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Apartheid:

a speech by Duncan Innes President of the National Union of South African Students

Some people may wonder why I as a student, have chosen a topic such as this for my talk today; these people may ask why as students we are concerning ourselves with our country and not concentrating on our studies.

To these people I would say that I believe firmly that a university can only reflect the aspirations of the society in which it exists and thus to study the one without the other is to do only half the job. Each one of us here will shortly be leaving out university to take our places in out society, and it is, therefore, imperative that we are aware of the stale and health of that society, Furthermore, with the present political trend in South Africa, students stand clearly in the political spectrum of our society and so a proper understanding of the society in which they operate is essential.

But first let us analyse briefly our own position—the position of the student in South Africa. For example, how many students are there studying at universities in our country?

Last year, in 1968, there were 74,330. Of these students the racial breakdown was as follows:

Whites, 65.745: African, 1530; Asiatic, 3219; Coloured, 3836.

Total non-whites, 8585.

That means that of the total percentage of students studying at institutions of higher learning in South Africa last year, only 11.5 per cent were non-white, and of that percentage 3 per cent were Africans.

Why, we must ask ourselves, is the rate of education of the non-white and particularly the African so low? The Government submits again and again that it is doing all it can to increase educational facilities for the non-White. They point to the establishment of the University College of Zululand, of the University College of the North, of the University College of the Western Cape, and they cry, "look what we are doing for the non-White!" and indeed, giving credit where credit is due, we will admit that the establishment of three non-While colleges, which are now almost fully-Hedged universities is a fine record. But then we study the enrolment figures at these institutions and we sec that:

In 1960 the U.C.W.C. had 161 students, and in 1968 it had 669 students, an increase of 508 students.

We see that in 1960 the U.Z. has 41 students, and in 1968 it had 368 students, an increase of 327 students.

Then we look at Fort Hare and sec that in 1960 Fort Hare had 360 students, and in 1968 it had 451 students, an increase of 91 students.

These figures we feel do not denote great progress, but giving the Government the benefit of the doubt, we presume that universities simply grow slowly, so we look at the White universities to see how they have increased their enrolment in the same eight years.

We note that Natal increased by 2008; Wits by 3081; U.C.T. by 2058; Potchefstroom by 1547; Pretoria by 4103; Stellenbosch by 2735.

It would seem that, from these figures, the Government is doing all it can to improve the standard of white education in South Africa, while neglecting the non-Whites almost entirely.

But Mr Harry Lewis, newly-appointed Nat. M.P., tells us that this is not so. Almost confidently he gives us the reasons. "You see." he says, "the Black man unfortunately just isn't up to university standing. He can't absorb all that knowledge, poor chap. Just look at the school failure rates," he tells us. So like good South Africans, we look at the figures. We see that of all African children of school-going age, 78 per cent are attending schools. This, we agree, is impressive.

We sec that in Sub A there are 580.533 African children. But by the time we reach Matric we see that there are only 2075.

Why is there this tremendous drop, we ask?

The answer is very simple, some Government source informs us. They just can't keep up. They just don't have the brain-power to match us Whites.

But what he doesn't tell us is that the ratio in these classes is I teacher to 58.8 children.

What he doesn't tell us is that the reasons why there are more children per teacher this year than there were last year is because an African teacher gets paid less than half the salary of a white teacher with equal qualifications. He doesn't tell us that a non-white artisan with a Junior Certificate can get a larger salary than a teacher with a Senior Certificate and 2 years' training. For the non-While, where is the incentive to teach? This is why last year there were 1570 teaching vacancies among non-Whites.

Our helpful Government sources will forget to tell us as well that although books are free at Government Schools for While children, non-While children have to pay for theirs.

He also won't tell us that the parents of most of these youngsters live in abject poverty, and that they just cannot afford to let their children go on educating themselves. They have to go out and work or the family will starve.

And then, we look at the overall hard facts, and we see that out of an African population of 12,750,000 in 1967 only 17.49 per cent were at school. That is 2 million children. Of these 2 million, over 1 million, or more than half, are in Sub A. Sub B. Std. I and Std. 2.

