Lees reeks by Stryd teen vreemde oorheersing

SÓ VOORSPOEDIG WÁS SUID-AFRIKA!

Oppenheimer aangevat oor sy uitsprake oor apartheid

22 Julie 1994

“You may remember that the average annual economic growth rate from 1962 to approximately 1968 was 6 percent—the 7,9 percent in 1965 having been the second highest in the world. The average rate of inflation was about 2,5 percent and the prime interest rate about 3,5 percent. The accomodation of new labour in the formal sector was at 73,6 percent per year. These, you will recall, were the conditions of prosperity in spite of hostility on the part of the American and British establishments and opposition from you and your fellow liberals and leftists in South Africa. A visiting American professor (Gilbert) said in 1962: ‘The performance of the South African economy is one of the miracles of modern science’. And Paul Bareau in 1966 wrote in The Statist: ‘At the rate at which South Africa is now expanding, the term ‘miracle’ is likely to be appropriate to its development over the next few years” . You yourself wrote in your 1964 annual Statement to Anglo-American Corp: ‘The South African economy is presently very strong... South Africa’s control of the economy is really good... For this the government must certainly take credit’. You may also be reminded that in your 1965 Statement to Anglo- American Corp, you said that the living standards of whites were rising at 3,9 percent per year. But those of the blacks were rising 40 percent faster, namely at 5,4 percent per year. So, the population as a whole was enjoying the beneficial results of a policy based on apartheid. As if this was not enough, Time of 26th August, 1966—eleven days before Dr. Verwoerd was assassinated—wrote: ‘... investors from all over the world have plowed money into the country...’ . The system introduced in South Africa in 1994 has been tried and tested in many countries and has failed in every instance with dreadful results. Even now it can be safely predicted that there will not be a growing national feeling in South Africa but increasing racial and ethnic friction and tension.” – En wás hierdie voorspelling in die kol!!

MNR. JAAP MARAIS het skerp in ’n ope brief gereageer op mnr. Harry Oppenheimer se opmerking dat apartheid ’n sinnelose beleid was wat verdeeldheid in die samelewing veroorsaak het in plaas van om die verskillende groepe in Suid-Afrika tot ’n eenheid te laat saamgroei. Mnr. Marais wys in sy antwoord op die voorspoed wat geheers het toe dr. Verwoerd nog oor die land regeer het, en hoe goed dit selfs met die Nieblankes gegaan het wat altyd as die onderdruktes in die land voorgehou is.

Mnr. Marais, se volledige brief, wat 6 Julie gedateer is, lees soos volg:

“In The Citizen of June 22,1994, I’ve notice that you are reported to have said: ‘apartheid was always a piece of nonsense’; ‘tribal separateness has been overwhelmed by a national feeling’; ‘Mr Mandela sought your approval of two cabinet appointments ’; You ‘didn’t vote for the ANC because you didn’t like its alliance with the Communist Party’; You ‘like Mr Mandela very, very much’.

“The report further says you control 54 percent of all shares trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and that, after the Sultan of Brunei, you are the richest man in the world.

“It is well to leave this last-mentioned matter for later consideration in light of some of the above, and to look first of all at your statement that ‘apartheid was a piece of nonsense’.

“Two considerations enter here, one being the fact of racial and cultural differences of the various peoples in South Africa and their historical background. The other is that the policy of racial separation, or apartheid, was in full operation during the time of Dr. HF Verwoerd’s premiership, and its results are therefore a matter of historical record.

“You may remember that the average annual economic growth rate from 1962 to approximately 1968 was 6 percent—the 7,9 percent in 1965 having been the second highest in the world. The average rate of inflation was about 2,5 percent and the prime interest rate about 3,5 percent. The accomodation of new labour in the formal sector was at 73,6 percent per year. These, you will recall, were the conditions of prosperity in spite of hostility on the part of the American and British establishments and opposition from you and your fellow liberals and leftists in South Africa.

‘‘A visiting American professor (Gilbert) said in 1962: ‘The performance of the South African economy is one of the miracles of modern science’. And Paul Bareau in 1966 wrote in The Statist: ‘At the rate at which South Africa is now expanding, the term “miracle’ is likely to be appropriate to its development over the next few years’.

