14 JULY 1967, Page 4

Mr Vorster tries to join the world

SOUTH AFRICA STANLEY UYS

Cape Town—Mr Vorster has been Prime Minis- ter for only ten months, and already South Africans are talking about the 'Vorster era,' as though it were different from the era of his predecessor, the late Dr Verwoerd. Is it any different? And if it is, is this any cause for rejoicing?

Mr Vorster has been the first to say that he is simply following in the steps of the master, but no other obeisance was possible—he could hardly say he was repudiating Dr Verwoerd. And yet, in a minor way, he has repudiated him; and in other spheres of policy he is im- parting his own particular stamp. The problem now is to determine whether any of these changes are meaningful, or whether apartheid has just been given a new gloss.

In domestic policy, Mr Vorster appears to have sponsored an almost purist approach, in the sense that there is a new spirit of 'forward with apartheid' in the cabinet. The ultimate myth of apartheid, of course, is that one day the Africans in the cities will trek back to their reserves, and the peace that comes from separation will descend on South Africa; and it is this , myth which is being pursued today more fervently than ever before. As Mrs Helen Suzman, the sole Progressive party tom, has remarked, what really frightens her is that the government now seems to be in earnest in its intention to apply apartheid. The second fear expressed by Mrs Suzman was that, whereas she had once assumed that when apartheid conflicted with economic forces the latter would prevail, she now thought differently.

There can be no mistaking this aspect of Mr Vorster's character, then: he is determined to take apartheid as far along its appointed course as it is possible for him to do in the era in which he is Prime Minister. He has told not only the twelve million Africans, but the 1,600,000 Coloureds of mixed-race descent and the 500,000 Asians, too. that they must find their destiny in separation, because the white man's parliament is barred to them. Nationalist prime ministers have been saying this sort of thing since 1948, of course, but what makes the present situation different is that nearly all the legislative and administrative ground- work appears to have been completed now, and the next step is the take-off stage.

This is where Mr Vorster comes in. No one is suggesting that he is actually going to send large numbers of Africans back to the Reserves, because there is no employment for them there anyway; but he is trying to extract large numbers of Africans from the big urban con- glomerations so as to fragment the white man's burden, and the more he succeeds in doing this, the more surely will the contradictions in his essentially unworkable policy manifest them- selves. This is the old apartheid snag— morality aside, justice aside, everything else aside, it simply will not work. And the more Mr Vorster, or anyone else, tries to make it work, the more it will be seen not to work.

It is in foreign policy that the real interest of the 'Vorster era' lies, because here the.con- trast with the Verwoerd era is sharper. Take sport apartheid, for example. Dr Verwoerd had made some effort to retain South Africa's link with international sports bodies, but in 1965 he had come to the conclusion that he was prepared to bend only so far and no farther. He was emphatic on two points: that he would not allow visiting teams to enter South Africa if there were any non-whites among them, and that South Africa would not send a racially mixed team to the Olympic Games. On both points, Mr Vorster has repudiated Dr Ver- woerd. The repudiation, too, may bring some rewards. As far as visiting teams are con- cerned, South Africa may have ensured that it will still play host to the MCC and the All Blacks. As far as the Olympic Games are concerned, the repudiation may have come too late—a new demand has been set by South Africa's critics: namely, that racially mixed trials should be held in the country, and this Mr Vorster emphatically will not allow.

There is also the question of South Africa's relations with the independent African states. Dr Verwoerd had set the ball rolling by in- viting Lesotho's Prime Minister, Chief Leabua Jonathan, to Pretoria for a handshake and a chat, but Mr Vorster has gone much further he invited Chief Jonathan to Cape Town for lunch and a conference. Mr Vorster is esablishing working relationships with Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland and Malawi, and although these are his hostage states, in an economic sense, he hopes one day to sign up a few genuinely independent African states so that the sneer of 'hostage' can no longer be bandied about. It seems he is going to appoint a roving ambassador to tour the African states' signing up clients. This is Mr Vorster's 'outward- looking' policy, as his own press describes it. It is reflected also in his outlook on the United Nations, South Africa's standing foe. Whereas Dr Verwoerd was usually on the defensive with the UN, Mr Vorster has gone over to the offen- sive. Mr Vorster's stated aim is to make the rest of the world call off its hounds and learn to live with South Africa, apartheid and all.