Thus, although the Minister of Bantu Education can proudly claim that 78 per cent of African children receive schooling, he forgets 10 mention that less than 39 per cent ever get over Std. 2 and in fact that only .08 per cent ever reach Matric.

If, despite all these facts and figures, our learned Government source still tries to tell us as they do, that the Government it doing all it can for non-White education in South Africa, then we must ask him one last question. How much money per pupil is spent on education? His own answer will destroy him.

In 1960, which was the last time the Government issued these comparative figures, R144.57 was spent per white child; R59.13 was spent per coloured child: R12.46 was spent per African child. I need not continue with this topic.

The education of the non-White, and particularly the African, in South Africa, is a myth and a lie. It is something the Government can proudly point to when it is questioned in the United Nations, but when one delves into the intricate cobwebs of half-truths one is confronted with the painful truth: the Government docs not want to educate the Black man.

Those who do manage an education, those who gain Matric, those who go on to get degrees and to become doctors are men and women whose courage and determination it is not easy to match. Like the medical student, who this year applied for a NUSAS scholarship, He had just completed his second year. He had obtained two second class passes. A truly remarkable achievement. I asked him where he lived. He said he shared a one-room shack with a friend. Wasn't it awkward, I asked, if one of them wanted to work at night and the other wanted to sleep with a light shining in the room There was no light, he said, they had no electricity. But how do you work at night, I asked? By candle-light, he said.

But now, we should ask ourselves why should the Government not wish to do all it can to educate the African and thus enable him to raise his own standard of living? Surely, we would expect any rational government to plough as much money as possible into the education of the poor so that in this way the poor may be better equipped to enter new and better jobs, thus earn larger salaries, raise healthier, better educated families, and surely in this way, with more and more educated men and women entering our professions our whole society would be enriched and would prosper economically. But this is not the policy of our present Government and to understand why, we must look at the whole political situation.

The policy of South Africa at the moment is one where the White group has economic and political control of the country, and they do not intend to let it go.

Now the question arises, if the While group who have this power, do not intend to lose it, what are they going to do with the majority of the people? The White group feels that whatever it does with these people it must ensure three things:

Firstly, that the policy has some form of moral justification; secondly, that it is economically sound: and thirdly that it won't involve any loss of power from the Whites.

And with those three aims in mind, the late Dr Verwoerd produced the doctrine of separate nations.

He said we will give the Africans their own nations in which they can have full rights of citizenship. But obviously since we, the whites, have already developed certain sections of South Africa for ourselves, we will give the Africans those sections that are still largely under-developed so that they can develop those sections for themselves.

Of course, those sections that are still underdeveloped only amount to 13 per cent of the total land space of South Africa, but after all there are only 16 million of them and 4 million of us, he said. And anyway, we can't be expected to give up what we have developed.

But, said his critics, what will happen when these Black nations develop and grow economically and politically powerful? Won't they then be a threat to us? 1 think Dr Verwoerd just smiled.

Because he knew it was all a mammoth hoax.

He knew that the Bantustans were agriculturally semi-impoverished, industrially useless and economically unable to pay for themselves. Ho knew that the Bantustans could never ever hope to absorb all the Africans in the Republic. There could never he enough work.

Dr Verwoerd said, and Mr Vorster says, that the Africans will gradually return to the Bantustans as they develop and thus the need for more workers is found.

But let us look at the Government's biggest showcase, the Bantustan which has already survived 5 years of so-called self-government— the Transkei.

The Transkei consists of 16,000 square miles. It has an African population of 1.4 million. Thirteen years after the Tomlinson Report, which was the first blueprint from which Dr Verwoerd worked—13 years after this report claimed that in 25-30 years the Transkei would be able to support 10 million Africans, we find that it cannot even support 1.4 million. There are 3 factories in the Transkei and they employ less than 2000 Africans. There are only 32,700 Africans employed in the Transkei and in another 12-17 years, according to the Tomlinson Report, employment must be found for 10 million. Today we learn that the Tomlinson Report is inaccurate. By the year 2000 there will be 9 million more Africans in South Africa than the Report bargained for.

But we ask, what happens to those Africans who cannot find work in the Transkei and the other homelands? They return to the Republic as migrant labourers.

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And so now we sec how the great scheme really works. The homelands can never become self-sufficient.