“There cannot be any higher praise for a countiy’s economic performance than that it resembles a miracle—a miracle of modern science.

“You yourself wrote in your 1964 annual Statement to Anglo-American Corp: ‘The South African economy is presently very strong... South Africa’s control of the economy is really good... For this the government must certainly take credit’. And in your Statement for the following year you said: ‘For the third successive year the South African economy is flourishing... This has been achieved in spite of the fact that adverse weather conditions made 1964 an exceedingly bad agricultural year... During the year there was no significant net inflow of foreign capital’.

“Coming from you as an opponent of the government and its policies, this is a remarkable recognition of successful political leadership and economic management. And you will admit that since the National Party government abandoned the policy of apartheid there has never been a comparable situation in South Africa.

“You may also be reminded that in your 1965 Statement to Anglo- American Corp, you said that the living standards of whites were rising at 3,9 percent per year. But those of the blacks were rising 40 percent faster, namely at 5,4 percent per year. So, the population as a whole was enjoying the beneficial results of a policy based on apartheid.

“So well were things going in ‘apartheid’ South Africa that seven weeks before the assassination of Dr. Verwoerd The Rand Daily Mail (30th July 1966) wrote: ‘The nation is suffering from a surfeit of prosperity’. And as is well-known this newspaper was the mouthpiece of the Progressive Party, which you supported and probably financed.

“Dr. Verwoerd on the 2nd October, 1964 said: ‘The stage has been leached in South Africa where normal development may be financed from the savings of the nation’. And in this he was qualifying slightly what you had previously said, namely: ‘South Africa can with a little help from overseas finance the expansion required to increase the national income in order to maintain the living standards of the growing population’. This represents the utmost of economic soundness in a country.

“As if this was not enough, Time of 26th August, 1966—eleven days before Dr. Verwoerd was assassinated—wrote: ‘... investors from all over the world have plowed money into the country...’

“So, Mr Oppenheimer, any reasonable person will admit that South Africa and her peoples had never had it so good as under the leadership of Dr. Verwoerd and the policy known as apartheid or separate development. And apartheid in South Africa did not scare off investors, but attracked them to invest in the country.

“Now, you say apartheid was ‘a piece of nonsense’. Maybe you have forgotten what conditions were in South Africa in the early ‘sixties, or you are so steeped in prejudice that you dare not allow yourself to acknowledge the unequalled success of the Verwoerd era. By trying to be insulting in your phraseology in reference to apartheid, you are not only violating the truth, but are doing yourself a disservice. No political philosophy or policy can be ‘a piece of nonsense’ if its fruits are as felicitous as those enjoyed in South Africa in the sixties. (See tables below)

“What makes your derogatory remark about apartheid even more ill- advised is that the policy advocated by you has been displacing apartheid since the assassination of Dr. Verwoerd, and this process has been going on for more than 20 years—somewhat longer that the 18 apartheid years of 1948 to 1966. The results of this opposite of the apartheid policy is there for all to see and to compare with the preceeding period.

“While in the sixties the living standards of Whites were rising at a rate of 3,9 percent per annum, the opposite was taking place in the eighties. Sunday Star Finance of the 8th September 1991 reported: ‘Middle class South Africa has virtually been blown out of the economic water’, which means that they (mainly Afrikaners) have been impoverished. The Star of 28th July, 1991 gave statistical evidence of this. ‘Half of all White South Africans’, it said, ‘have net assets of less than R100 000. And one in five South African Whites (22 percent) has assets of less than RIO 000 ... 18 percent of this population group can muster possessions of cash of less than R5000’. “You may not have taken much notice of what has been happening in recent years to people under a regime that had abandoned apartheid and was following the policy advocated by you, namely ‘moving away from discrimination’ and redistributing income and wealth. However, these are some of the things characterising the policies of the post-Verwoerdian era:

•   “Poor Whites battle to survive” (Citizen, 29th October 1991)

•   “Impoverishment of Whites increasing” (Beeld, July 1991)

