Race Relations in South Africa as an International Problem

Abstract

J AM dealing today with a subject which has aroused and continues to arouse the strongest of emotions both inside South Africa and in the rest of the world. Policies for the solution of this problem of white and black in South Africa cause friction not only between white and black in the country, but also between whites as a group and the blacks as a group in South Africa and outside South Africa. The bitterness is directed from almost all peoples, in all countries, not only against the policies of the present Government in South Africa but against the white people as a whole. I am going to try, as impartially as I am able, first to give a view of present conditions in South Africa, and secondly to consider the relation of these conditions to change in the world as a whole. I believe that the most important factor in the South African situation is the numerical one. Out of a total population of thirteen million, the numerically dominant group, the Africans, numbers about 9 million. The next group in numerical importance is the white group, the Europeans, who number almost 3 million. The third group is the so-called Coloured people, a people of mixed race, and they number approximately a million to I,250,000. Last is the smallest racial group-the Asian group-which numbers over 400,000 and which should reach 500,000 within the next decade. I sihould like to say a word or two about each of these groups. The Africans, although dominant in number, are the most backward as far as the attributes of Western civilization are concerned and in consequence are found at the bottom of the labour scale. They are by no means a unified group and this is in fact a sad feature of each of these racial groups in South Africa. The Africans comprise some hundreds of different tribes and speak four major languages and one minor one, so that when educated Africans meet to discuss their affairs they usually use English as their medium. Particularly among the educated Africans there is a growing sense of unity-of unity in opposition to the other racial groups in the country, and particularly to the white group-but it is a great mistake to think of South Africa at this time as a country in which all whites are opposed to all the blacks or vice versa. There still take place regularly among the Africans the most savage battles, in which hundreds are involved on either side and which have to be stopped by the intervention of the European police. The majority of Africans are still in a very primitive I64