Source 8c

Transcript

With No Wings

Less than half the Bantu population lives in the human equivalent of the game sanctuary, the Native Reserves; the working lives of the rest, about five million of them are inextricably interwoven with the lives of the three million Europeans, 1, 200,000 “Coloureds” and 400,000 Asiatics, who make up the population of South Africa today.

Perhaps everybody, including the Bantu, would be happier- as the propagandist of “Separate Development” maintain-if the Natives were withdrawn to enclaves of their own, to lead lives as colourful as they chose or could afford. One snag is that, in present conditions, a withdrawal would bring industry and agriculture to an abrupt halt.

Another snag is that relatively few Africans would withdraw to “Bantus Areas” unless they were driven there by force. A significant number have become urbanised-there are 700,000 in the Johannesburg area alone, besides the Native populations of Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London and other cities -and they are determined not to revert to the tribal society and “ethnic grouping” that Separate Development envisages.

“I don’t know who my chief is,” a young African in Johannesburg said to me, “and why should I care? The time for chiefs is past.”