison gas, tear gas, chemical bacteriological weaponry, rockets and nuclear weapons are madeassisted especially by German scientists who have forgotten - or helped in - the gas chambers of Nazi Germany!

They are busy building an Afrikaander „Third Reich”!

U.S. & BRITISH MILITARY AID

Between 1962 and 1965 Britain supplied South Africa with 5252 million of military equipment. This was definitely not for international defense!

In 1962, Imperial Chemical Industries contributed a capital investment of $28 million plus its considerable technical assistance and knowledge, to build armament factories in South Africa.

The United States supplied aircraft and other important weapons. France furnished Mirage jet fighters and air-to-ground missiles.

La Carbone, a French armament concern, is setting up a firm in South Africa.

Belgium granted Verwoerd license rights to manufacture the FN automatic rifle, which is standard equipment for NATO troops!

Switzerland authorised the delivery of anti-aircraft guns, pistols, and ammunition to South Africa.

General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are all either currently manufacturing automobile engines in South Africa, or have announced plans to do so. And an engine is an engine, be it for a car or tank.

Thus most of the suppliers of arms and ammunition to South Africa have already secured their businesses right inside the country and can now proclaim aloud about banning arms to South Africa.

South Africa’s current military spending is greater than the combined military budgets of the politically independent African states.

Further, South Africa has 16 Mirage III Mach. 2.0 strike aircraft - and hopes to get some more soon; about 24 Buccaneer Mk. II Mach. 1.2 naval strike craft; 32 American Sabres and 50 British-built Vampire subsonic jet fighters; 8 Shackleton long-range bombers and 6 Canberra subsonic light jet bombers (B 12 variants).

Only the UAR can compete with this air force with about 350 warplanes, including 50 MIG 21s (Mach. 2.0) In the African navies, the UAR leads: 8,000 sailors man 6 frigates, 8 destroyers, 8 corvettes and 9 submarines.

South Africa comes second with 3,000 men who maintain 8 frigates and 2 destroyers.

Further, the very effective poisonous gases- used by the Nazis-soman, sarin and tabun are manufactured in large quantities for future use in South Africa.

Foreign investments from the various countries of the „Free World“ contribute not only objectively but subjectively to maintaining and strengthening this regime of terror and fanaticism in the Republic of South Africa.

On the one hand they stabilise the South African industry, and on the other, new businesses are drawn into practising the same racial policies, even if reluctantly, since they have to obey the galaxy of fascist laws.

The United States and the other Western powers are thus directly responsible for the maintenance of apartheid. If they would and could act in consideration of the democratic aspirations of the black, yellow and other colored people, they could guarantee the reasonable economic interests of the West and ensure peace in South Africa. If however, as seems all too likely, they persist in their support of apartheid, the liberation of South Africa will devolve upon the non-whites alone, with incalculable economic and political consequences for the West.

BANTU EDUCATION

Behind the refusal to allow an African to enter the same public bus, train or taxi, the same park, zoological or botanical barden, or the same concert, theater or church as a white in South Africa, lies a complex system of colonialism, racial discrimination, economic exploitation and oppression.

This system, called baasskap, ‘separate development,’ or apartheid, robs the African of his land and produce; it forces him to live in poverty, misery and disease; it denies him modern education, intellectual, philosophic and technical training; it herds him into slums, ghettos, concentration camps, overcrowed reserves and Bantustans; it cuts him off from every form of real democratic expression, freedom of speech, press and mobility. The most effective instrument used to achieve these ends is enslavement of the nonwhite mind.

The present educational system in South Africa has its roots in the Bantu Education plan of Dr. H. F. Verwoerd. It was instituted following the election of the Boer Nationalist Party to power in 1948 under Dr. D. F. Malan. At that time, Verwoerd was Minister for Native Affairs, by far the most important governmental department, and the policy of Bantu Education was Verwoerd’s solution to the... „native question.“

In essence, Bantu Education is nothing more than an artificial resuscitation of outmoded tribalism. Here is how Verwoerd described it in a speech in parliament in 1953: „There is no place for (the native) in the European community,“ Verwoerd explained, „above the level of certain forms of labor... Until now he has been subjected to a school system which drew him away from his own community and misled him by showing him the green pastures of European society in which he was not allowed to graze.“

In picturing the blacks as animals grazing in fields, Verwoerd is only using the accepted language of the master race. In „Bantu Education, Policy for the Immediate Future“ (1954), Verwoerd wrote: „(Bantu) education should stand with both feet in the reserves and have its roots in the spirit and being of Bantu society... Their education should not clash with Government policy... If the native in South Africa today... is being taught to expect that he will live his adult life under a policy of equal rights, he is making a big mistake.“

J. G. Strijdom, who succeeded Malan as prime minister, described baasskap as follows: „Our policy is that the Europeans must stand their ground and must remain Baas (overlord) in South Africa. If we reject the Herrenvolk (master race) idea and the principle that the white man can remain Baas, if the franchise is to be extended to the non-Europeans, and if the non-Europeans are given representation and the vote and the non-Europeans are developed on the same basis as the Europeans, how can the Europeans remain Baas? Our view is that in every sphere the European must retain the right to rule the country and to keep it white man’s country.“ (Quoted from African Nationalism by N. Sithole, 1961.)

C. R. Swart, who is presently the president of South Africa, stressed the importance of retribalization in the 1953 parliamentary debate, following Verwoerd: „Hon. members have mentioned that the Department of Native Affairs adopts the policy that natives should not be detribalized but should be educated in their own manner and should learn to be good natives as tribal natives, and should not be imitators of the white man.“ Swart added, „This is the policy which we favor and in my opinion it is the only sound policy.“

The Bantu Education Act was passed in 1953, and it began a process designed to reduce 12 million Africans to a state of primitive tribalism which will ensure that they are rightless, voteless and ignorant. It is controlled by the Native Affairs Department, which aspires to direct the thinking, acting, happiness and future development of each and every black. The department controls the supply of cheap African labor - the very backbone of the immensely profitable South African economy - to the farms.