•   “Many top people lose jobs” (Sake-Rapport 12 January, 1992)

•   “Firms asking staff to take pay cuts” (Sunday Star 8th December, 1991)

•   “Hundreds of good businesses up for sale” (Citizen, 19th December, 1990)

•   “Sharp rise in business failures is on the way” (Business Times, 12th January, 1992)

•   “700 fanners liquidated each month in 1991” (Beeld 24th January, 1992)

•   “Hammer falls on homes as owners feel bite” (The Star, 3rd January, 1992)

•   “White poverty ‘worse than the thirties’” ( Rapport, 4th July, 1993)

“Unemployment, bankrupties, poverty and misery are the hallmark of the present policy of racial integration, in contrast to ‘a nation suffering from a surfeit of prosperity’” under apartheid; and as has been said: by your fruit shall you be known. The facts are so plain and the conclusion so self- evident in this matter that the point need not be laboured.

“Yet, you said that apartheid was ‘a piece of nonsense’! But looking at the fruit of this policy our country may yearn for more pieces of nonsense, instead of what may euphemistically be called the present chunk of fraud and robbery perpetrated in the name of reform and of redistribution of income and wealth.

“It must have struck you at one time or another that while the White people of South Africa (mostly Afrikaners) were being impoverished, you accumulated wealth as never before, becoming the second richest man in all the world. Of course, wealth does not grow on trees, neither does it fall from heaven. So, when Afrikaners and other Whites progressively lose wealth and the already rich progressively gain further wealth, a redistribution of wealth is obviously taking place in what may perhaps be properly termed a display of economic pornography—people being denuded of what they have by a knot of money moguls, aided by the government and the Reserve Bank.

“Under apartheid this abomination did not take place, the population being protected against financial gluttons, and ‘the nation suffering from a surfeit of prosperity’. This felicitous situation was apparently contrary to your ideas; and for this reason you wanted apartheid to be ended.

“It is common cause that a person pursuing his own interests is not suitable for serving the public, as it inevitably leads to a clash of interests, ending in, for example, the rationalisation that what is good for a certain corporation is good for South Africa. This dictum had to be imposed on South Africa after the assassination of Dr. Verwoerd to prove that what was good for certain corporations and their bosses was disastrous for South Africa.

“I can appreciate why you say you ‘like Mr Mandela very, very much’. He is the leader of a Communist-controlled organisation used by the former USSR and the British Foreign Office and Secret Service to continue the Boer War by other means with a view to ending the policy of separate development, introducing a system of one man, one vote and defeating Afrikaner nationalism. As the extension of the Rand lords of the eighteen nineties who collaborated with the enemy fighting the Boer republics, you have been on the side of the alliance fighting Afrikaner nationalism since 1948. This explains the bond between you and the ANC leader. You had a common cause.

“Apartheid didn’t fail, Mr Oppenheimer: it was betrayed by political leaders who did not have the courage to stand where Dr. Verwoerd was killed by a Communist, and they rationalised their cowardice by advocating ‘change’ and ‘reform’.

“Political developments in African states, such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somali, Ruanda, Angola are object lessons in the failure of suppressing tribal, racial and religious differences. Your view that ‘tribal separateness has been overwhelmed by a national feeling’ is plain wishful thinking. The system introduced in South Africa in 1994 has been tried and tested in many countries and has failed in every instance with dreadful results. Even now it can be safely predicted that there will not be a growing national feeling in South Africa but increasing racial and ethnic friction and tension.

“Perhaps it would have a sobering influence to read what was said by persons of whom one cannot but take note, such as for instance Prof Raymond Dart, famous scientist, Mr Bruce Eager, Mayor of Johannesburg in 1966, and playwright and novelist James Ambrose Brown.

“Prof Raymond Dart: ‘... this sudden, senseless and shattering loss of its most outstanding leader. By some strange alchemy, probably his personal understanding of human psychology and the clarity of his vision, he had succeeded in inspiring, like a Churchill, the people he governed whether they belonged to his party or not, with sufficient of his own moral strength and stability to visualise, with him, constructive manners of meeting courageously the unknown role European scientific civilisation will inevitably play in the future of the whole continent’.

