The Sickness of South Africa

AT THIS WRITING thirty South African men and women are again on trial for their lives because they dared publicly oppose the Nationalist Government’s harsh apartheid program of total segregation of the “Bantu” population (total except for daily work, for which Africans must travel miles into white areas). Sixty-one accused earlier still do not know whether the Government might re-indict them, having had two previous indictments quashed by the courts. Sixty-five others were dismissed over a year ago, after being held, without compensation, for a year and a half (since the first mass arrests in 1956) while thousands of documents were examined.

The releases, the indictments, the regroupings by the Government, have all seemed without rhyme or reason to those arrested; known Communists have been dismissed, respected leaders like Professor Z. K. Matthews were kept on. The Government now seems to be trying to prove that the present thirty were active advocates of “violent” overthrow of the state on the basis of statements to the effect that “freedom in our lifetime” shall be achieved. Over our dead bodies, the Government action implies; therefore violence must be intended.

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