Africa
A Knock on the Door
From KENNETH MACKENZIE
CAPE TOWN
ITHINK it was one of the Pan-Africanist leaders who first said that for an African South Africa was like an occupied country. Since then anyone who has ever lifted a finger against apartheid has got a very vivid impression of that life-under- Petain feeling. Every morning people ring each other up: 'They've picked up Howard, you know. Found hundreds of leaflets under his bed. And you've heard about Jean, of all people? Pat is still all right and so is Robert. But they've taken old Anna Goldberg—yes, the granny who was looking after Dennis's children. Sam was out when they came for him and he has gone into hiding. . .' It is technically an offence to dis- close any of the names of the arrested, but no one pays any attention to that, except the news- papers. Perhaps the most distressing thing about the arrests is the trail of deeply disturbed children they leave behind them.
On Monday of last week—if I may obtrude a personal note—my wife phoned me to say that four Special Branch policemen had arrived at our house and wished to arrest her. When I got home she was serving tea while the four bears snuffled their way through our private papers in search of seditious literature, or something. I rather spoilt the cosy atmosphere by demanding to see their identification cards, 'Just to make sure you are not from the Ku-Klux-Klan,' and then insulting them each and severally, which was satisfying but stupid behaviour, considering how much depends on their sluggish whims.
The authorities do riot give reasons, but it is thought that in the case of my wife they did not care for her, literary style—she writes for the Daily Herald under her maiden name of Myrna Blumberg-7-and they objected to the way she had been helping visiting journalists meet undesirable people. Anyway, she is now installed in the local gaol and, like the 400 or so other detainees, is unable to communicate with me, her lawyer or anyone else. However, the grapevine has it that the nine white women detainees in Cape Town are being well treated, are allowed access to each other and spend the day in merry conversation. The Minister of Justice has promised to bring charges against as many people as he can, when he gets the time. And when they ask : 'What did you do in the Revolution, Grandpa?' I shall be able to tell them: '1 spent half the night driving round and round Sea Point singing endless Xhosa hymns in an attempt to get a child to sleep.' Turning to‘ the more general scene, it is now possible to make up a profit-and-loss account for the recent attempted revolution. The gains, though a little difficult to see at the moment, are considerable: the whites have lost for ever their smug sense that things can go on as they are for ever: the Africans have learnt what immense power they have if they choose to exercise it; and the American State Department, the Security Council and the world in general (even the Times) have been moved to expressions of disgust about apartheid which may turn into boycotts and other forms of pressure.
But the cost is hideous and, I think, far out- weighs the gains. It may be that the major sin of the Pan-Africanist Congress is not the racialism and fascistic tendencies which I wrote about before (and by doing so, incidentally, enraged a number of local liberals and leftists: and I agree that in the end we may have to support the Pan-Africanists, though we should do so with our eyes open), but their political inexperience and ineptitude. They took up a do-or-die positial when they did not have the power to do. So there are almost one hundred corpses, gun in gaol and two dead newspapers: New Age,a, expertly produced weekly which followed We Kremlin line in international affairs but vided invaluable Congress and African news, an Torch, a weekly torrent of entertaining abuse hurled against everybody from a TrotskPle, position which I cherish for once having called a Coloured politician a 'morally re-armed rellt6' And, most serious of alto a ban on the 010! National Congress, the Pan-Africanist Caner°, and any successors that may arise. The Goya° ment presumably thinks that now the urban Africans will be content to have no political 01. lets: what anyone with any sense could tell them is that a new underground organisation will arises that it will be led by gangsters and probably devoted to terrorism and violence. This is deploy i able morally and practically : the Government has shown it can deal out violence more effec• tively than any terrorist. The initiative is now entirely out of the hands of responsible African leaders and liberal whites' The only people who can save the country fro'' what appears to be complete disaster are the leaders in.the business world and the Afrikaners, particularly the intellectuals and churchmen.' Many of them realise where Dr. Verwoerd leading us and there were for some time P6' sistent coalition rumours and some strong moves' mostly outside Parliament, to have Verwoerd.0 seated. These plans have been dealt a senl blow by the attack on the Prime Minister. think a successful assassination would have done more harm than good: an unsuccessful one IS an unqualified catastrophe. He is now a hero: unassailable for some time. In the meantime all forms of pressure from overseas—sports be cotes, for instance—would, I think. increase the likelihood of a businessman's revolution.
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