So far there is not the slightest reason to believe that the Vorster era means anything more than apartheid on the offensive, but this is to reckon without the fact that the Afrikaner nationalist movement is fundamentally an in- tensely inward-looking movement, and that this broadening of the volk's vision is alien to its thinking. A strong right wing has emerged within the Nationalist party and it is calling Mr Vorster to order. This is Afrikanerdom's cultural revolution, with the red guards in Pre- toria calling for a return to first principles, and insinuating that Mr Vorster is a revisionist and a betrayer of the Afrikaner revolution.

Probably, this right-wing movement had been taking shape under Dr Verwoerd, because it now appears that four or five mushroom bodies, founded either to combat Communism or to save Afrikaans culture, and more particularly the Afrikaans language, have come into exis- tence in the past few years, and are clearly a militant front. Nationalist parliamentarians have only just woken up' with a bump to dis- cover that their .traditional leadership of the volk is being challenged by Dutch Reformed Church nominees, cultural purists, university professors and others who were formerly their comrades-in-arms. It is not only Mr Vorster's foreign policy they dislike. They are alarmed at the way in which he is conducting cordial relationships with the parliamentary opposition, the United party. The effect of this tactic is to blur the dividing line between government and opposition so that the Afrikaner Nationalist , no longer knows clearly where the enemy lies.

This is Mr Vorster's problem: how to restart the Afrikaner revolution which has paused. It has paused because suddenly the enemies have dissolved. The non-white leaders are in jail or under bans, the white Communists and liberals are in exile (the Liberal party liMps along sustained by a few stalwarts), the par- liamentary opposition is no longer a danger, and externally the enemies of Afrikanerdom have shown themselves to be at least tem- porarily helpless. Afrikaner Nationalism's remedy, in the circumstances, is to start de- vouring itself, and this precisely is what it is doing. What will Mr Vorster do in this situation? He could try to inspire the Afrikaner youth with a new idealism to wean them away from the new cultural revolution (this is what some of his newspapers have been urging him to do), or he could find a new enemy for Afrikaner Nationalism, say, the opposition press. So far Mr Vorster has avoided a con- frontation with the right wing, and indeed his tactics appear to be to try to captivate them by appointing them to positions of responsi- bility. As Mr Vorster sees it, the unity .of the party must be preserved at all costs.

Is this Afrikaner ferment of the least im- portance to the rest of the world? There is a school of thought in South Africa which says yes, definitely. It argues that with the waning of internal and external opposition to the Vor- ster government (effective opposition, that is) the only remote choice left for white and non- white South Africans alike for the foreseeable future is—what kind of Nationalist govern- ment would. they like, not what kind of government. And here, it is suggested, the world might help, by accepting Mr Vorster's entry into the international community instead of continuing to ostracise him and his govern- ment, so that the conflict in Afrikanerdom can be heightened. The reasoning is that, if Mr Vorster earns no rewards for his 'outward- looking' policy and is forced back into isola- tionism, he will have to reunite with the right wing, and South Africa will be plunged into a new, and possibly more terrifying, dark age. The parallel is drawn, loosely, with China would China, it is asked, have been as intract-

able as it is now if it had not been confined all these years in isolation?

The difficulty with this proposition is that it offers no guarantee of success. It invites the world to trade in its (ineffective) abhorrence of apartheid for a new relationship with South Africa which will have no certainty of success, but which, if it did succeed, could transform the character of the Nationalist government. It is an argument full of imponderable clauses, but it is the only new idea being tossed around these parts at the moment.