The Durban Riots
The riots in Durban last week-end seem to have taken everyone by surprise. The authorities on the spot were obviously unprepared for rioting on a large scale, and once they had woken up to what was happening the hurricane of violence had more or less blown itself out. The Press in this country has not been well served by news from South Africa, which has tended to be late and scrappy, and this is all the more reason why we must await with considerable interest the findings of the judicial commission of enquiry which has been set up by the South African Government. That the Indian community should become the target of native anger is not in itself surprising. There are many parts of Africa, Asia and Australasia where the Indians play the same uncomfortable role in the community that the Jews used to play in Europe. They are aliens in race and religion, shrewd and not always scrupulous traders, self-contained and self- supporting as a community, clever and aggressive as individuals. The primitive African immigrant to the towns finds that it is the Indian trader or foreman whom he daily comes up against and into whose pocket an undue proportion of his daily wage disappears. The material for vengeance has always been there. What may seem strange is that, at a moment when the political policies of the white Government might be thought to have excited African resentment, it is their economic grievances which turned the natives wild ; but there is always a large measure of the unpredictable in mob violence, No doubt everyone will draw the moral he desires from these deplorable happenings. The Nationalists will be able to point to the terrifying possibilities of the natives once they get out of control and can reinforce their contention that the only solution for the Indian problem is for the Indians to emigrate. But the outside world may legitimately wonder whether the volcanic possibilities of the African native will for long remain submerged, even if the Indian community ceased to exist as a separate problem.
Previous page
