A Canadian In S. Africa

Press, Volume C, Issue 29513, 13 May 1961, Page 3

A Canadian In S. Africa

The Tragedy of Apartheid. By Norman Phillips. Allen and Unwin. 217 pp. When last year, the South African government imprisoned Norman Phillips in Durban goal, . the foreign editor of the "Toronto Star” took time off from reporting news and made it instead. This is an excellent account of this Canadian journalist's experiences in the four weeks following the Sharpeville massacre. This simple and breezy account of interviews, people and events can be recommended without hesitation. Even those who have already read widely on South Africa will find that the author has a gift for bringing situations and people vividly to life. A shrewd observer, his facts and anecdotes still have the power to shock even though the general position is familiar. The author paints a grim picture of conditions in South Africa as they exist for the non-white and the white liberals. His predictions for

future developments include the replacement of moderate African leadership by extremists. the establishment by the government of concentration camps and the development of Mau Mau type warfare in the African reservations. The general gloom, however, is relieved by the picture of those still desperately working to keep the bridges open between white and non-white in South. Africa. The reader is introduced to the heroic roles played by such people as Patrick Ducan, the exBishop of Johannesburg. Tom Hopkinson. and Father Cyprian Thorpe and is enabled to share something of the dilemmas that face them and something of their hopes and frustrations. Of all those who work for the emergence of a just and democratic multi-racial society in South Africa, it was Chief Albert Luthuli who most impressed the author. Chief Luthuli. a man of great intelligence, of great dignity, Phillips asserts, is “Christain nobility of character.” “The Tragedy of Apartheid" contains tragedy and heroism in about equal proportions. The sadest feature of his report is not the suffering of the Africans and opponents of apartheidhorrible as this is. Rather it is the growing gap between white and black in what needs to be a multi-racial society. i