“Mr Bruce Eager: this great man who has played such a tremendous part in the life of this country over many years and particularly during his years as Prime Minister of South Africa... South Africa, which I believe has been an example to the rest of the world in its conduct of its affairs and in its attitude, particularly in very difficult times where we have been the butt of so much critisism by the outside world’.

“Mr James Ambrose Brown: ‘It is not given to many to see beyond their own generation and whether one believes in all Dr. Verwoerd did, in all its nuances or not, one had to see him as a man who was looking at the future as few men of his time have been able to do... As an English-speaking South African who has tried to look beyond the immediate present and see what he saw for this subcontinent I can only say that his vision seemed a clear and unequivocal one, that he saw it with absolute conviction as the nation’s one hope for a peaceful solution of our particular subcontinental problem. The world may not agree with this, but the blood running in the gutters of other great nations who have not yet found a way of peaceful co­existence may be proof that this man Verwoerd was not the apostle of a futile separation, but a clear-headed and courageous man whose policies would ultimately have united all our racial elements’.

“Against these considered opinions of eminent men you say ‘apartheid was a piece of nonsense’. It amazes me that a man like you can be so petty- minded.

“South Africa became the most powerful state in Africa as a result of the wisdom of our forebears in upholding a policy of separation between White and Black.

“’The policy called apartheid and which presently causes so much animosity overseas’, wrote L E Neame, former editor of The Rand Daily Mail in White Man’s Africa, ‘is not a new evil manner of treating Blacks and Coloureds. Apartheid is simply the name for separation—and separation has been the basic principle of the policy of the Whites in the African sub­continent’.

“This policy has stood the test of time, and whatever may be contrived to prevent a return to its principles, the forces of nationalism will, as in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, arise and destroy the present structures erected to suppress racial and religious preferences.

“Dr. Verwoerd was 50 years ahead of his time. His policy of recognising the national identities of the various Black nations as well as of the White nation in their historical territories, is the only policy that will restore stability and peace in South Africa.”

J A MARAIS

LEADER OF THE HNP

SÓ VOORSPOEDIG WAS SUID-AFRIKA!

Oppenheimer aangevat oor sy uitsprake oor apartheid

22 Julie 1994

“You may remember that the average annual economic growth rate from 1962 to approximately 1968 was 6 percent—the 7,9 percent in 1965 having been the second highest in the world. The average rate of inflation was about 2,5 percent and the prime interest rate about 3,5 percent. The accomodation of new labour in the formal sector was at 73,6 percent per year. These, you will recall, were the conditions of prosperity in spite of hostility on the part of the American and British establishments and opposition from you and your fellow liberals and leftists in South Africa. A visiting American professor (Gilbert) said in 1962: ‘The performance of the South African economy is one of the miracles of modern science’. And Paul Bareau in 1966 wrote in The Statist: ‘At the rate at which South Africa is now expanding, the term ‘miracle’ is likely to be appropriate to its development over the next few years” . You yourself wrote in your 1964 annual Statement to Anglo-American Corp: ‘The South African economy is presently very strong... South Africa’s control of the economy is really good... For this the government must certainly take credit’. You may also be reminded that in your 1965 Statement to Anglo- American Corp, you said that the living standards of whites were rising at 3,9 percent per year. But those of the blacks were rising 40 percent faster, namely at 5,4 percent per year. So, the population as a whole was enjoying the beneficial results of a policy based on apartheid. As if this was not enough, Time of 26th August, 1966—eleven days before Dr. Verwoerd was assassinated—wrote: ‘... investors from all over the world have plowed money into the country...’ . The system introduced in South Africa in 1994 has been tried and tested in many countries and has failed in every instance with dreadful results. Even now it can be safely predicted that there will not be a growing national feeling in South Africa but increasing racial and ethnic friction and tension.” – En was hierdie voorspelling in die kol!!

