The Theory of Apartheid: Nationalist Racial Policy in the Union of South Africa

Abstract

PEOPLE interested in the future of the so-called liberal-democratic tradition are being made more aware today of an inner contradiction in nations which profess to uphold its principles. This contradiction becomes most apparent in the racial relationships existing in those nations which are characterized by a multiracial society. The United States of America with its Negro problem is an example-democracy which in actual practice has been limited, particularly in the South, on the basis of race. The American problem pales into relative insignificance when compared with that of the Union of South Africa, a country characterized ethnically by a minority of white persons and an overwhelming majority of non-whites-Coloreds, Natives, and Asiatics. In South Africa the race problem has always been foremost, and it determines the major characteristics of South African life today. In the Union of South Africa the Nationalist party came into power after winning the 1948 general election on the apartheid platform. What is apartheid? Most definitions of the term are nebulous, at best. Its application is something new under the sun so far as Union politics are concerned, yet the term has gained wide use in the Union as a sort of catchword or political slogan to describe Nationalist non-European policy. Although not yet a dictionary word, it nevertheless won the last election for the Nationalists.