THE WHITE PERIL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 952, 8 November 1957, Page 13

THE WHITE PERIL

PASSIVE RESISTANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA, by Leo Kuper; Jonathan Cape, English price 21/-. ] EO KUPER is Professor of Sociology ~ at the University of Natal (or perhaps I should say he was until last year). His book is a carefully documented account of moves and countermoves, by whites and non-whites, in the apartheid war. By its very nature it could be said to "incite," and no doubt by South African law could be regarded as "treasonable" and "Communistic." So much the worse for South African "law." Kuper describes in detail the background of Passive Resistance, the 1952 campaign, and legislation brought down by the Nationalist Government to entrench its position in the face of growing hostility. He suggests that South Africa is evolving that curious political system, the "Sacred Police State." Apartheid is, of course, only a logical extension of race views held by most white South Africans; and by many people in other parts of the world, including all those who subscribe to the notion of a Chosen People. There is Biblical justification in seeing the sons of Ham as hewers of wood and drawers of water. Indeed, the South African Church is an active protagonist of apartheid; just as the Catholic and Anglican Churches are active antagonists. To the existing confusions of race, apartheid as policy brings ethical, judicial and economic confusion. A high moral tone, accompanied by guaranteed inequality before the law, and a careful pruning of consistent attitudes when these affect the national economy, are inevitable outcomes of official racism in any country. South Africa is no exception; nor it is an exception to the rule that violence begets more violence. In South Africa, where only white men: are permitted firearms (or firewater), violence has in general been sporadic and unorganised. For obvious reasons, it has seldom been overtly directed at the whites. Yet the report made to me by a "tame" houseboy some 30 years ago is probably truer than ever: the black man’s ambition is "to drive the whites into the sea. . ." Kuper names_ several underground organisations existing for just that purpose; but, though there is little doubt that they will continue to contribute to newspaper headlines, there is small (continued on next page)

BOOKS

(continued from orevtous page) chance that they will ever succeed. Passive Resistance is a different matter altogether. However small its beginnings, and however signal the _ initial defeat, it may grow even in South Africa’s unfertile soil. ‘No one could have foreseen Gandhi's success, when he le‘t that very country for his ‘native India, only a generation ago... .

Anton

Vogt