MNR. JAAP MARAIS het skerp in ’n ope brief gereageer op mnr. Harry Oppenheimer se opmerking dat apartheid ’n sinnelose beleid was wat verdeeldheid in die samelewing veroorsaak het in plaas van om die verskillende groepe in Suid-Afrika tot ’n eenheid te laat saamgroei. Mnr. Marais wys in sy antwoord op die voorspoed wat geheers het toe dr. Verwoerd nog oor die land regeer het, en hoe goed dit selfs met die Nieblankes gegaan het wat altyd as die onderdruktes in die land voorgehou is.

Mnr. Marais, se volledige brief, wat 6 Julie gedateer is, lees soos volg:

“In The Citizen of June 22,1994, I’ve notice that you are reported to have said: ‘apartheid was always a piece of nonsense’; ‘tribal separateness has been overwhelmed by a national feeling’; ‘Mr Mandela sought your approval of two cabinet appointments ’; You ‘didn’t vote for the ANC because you didn’t like its alliance with the Communist Party’; You ‘like Mr Mandela very, very much’.

“The report further says you control 54 percent of all shares trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and that, after the Sultan of Brunei, you are the richest man in the world.

“It is well to leave this last-mentioned matter for later consideration in light of some of the above, and to look first of all at your statement that ‘apartheid was a piece of nonsense’.

“Two considerations enter here, one being the fact of racial and cultural differences of the various peoples in South Africa and their historical background. The other is that the policy of racial separation, or apartheid, was in full operation during the time of Dr. HF Verwoerd’s premiership, and its results are therefore a matter of historical record.

“You may remember that the average annual economic growth rate from 1962 to approximately 1968 was 6 percent—the 7,9 percent in 1965 having been the second highest in the world. The average rate of inflation was about 2,5 percent and the prime interest rate about 3,5 percent. The accomodation of new labour in the formal sector was at 73,6 percent per year. These, you will recall, were the conditions of prosperity in spite of hostility on the part of the American and British establishments and opposition from you and your fellow liberals and leftists in South Africa.

‘‘A visiting American professor (Gilbert) said in 1962: ‘The performance of the South African economy is one of the miracles of modern science’. And Paul Bareau in 1966 wrote in The Statist: ‘At the rate at which South Africa is now expanding, the term “miracle’ is likely to be appropriate to its development over the next few years’.

“There cannot be any higher praise for a countiy’s economic performance than that it resembles a miracle—a miracle of modern science.

“You yourself wrote in your 1964 annual Statement to Anglo-American Corp: ‘The South African economy is presently very strong... South Africa’s control of the economy is really good... For this the government must certainly take credit’. And in your Statement for the following year you said: ‘For the third successive year the South African economy is flourishing... This has been achieved in spite of the fact that adverse weather conditions made 1964 an exceedingly bad agricultural year... During the year there was no significant net inflow of foreign capital’.

“Coming from you as an opponent of the government and its policies, this is a remarkable recognition of successful political leadership and economic management. And you will admit that since the National Party government abandoned the policy of apartheid there has never been a comparable situation in South Africa.

“You may also be reminded that in your 1965 Statement to Anglo- American Corp, you said that the living standards of whites were rising at 3,9 percent per year. But those of the blacks were rising 40 percent faster, namely at 5,4 percent per year. So, the population as a whole was enjoying the beneficial results of a policy based on apartheid.

“So well were things going in ‘apartheid’ South Africa that seven weeks before the assassination of Dr. Verwoerd The Rand Daily Mail (30th July 1966) wrote: ‘The nation is suffering from a surfeit of prosperity’. And as is well-known this newspaper was the mouthpiece of the Progressive Party, which you supported and probably financed.

“Dr. Verwoerd on the 2nd October, 1964 said: ‘The stage has been leached in South Africa where normal development may be financed from the savings of the nation’. And in this he was qualifying slightly what you had previously said, namely: ‘South Africa can with a little help from overseas finance the expansion required to increase the national income in order to maintain the living standards of the growing population’. This represents the utmost of economic soundness in a country.

“As if this was not enough, Time of 26th August, 1966—eleven days before Dr. Verwoerd was assassinated—wrote: ‘... investors from all over the world have plowed money into the country...’