Last year the Transkei had a total budget of R20 million. From its own sources, the Transkei raised R4.5 million. The balance comes from our generous Government. I am sure that should Chief Matanzima ever wish to do anything with which Pretoria were dissatisfied, Pretoria might discover that there were certain difficulties involved in handing over the R15.5 million so necessary for the Transkei's very survival.

Thus we see that the Bantustans, because they can never be economically self-sufficient, can never ever be politically independent. And, although they can have all the trappings of independence, such as a Prime Minister, Cabinet, elections, etc., you can be sure that they will never be able to acquire such natural rights of any nation, as for example, an army, albeit for self-defence. As long as the Bantustans rely on the South African Government for their funds, which they must forever do—they can never support themselves, and therefore, they will never be politically independent. Thus the White's third aim, that they should lose none of their power is realised, while their first aim that their policy should also have a seemingly moral justification is theoretically realised to the lazy or indoctrinated thinker—for "one day", we are told—not in his life-time. Mr Vorster tells us—but one day, these nations will be free.

And, of course, we mustn't forget that the policy must be economically sound, too, which was, you will recall, our second requirement, So we have an African population unable to find work in the homelands drifting back into the Republic and supplying a constant labour force for our mines and factories. And they will go on doing this because they need work for food and we will go on receiving cheap labour and our economy will grow and grow and requirement number two has been met. Of course, we don't allow these men to bring their wives and children, because we don't need them to work, and if these men grumble about poor wages we simply sack them because our system is so sound that we know that there are millions more who are so hungry that they will work for any amount of money, no matter how small.

It is a depressing picture. It is a picture of a cunning system that is so evil and so selfish that one wonders that human beings could ever have evolved it.

It is a system that forces over 600,000 people in Soweto to live in 70,000 houses. That according to the official Government figures, 9 people per 3-roomed house.

It is a system which orders 33.000 Coloured people to be evicted from their homes in District 6 at a time when there is already a shortage of 30,000 Coloured homes in the Cape Peninsula alone—at a time when 15,00C Coloured people in the Cape are waiting for homes and 66,000 are inadequately housed. These are official Government figures.

It is a system which evicts these people from their homes because, in the words of the Minister of Community Development, Mr Blaar Coetzee, he "wants it for a White luxury area."

It is a system which causes a man to say, "I do not weep for the non-White; I weep for the White."

It is a system which allows the homes of 170 Coloured people to be bulldozed down and then leaves them sitting for two weeks on the roadside . . . without shelter. A 90-year-old man and a 2-month old baby, we read, shared a ditch.

It is a system which enables the homes of 1746 Coloured people, to be bought by the Government and resold to Whites, with the Government accruing a total profit of R6.8 million and this after official Government sources inform us that 60 per cent of the Coloured people are poverty-stricken.

It is a system that allows in one year for 12,000 cases of malnutrition diseases among African babies, 700 among Coloured babies and 9 among Whiles. According to population ratios, these figures should be Whites 9, Coloureds 4 and Africans 36.

It is a system that allows 50 per cent of all African children born alive to die before they reach their 5th birthday.

It is a system which allows the Minister of Community Development to stand up and say that the Indians in South Africa must branch out willingly from Commerce or the Government will force them out. "They must branch out into other occupations", he said, "and become clerks, road workers and fitters and turners. This will be done", he concluded, "not only in the interests of South Africa, but also in the interests of the Indian community."

It is a system that caused the horrors of Limehill and Stinkwater This is a description of a Government resettlement camp, Stinkwater, which lies 35 miles from Pretoria, and into which the Government has forced thousands of Africans to move. It is written by one who was there, and it appeared in the Rand Daily Mail.

"It consists of corrugated iron shacks, mud huts and wooden houses. Hundreds of the slum dwellers have been infected with a sxourge of skin diseases. Scores of children had bloodshot eyes accompanied by a discharge of tears. A medical practitioner said the children were showing symptoms of trachoma, which could lead to blindness. Other children had their heads covered with ringworm. Some of them found it difficult to play because of swollen limbs."

But in case you're feeling depressed, don't worry, because "there is one nurse in the area", and as far as sanitation goes, "a borehole is open for 4 hours a day."

