Hold-Out Against Apartheid

Mrs. Suzman spent several weeks in Quincy House earlier this month as the guest of the University. This is the only interview she granted durher stay in the United States.

Mrs. Helen Suzman is the only member of the South African Parliament who has consistently opposed the government's apartheid policies. After 15 years in Parliament, she has amassed an impressive record of runins with the Afrikaners and remains the only visible liberal hold-out against one of the world's most reactionary regimes.

Visiting her daughter in Cambridge last week, Mrs. Suzman looked back on her lonely struggle against apartheid.

She first formulated her own conclusions about the government's apartheid policies when she lectured on economic development at Witwatersrand University. Making a study of the benefits of using non-white labor for professional jobs, Mrs. Suzman concluded that the recognition of South Africa as a multi-racial society was a necessity for the future development of the country's modern industry.

Mrs. Suzman entered Parliament in 1953 after winning an uncontested seat as a member of the United Party--the official opposition to the government's Nationalist Party. During the following six years, she became increasingly disenchanted with her party's "opposition" to the blossoming racist regime. After attempting reform from within, Mrs. Suzman and 12 of her colleagues broke from the UP in 1959 and formed the Progressive Party. The subsequent elections in '61 were a disaster for the Progressive Party: only Mrs. Suzman survived, and since then she has remained the sole voice against apartheid.

Mrs. Suzman attributes much of her own political success to the high income level of her constituents. In poorer areas, she explains, whites feel threatened by non-whites as potential competition for their jobs. Another factor which helps her is that by constantly challenging the government on crucial issues, she receives a great deal of publicity which helps her during elections.

The first to admit that in practical terms she can not initiate any legislation which would pass or stop apartheid bills, Mrs. Suzman is convinced that even if she is only a token, it is important to keep the voice of liberalism alive. Another function which she feels she performs is continuing to elicit information from the government, information which without her questioning, would never be aired.

Although Mrs. Suzman is probably not very popular among members of Parliament, the government is pleased that it can point to her and say that she proves Vorster's regime is not wholly repressive. However fallacious this logic may seem, Mrs. Suzman feels that the advantages of having an official mouthpiece in Parliament far outweigh any propaganda mileage that the government may be able to make out of her presence.

Not exactly optimistic about the immediate future for South Africa, Mrs. Suzman thinks that it will be a long time until any fundamental changes of the apartheid policies will take effect. Any pressure from outside the country, she continues would be abortive; a blockade would only draw the forces of reaction further into their ramparts. Furthermore, because of increased trade there is no doubt that they could survive economically, she argues.

Mrs. Suzman also discounts the posibility of violent overthrow from within. The security laws are so strict that they make the organization of an African uprising impossible. This discouraging analysis, however, does not mean that Mrs. Suzman forecasts no change for the future. Instead she predicts that while it may take a great deal of time, a certain amount of integration will be forced on the Afrikaners by economic necessity. When the Africans start moving into lower level professional jobs, it is her hope that there will be some political concessions as well.

But this is all a long way off. For the present, the Progressive Party is advocating a qualified franchise whereby all citizens who either (a) have reached a certain level of education (b) have attained a certain income level or own property, or (c) are married to someone who qualifies in either of these areas--would be classified as "A" voters and would elect about 80 per cent of the members of Parliament. The "B" grade voters would be everyone else who is literate and they would select only twenty per cent of the MP's. Mrs. Suzman says that this system is a practical compromise between the one-man-one-vote program which the Liberal Party advocates. The Liberal Party, more radical than the Progressive, has no representation in Parliament and has had several of its members arrested on subversive charges. The result of the one-man-one-vote policy would be too violent to be in the interests of South Africa, Mrs. Suzman contends.

Although this may sound reactionary to American ears, there is no doubt that the Liberal Party has come to occupy the position of the idealists, while the Progressive Party has a program which has a chance of gaining support as economic integration continues.

One of the most dangerous trends in South Africa is the tendancy among Afrikaners to believe that other parts of the world are beginning to "come around" and, if not hold their racist views, at least understand them. Every time there is a race riot in the U.S., they feel that there is a new group of white Americans who have been forced into seeing the logic of apartheid. Commenting on the Black Muslims in the U.S., Mrs. Suzman said that it is interesting to see the many elements they have in common with the Afrikaner; they both call for racial division and separate but equal development.

The bills which Mrs. Suzman has most adamently opposed are the pass laws or in fllux laws which require an African to carry travel papers in order to go as far as, for example, from Wellesley to Cambridge. The objectives of these laws are not only to make it difficult for Africans to move about and organize a resistance to apartheid, but also to turn them into a migratory labor force. The laws make it impossible for a Black to bring his family into the city area, even if he has come to work there. They also prohibit the Africans from forming any trade unions.

One of the results of the pass laws is that they have led to wide arrests of Blacks for comparatively trivial misdemeanors like being in the wrong part of town without a pass. They also allow the white police to stop any African at will and demand his papers. The jail population is somewhere near 75,000, and there were 123 people executed in South Africa last year.

Contrary to popular opinion abroad, Mrs. Suzman says the current Prime Minister, Johannes Balthazar Vorster is no improvement over the assassinated Hendrik Verwoerd. Although Vorster is apt to make superficial concessions, (such as integrating sports for the international games in order to get South Africa into the Olympics, and deigning to dine iwth African leaders in public) in general the machinery of apartheid had already been set up by Verwoerd and all Vorster is doing is implementing it.

Mrs. Suzman says that her basic function is to keep a toe-hold in Parliament, kep the channels of information open, and try to counter the reactionary trend in South Africa. The conflict in Vietnam has taken much of the world attention and odium away from the regime in South Africa, but Mrs. Suzman hopes to keep a minimum of pressure on the government until inflation forces the Afrikaners into economic integration.

She would not be viewed as a radical in this country, and some might even question her credentials as a liberal. But there is no doubt that she is the most courageous public figure in South Africa, and that her efforts are appreciated by all rational men