“So, Mr Oppenheimer, any reasonable person will admit that South Africa and her peoples had never had it so good as under the leadership of Dr. Verwoerd and the policy known as apartheid or separate development. And apartheid in South Africa did not scare off investors, but attracked them to invest in the country.

“Now, you say apartheid was ‘a piece of nonsense’. Maybe you have forgotten what conditions were in South Africa in the early ‘sixties, or you are so steeped in prejudice that you dare not allow yourself to acknowledge the unequalled success of the Verwoerd era. By trying to be insulting in your phraseology in reference to apartheid, you are not only violating the truth, but are doing yourself a disservice. No political philosophy or policy can be ‘a piece of nonsense’ if its fruits are as felicitous as those enjoyed in South Africa in the sixties. (See tables below)

“What makes your derogatory remark about apartheid even more ill- advised is that the policy advocated by you has been displacing apartheid since the assassination of Dr. Verwoerd, and this process has been going on for more than 20 years—somewhat longer that the 18 apartheid years of 1948 to 1966. The results of this opposite of the apartheid policy is there for all to see and to compare with the preceeding period.

“While in the sixties the living standards of Whites were rising at a rate of 3,9 percent per annum, the opposite was taking place in the eighties. Sunday Star Finance of the 8th September 1991 reported: ‘Middle class South Africa has virtually been blown out of the economic water’, which means that they (mainly Afrikaners) have been impoverished. The Star of 28th July, 1991 gave statistical evidence of this. ‘Half of all White South Africans’, it said, ‘have net assets of less than R100 000. And one in five South African Whites (22 percent) has assets of less than RIO 000 ... 18 percent of this population group can muster possessions of cash of less than R5000’. “You may not have taken much notice of what has been happening in recent years to people under a regime that had abandoned apartheid and was following the policy advocated by you, namely ‘moving away from discrimination’ and redistributing income and wealth. However, these are some of the things characterising the policies of the post-Verwoerdian era:

•   “Poor Whites battle to survive” (Citizen, 29th October 1991)

•   “Impoverishment of Whites increasing” (Beeld, July 1991)

•   “Many top people lose jobs” (Sake-Rapport 12 January, 1992)

•   “Firms asking staff to take pay cuts” (Sunday Star 8th December, 1991)

•   “Hundreds of good businesses up for sale” (Citizen, 19th December, 1990)

•   “Sharp rise in business failures is on the way” (Business Times, 12th January, 1992)

•   “700 fanners liquidated each month in 1991” (Beeld 24th January, 1992)

•   “Hammer falls on homes as owners feel bite” (The Star, 3rd January, 1992)

•   “White poverty ‘worse than the thirties’” ( Rapport, 4th July, 1993)

“Unemployment, bankrupties, poverty and misery are the hallmark of the present policy of racial integration, in contrast to ‘a nation suffering from a surfeit of prosperity’” under apartheid; and as has been said: by your fruit shall you be known. The facts are so plain and the conclusion so self- evident in this matter that the point need not be laboured.

“Yet, you said that apartheid was ‘a piece of nonsense’! But looking at the fruit of this policy our country may yearn for more pieces of nonsense, instead of what may euphemistically be called the present chunk of fraud and robbery perpetrated in the name of reform and of redistribution of income and wealth.

“It must have struck you at one time or another that while the White people of South Africa (mostly Afrikaners) were being impoverished, you accumulated wealth as never before, becoming the second richest man in all the world. Of course, wealth does not grow on trees, neither does it fall from heaven. So, when Afrikaners and other Whites progressively lose wealth and the already rich progressively gain further wealth, a redistribution of wealth is obviously taking place in what may perhaps be properly termed a display of economic pornography—people being denuded of what they have by a knot of money moguls, aided by the government and the Reserve Bank.

“Under apartheid this abomination did not take place, the population being protected against financial gluttons, and ‘the nation suffering from a surfeit of prosperity’. This felicitous situation was apparently contrary to your ideas; and for this reason you wanted apartheid to be ended.

“It is common cause that a person pursuing his own interests is not suitable for serving the public, as it inevitably leads to a clash of interests, ending in, for example, the rationalisation that what is good for a certain corporation is good for South Africa. This dictum had to be imposed on South Africa after the assassination of Dr. Verwoerd to prove that what was good for certain corporations and their bosses was disastrous for South Africa.