But what did this place look like, we wonder, when the Department of Bantu Administration and Development forced these people to move there and said "this is your homeland"? We don't know what it looked like then but 6 months after these people had been there in the middle of winter, we know what it looked like. There were no schools, no stores and no clinic. The people lived in tents. There was one hand pump for water which was used by over 400 people.

It is only fair, however, to present the other side of the picture too, and 3 months later there had been improvements. There was half a school, an old shack for a store, a motor-driven pump, but still no clinic. That is progress.

Most of the men who live at Stinkwater work in the cities during the week, and only come home to see their families over the weekend. Those who do come home every day arrive home by bus at 9 p.m. and have to be up at 3 a.m. to catch the bus to the city at 4 a.m. The bus fare is 45c. per day single, and R4.40 a month. In addition, money is, of course, needed for clothes and food. There are no toilets provided at all.

Then there is Limehill, where many people have died. In October of last year an epidemic broke out there, and a letter was sent to the Minister of Health, Dr Carcl de Wet, asking for an inquiry as typhoid was suspected.

On December 10th, the Minister issued a statement saying conditions at Limehill were normal. In only three months, from September to December, out of a population of 6000, only 19 people had died.

On December 21. Archbishop Hurley visited the area and claimed that he had evidence that between October 1 and December 10 at least 45 people had died. He informed the Minister of Health. The Minister then issued a statement admitting that in 5 months 73 people had died, but this, he said, was also normal.

If 19 deaths in 3 months is normal, and 73 deaths in 5 months is also normal, then 1 shudder to think what the Minister would regard as abnormal.

At this stage dozens of pressmen were converging on the area to attempt to ascertain the truth. The Minister was quick to slap a ban on any pressmen from visiting the area. But he could not slop members of Parliament from going there, and he could not slop doctors from going there.

Eventually, after 35 deaths had occurred in 2 weeks, the state ordered innoculations and set up medical "checkpoint". The Natal Regional Director for State Health issued the following statement: "We have established contact with the disease. The picture is not entirely clear, but it is apparently the result of insanitory conditions."

A spokesman for the Stale Health Department said that between 15 and 20 per cent of the children at Limehill have contracted gastro-enteritis and the disease is spreading to adults. But he added, "this is quite normal at this time of the year because of the heat and the flies."

What really happened at Limchill, we will probably never know, for while people died, the Government banned the Press from going there, while people died, the priests who tried to save them were interrogated again and again by the Special Branch, and while people died, While South Africa went about its business.

What we do have, though, is the report of four doctors who did voluntary medical work in the area before the Government went in and who delivered a "factual account" of their findings.

Between December 28 and January 19, 760 patients were examined at one clinic. The size of the community which that clinic served was 2000.

Fifteen of these patients were pregnant. What, we might ask, may have happened to those people if those doctors had not voluntarily gone there to treat them? One of the diseases mentioned was typhoid. Of this disease the doctors say "it spreads in conditions of poor hygiene."

"In a normal, healthy community," the doctors continue, "the acceptable incidence of typhoid is nil. Thus in a community the size of Limehill. 8 confirmed and 4 suspected cases would in any medical sense be called very serious."

"Diarrhoea", the doctors continue, "was the commonest reason for consulting us. Just over 50 per cent of all the patients who came had these complaints. It is most serious in babies and young children who form a very large percentage of the cases. Sudden deterioration and death may occur within hours."

The doctors continue: "From the disease we saw, it is self-evident that the water and waste disposal facilities were inadequate." They conclude: "We understand that the men are, to a large extent in other areas. We would indicate that this is unsatisfactory and a further factor in continuing the vicious cycle of disease, poverty, ignorance, disease."

This report was published before the Lime hill debate began in Parliament. Let us see what occurred there.

Dr de Wet said that in one year there were 18 cases of typhoid and asked what was so abnormal about that. He went on to criticise the United Party, the Press and all those who had attacked Limchill as being "enemies of South Africa".

Blaar Coetzee, replying to a barrage of Opposition questions, asked: "Does the U.P. want caviar for the people of Limehill?"

Another Government spokesman, amid roars of Nationalists laughter, said that he thought everyone was making a mountain out of a Limehill.

