Polemics: Shades of Apartheid

In his courageous defense of English-- speaking South Africans, Mr. Carlin makes two telling points: (1) that the British Government's policy toward South Africa is "opportunistic"which is exactly what Mr. Mander charges the English-speaking South Africans with being; and (2) that the mantle of respectability that support from the British gives to Afrikaner Nationalism is of immense value and presage. The visitor can meet anyone whom he wishes in the white world -with the exception of cabinet minsters, perhaps, who fear another "unfavorable" interview, and the hard-core opposition, whose position does not predispose them to give interviews and who are not on the receiving line of the Nationalists, the United Party, the South African Foundation, the Progressive Party, or the Liberals. [...]the black leadership that counts is, like the white hardcore opposition, either in jail, or living under house arrest or bans. Much has happened in the year since Mr. Mander wrote the article on which Mr. Carlin turns his guns-the Rivonia trial, the repeated sabotage attempts and the new wave of arrests (nearly a hundred people known to be held under the Ninety-Day Detention law, at the time of writing, and many more suspected to be held), the announcement of another "Rivonia" trial to begin shortly-and these events have brought the mass of white South Africans together on lines of demarcation that existed even when Mr. Mander paid his visit, and that he (and Mr. Carlin?) practically ignored in his categorical division into "Afrikaners" and "English."