“I can appreciate why you say you ‘like Mr Mandela very, very much’. He is the leader of a Communist-controlled organisation used by the former USSR and the British Foreign Office and Secret Service to continue the Boer War by other means with a view to ending the policy of separate development, introducing a system of one man, one vote and defeating Afrikaner nationalism. As the extension of the Rand lords of the eighteen nineties who collaborated with the enemy fighting the Boer republics, you have been on the side of the alliance fighting Afrikaner nationalism since 1948. This explains the bond between you and the ANC leader. You had a common cause.

“Apartheid didn’t fail, Mr Oppenheimer: it was betrayed by political leaders who did not have the courage to stand where Dr. Verwoerd was killed by a Communist, and they rationalised their cowardice by advocating ‘change’ and ‘reform’.

“Political developments in African states, such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somali, Ruanda, Angola are object lessons in the failure of suppressing tribal, racial and religious differences. Your view that ‘tribal separateness has been overwhelmed by a national feeling’ is plain wishful thinking. The system introduced in South Africa in 1994 has been tried and tested in many countries and has failed in every instance with dreadful results. Even now it can be safely predicted that there will not be a growing national feeling in South Africa but increasing racial and ethnic friction and tension.

“Perhaps it would have a sobering influence to read what was said by persons of whom one cannot but take note, such as for instance Prof Raymond Dart, famous scientist, Mr Bruce Eager, Mayor of Johannesburg in 1966, and playwright and novelist James Ambrose Brown.

“Prof Raymond Dart: ‘... this sudden, senseless and shattering loss of its most outstanding leader. By some strange alchemy, probably his personal understanding of human psychology and the clarity of his vision, he had succeeded in inspiring, like a Churchill, the people he governed whether they belonged to his party or not, with sufficient of his own moral strength and stability to visualise, with him, constructive manners of meeting courageously the unknown role European scientific civilisation will inevitably play in the future of the whole continent’.

“Mr Bruce Eager: this great man who has played such a tremendous part in the life of this country over many years and particularly during his years as Prime Minister of South Africa... South Africa, which I believe has been an example to the rest of the world in its conduct of its affairs and in its attitude, particularly in very difficult times where we have been the butt of so much critisism by the outside world’.

“Mr James Ambrose Brown: ‘It is not given to many to see beyond their own generation and whether one believes in all Dr. Verwoerd did, in all its nuances or not, one had to see him as a man who was looking at the future as few men of his time have been able to do... As an English-speaking South African who has tried to look beyond the immediate present and see what he saw for this subcontinent I can only say that his vision seemed a clear and unequivocal one, that he saw it with absolute conviction as the nation’s one hope for a peaceful solution of our particular subcontinental problem. The world may not agree with this, but the blood running in the gutters of other great nations who have not yet found a way of peaceful co­existence may be proof that this man Verwoerd was not the apostle of a futile separation, but a clear-headed and courageous man whose policies would ultimately have united all our racial elements’.

“Against these considered opinions of eminent men you say ‘apartheid was a piece of nonsense’. It amazes me that a man like you can be so petty- minded.

“South Africa became the most powerful state in Africa as a result of the wisdom of our forebears in upholding a policy of separation between White and Black.

“’The policy called apartheid and which presently causes so much animosity overseas’, wrote L E Neame, former editor of The Rand Daily Mail in White Man’s Africa, ‘is not a new evil manner of treating Blacks and Coloureds. Apartheid is simply the name for separation—and separation has been the basic principle of the policy of the Whites in the African sub­continent’.

“This policy has stood the test of time, and whatever may be contrived to prevent a return to its principles, the forces of nationalism will, as in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, arise and destroy the present structures erected to suppress racial and religious preferences.

“Dr. Verwoerd was 50 years ahead of his time. His policy of recognising the national identities of the various Black nations as well as of the White nation in their historical territories, is the only policy that will restore stability and peace in South Africa.”

J A MARAIS

LEADER OF THE HNP