But not all Nationalist comments were sickly witticisms. Sometimes they tried to defend it. There are 2 ambulances available which come in from outside, they cried, and a district surgeon visits the clinic once a week, and there is one district nurse on duty all the time. But there are 6000 to 8000 people there and they are spread over many miles. There are no proper toilet facilities, only a pit system. And there is not one house.

But, shouted the Government M.P.'s, these conditions are due to the fact that the people there have done nothing about them. They had, after all, been supplied with tents and equipment to dig pit latrines when they were originally dumped there. It was Dr Radford, the United Party M.P., who pointed out that there were no men there—they were working in the cities. "Surely," he said, "you don't expect women with babies on their backs to dig 20 feet latrines in the hard soil of Northern Natal?"

Dr Radford went on to say that of the many cemeteries in the area, he had only visited two, and he had counted 40 graves, not 19 as the Minister had said. He had been shown 750 medical cards of the children suffering from gastro-enteritis. And amid jeers and catcalls from Government benches, he added: "And if you want the names on the graves, I will show them to you."

And so the tragedy of Limehill was laughed out of Parliament and the Minister of Health refused to set up a commission to investigate it. We will never know how many people died there. Some people say they have seen hundreds of graves, the Minister has only seen 19, We will probably never know how many hundreds of other Limehills have occurred, are occurring, and are going to occur, and perhaps it is just as well, for as the Nationalist Party newspaper, the Transvaler so aptly put it:

"Limehill was never presented as a utopia to the thousands of outcasts who were shifted there, although it undoubtedly must have seemed like one to many of them. The areas offers reasonable living conditions, and the residents are happy because their living conditions there are infinitely belter than the places they come from."

Yes, it is true, the residents are happy. Their happiness is the eternal stillness of the grave. But their passing was not a happy one, their last desperate agonies were not happy, and their deaths have labelled South Africa with a terrible guilt.

The guilt for those deaths lies with the Nationalists who jeered and lied to smother the truth.

The guilt lies with the public that didn't care.

The guilt for those deaths lies with you and I who read the newspaper reports, shook our heads in horror, and then threw the newspaper aside.

The guilt, fellow-students, is ours, because we have done nothing.

I have touched very lightly on the topic of apartheid. I have revealed certain horrors and certain injustices, but I have only scratched the surface. Beneath the surface lie a million further tragedies—human tragedies, all of them. Tragedies of discrimination of despair of selfishness.

The tragedies of over 12 million Africans who must carry passes with them like dog licences for fear that they, like dogs, will be impounded. The tragedies of 72,936 Africans who have been uprooted from their homes and forced into barren resettlement areas. The tragedies of 92.5 per cent of an Indian group of 99,000 who have been affected by Group Areas. And these, Mr Chairman, are just the facts and figures. They are statistics, Government official statistics, and they cannot tell of the many other horrors that are caused by this system.

They cannot tell of the terrible harm that malnutrition does to the mind and body; they cannot tell of the destruction of minds and personality which the horrors of Limehill perpetrate, they can only record the deaths. It is impossible to estimate the drunkenness, the poverty, the prostitution, and other vices which this system forces onto the people who are subjected to it. Our only knowledge that this sort of thing occurs is when we see the battered tramp in rags staggering drunkenly down our dity streets only to be hurled burtally into the back of a waiting police van. And then the reaction of the White population is as certain as ever: "You wouldn't want your daughter to marry one of those, would you?"

This is a story of a people with no rights and no future. This is the story of South Africa today.

And behind this lamentable story lies a quiet philosophy. A philosophy which the rulers of our land name nurtured and long cherished. It is the philosophy which today steers South Africa on its present course. It is the philosophy which has entrenched itself in our society, our heritage, our way of life. For the last 15 years young South Africans have been subjected to Christian National Education, which pervades our school textbooks and governs the order of our thinking.

But what is it? What is this Christian Nationalism?

I could not define it better than did our own Prime Minister. Mr B. J. Vorster, when after he had been appointed a general in the Ossewa Brandwag in 1942, he said:

"We stand for Christian Nationalism which is an ally of National Socialism. You can call this anti-democratic principle dictatorship if you wish. In Italy it is called Fascism, in Germany, German National Socialism (or Nazism), and in South Africa Christian Nationalism."