The Politics of the 1960s: South Africa, Civil Rights, and the Rule of Law

We left Winnipeg on July 25 and returned on August 30, with a short stopover in Nairobi, Kenya, on the outgoing trip and a similar one in London, England, on our return.In South Africa I made eighteen speeches in all-with about twelve of them full-length efforts and the others about ten minutes in duration.But perhaps the most interesting feature of the trip was our own exposure to a society markedly different from our own.We came face to face with a crucial problem of our times-"apartheid".In actuality this officially sanctioned "separate development" meant white supremacy and black subservience.Everywhere we went we saw the signs "Whites Only" or "Europeans Only".Apartheid is so savage a doctrine that it could only be sustained by policies of savagery, including banning orders and job reservations.We saw the evidence of apartheid and we also talked to some of its opponents on the white side, including novelist Alan Paton and Member of Parliament Helen Suzman.We found that our Jewish hosts had an ambivalent attitude towards apartheid.They were the beneficiaries of the system: they lived very comfortable lives, had an abundance of servants, all cheaply paid, and they earned large incomes.In conversations our new friends would try to defend the policy of apartheid-relations with blacks were just as bad in the United States, they would say-but it was evident that their hearts weren't in it.The knowledge that their prosperity was achieved on the backs of black South Africans was something in which they could take no pride.We were glad to have had the South African experience.The land is one of sheer physical beauty.The people are friendly, and intelligent.What marred the picture and imparted to it a fatal flaw was apartheid.The words of J. Wendell Johnson have application here: "A nation organized for only one race is living on borrowed time." 3 The accession to the prime ministership of B.J. Vorster in 1966, following the deplorable death by violence of Hendrik Verwoerd shortly after his re-election that year, focused worldwide attention once again upon the South African problem.Verwoerd had developed the policy of 3 Freedman had spoken out publicly on South African racism at least as early as 1950."Racial policies of South Africa are a denial of the principles of tolerance and understanding upon which the British Commonwealth is based," he told the Manitoba Optometric Society, as reported in "South African Race Policies Held a Danger", The Winnipeg Free Press (1 February 1950).

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