It collects the income, hut, poll and labor taxes from the Africans; and it enforces the various racial laws, especially the most-hated pass laws, which in 1960 led to the massacres at Sharpeville, Langa and Nyanga where 72 unarmed peaceful demonstrators were massacred by machine-gun fire and 200 others were seriously wounded.

For other nonwhite sections of the population-the two million Coloureds, 500,000 Indians, 50,000 Malays and 5,000 Chinese-similar departments have been formed or are in the process of being formed. In the last analysis, every nonwhite must be robbed of modern education and forced to join the „Commonwealth of Poverty“ in South Africa.

The pressure on Verwoerd to hasten the black population through the mills of Bantu Education has increased in recent years rather than decreased. This is because a large portion of South Africa’s labor comes from other African states, mainly from the former British protectorates, the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, and Malawi. Each year literally hundreds of thousands of black men are imported from these countries to be pressed into South African industries.

However, the revolts which are presently rising in many of these neighboring states clearly threaten to cut off this supply of cheap labor - and this fear is haunting Verwoerd and his ministers. And not only this, but the fact is the South African masses themselves are becoming more and more organized in their resistance to the regime of apartheid.

The Sabotage and 90-Day Laws, and Proclamation 400 in the reserves, have become absolute necessities. These allow any policeman to arrest any nonwhite and hold him for an indefinite period of time without warrant and without a trial. The South African jails are filled with thousands of political prisoners.

Briefly, I want to show the following:

(1) that at the primary, as well as the university level of education, Bantu Education is a fraud, in spite of the boasts and propaganda of the racist government;

(2) that compared to white education, Bantu Education has nothing to do with modern education at all-it is designed to retribalize the African, to form him as a potential cheap laborer, to enslave his mind, and to kill every sign or spark of revolutionary fire in him; and,

(3) that Bantu Education has already caused considerable harm to African youth in the last decade.

BEFORE „BANTU EDUCATION“

The idea of separate education in South Africa was not new in 1953. Since 1910, there had been a loose form of discrimination in the schools. The syllabuses, text-books, libraries, and examinations, however, were the same for the various sections of the population. The teaching media had been mainly English and Afrikaans, and to some extent, in the reserves, Xhosa also a language spoken by nearly half of the African population.

The United Party, which represents the interests of British and other foreign capitalists in South Africa, then had a somewhat more liberal policy than it does today. While in power, it did not see the danger coming. It did not realize that the modern industrialized African „noble savage“ was beginning to deslave his mind, to grasp and grapple with his social, political and economic fetters. Only after World War II, when Dr. Verwoerd returned from his studies in Nazi Germany, and when his own Nationalist Party was in power, could Bantu Education be initiated. After Hitler, Verwoerd believed: „If you want to control a people you must get hold of their education.“

At the beginning of the ‘50s, the South African educational system was roughly comparable to the American: The first two years were also known as the kindergarten period, being standard A and B respectively, and together called the „sub-standards.“ The next five years at school were the primary level, Standards I, II, III, IV, and V.

However, even in those days only about one in every 200 African students actually completed Standard V. The rest were material par excellence for the mines. They could just about read a few simple sentences, count to 1000, sign their names, and understand the main orders of their white masters.

The next three years comprised secondary education: Standards VI to VIII. Only at this level did students get certificates of the Department of Education, Arts and Science, which werethe same for all sections of the population. Very few pupils reached this tenth year of education.

The following two years allowed a pupil to take either the matriculation course, giving him a certificate for study in a university, or Standards IX and X, which provided him with the National Senior Certificate. This did not admit him to a university, but to other vocational schools or government service. After 12 years of education an African student could study for a Bachelor’s degree at any one of the „open“ (multi-racial) universities.

Primary and secondary education were compulsory for the white youth but not for the nonwhite. On average, the state paid $180 per year for the education of a white pupil, and about one tenth of that for the education of a nonwhite. Due to poverty and the inability to pay school fees, or to buy clothes and books, the vast majority of African children could not

attend school.

That was in the 1950s: of the 200,000 children of an African population of about 11 million who actually attended primary classes in 1950, only 968 reached the fifth grade, and only 362 the level of matriculation.

At that time, nevertheless, the teachers were respected and loved by the pupils and their parents. The schools had five-hour sessions each day, and English was the widely accepted teaching medium. Many Africans joined the teaching profession, and there was one teacher for two or three classes, who gave lessons in all subjects and knew the interests and weaknesses of his students. These teachers belonged to the liberation movements of the time.

Today, all of them are dead, under house arrest, in jail under the Anti-Communist, Sabotage or 90-Day Acts, in Robben Island concentration camp-or fired, jobless, possibly active in the underground, or have fled from the country. Dummy teachers, indoctrinated, government-friendly Quislings, have taken their places. They have nothing in common with the deepest aspirations of the masses; quite obviously, they are hated by the pupils and their parents.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS

After 1953, the situation had changed: The teacher in the reserves was no longer a servant of the Department of Education. He is by and large controlled by a „tribal authority“ - a black chief of his „Bantu Community.“ This chief sees to the local management of the schools. His inability to master the ABCs does not disqualify him. He can simply put a cross on an official document, the contents of which he does not understand, so long as it is countersigned by one of the teachers he appointed.

The chiefs are being used to oppress and exploit their own kith and kin. This is the process of retribalization.

In the primary and secondary schools, a