Ah But Your Land Is Beautiful

by Alan Paton

  The Congress of the People adopted a Freedom Charter, full of high-sounding clauses about freedom and equality, attacking apartheid and the doctrines of separate coexistence, and of course strongly anti-Government and anti-Afrikaner. The Charter has been thoroughly investigated, not only by our legal people, but by our greatest experts on Marxism and communism. One section of it, the one on the country’s wealth, is pure communism, and would make South Africa a kind of Soviet republic. Another section of it, the one on the law and restriction of liberty, advocates freedoms that don’t exist in any Soviet republic. Mines, banks, and industry are going to be nationalised in one section, but in another section people are going to be allowed to trade and work where they choose. The whole Charter was obviously written by white hands, and was designed to meet the demands of the communist left wings of all the congresses as well as the demands of what could be called the democratic right. In any event, the Congress of the People swallowed it whole.

  I can tell you in confidence that our experts, Dr. Andrew Munnik of the University of Cape Town, Dr. Willem van Amstel of the University of Pretoria, and Dr. Koot Wollheim of the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk, are unanimous in their belief that the Freedom Charter has a deeper and more sinister meaning than that which appears on the surface. These three men are probably three of the greatest experts in the world on communism, and indeed it makes one proud to be an Afrikaner. It seems to me as if it requires a true Afrikaner son to understand the deepest meanings of Marxism–Leninism–Communism, to strip away the façade of the liberation of the masses, and to expose the hidden menace to true freedom and true religion.

  The view of these three men — and don’t forget I am telling you this in confidence because their opinion may have momentous consequences and lead to momentous steps that must be prepared in absolute secrecy — is that the Freedom Charter is in fact a treasonable document. Their argument is that the changes proposed are so far-reaching that they would be realised only by revolution and that therefore those who took part in the Congress of the People are co-conspirators in a gigantic plan to overthrow the State.

  My Minister is giving their opinion the very deepest consideration, for if their views are accepted by the Government then all those who took part in the Congress have exposed themselves to the gravest penalties, even that of death, for the offence of high treason. The mechanics of the matter are not easy. One cannot arrest and charge three thousand people. It will require time and thorough investigation to determine what persons were actually behind the whole business, and what persons actually prepared the Charter, for it is ridiculous to suppose that such a document was composed on the spot from the alleged thousands of proposals received from branches of the different congresses in various parts of the country. I doubt for example whether Huddleston would be a candidate for arrest. He is a vain and silly man, with a liking for the limelight, but he has no conception of the evil forces that are using him.

  One notes that the Liberal Party, and particularly your Newcastle friend Mr. Robert Mansfield, had the sense to stay away from the Congress. I know you had a high opinion of him until he started to challenge the laws and customs of the country. It was a stupid thing to do in Newcastle. But it was even more stupid for him to resign his headmastership when he was likely to have been the next Director of Education. It is tragic to realise that he represented South Africa in cricket, and can wear the Springbok blazer.

  Talking of cricket and football — did you read that our enemies have launched a new organisation, ESAWS, which means Expel South Africa from World Sport? I don’t think it will do much damage to us, but one can never be sure. ESAWS was launched in London, and soon after that in Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Toronto and New York. So the whole thing was planned. It is a pity to see Britain and Canada mixed up in it, and it only confirms my view that the sooner we get out of the Commonwealth the better. ESAWS is largely run by exiles from South Africa, who have left to escape the ‘unjust laws’, but the Security Police are keeping a close eye on a certain Mr. John Parker of Johannesburg, who is said to be their South African agent. It is difficult to understand how a born South African can so turn against his own country, but the difficulty is lessened when one learns that he is a member of your friend Mr. Mansfield’s dangerous Liberal Party. Sorry if I appear to be a little acrimonious, but I get decidedly edgy when I smell the whiff of treason.

  I have heard some good news, Well, it is not really news, it is only a rumour. I have heard that Dr. Hendrik is trying to get my Minister to agree to the transfer of Dr. Fischer to his department. I sincerely hope he succeeds. Dr. Hendrik has told my Minister that Fischer is much more than a lawyer. He is a prophet and an apostle and should be used as such. I must confess to you that working under him is a burden to me. My only consolation is to observe signs — not big signs, but I know my Minister well — that he and Dr. Fischer are not as friendly as they used to be. This does not surprise me, for my Minister is a warm man. I am sending you a cutting that may interest you. It comes from the Ohrigstad Dagblad. Don’t forget to look out for the momentous steps at which I hinted. If they are taken it will be a deathblow to Moscow.

  OHRIGSTAD’S MOST FAMOUS SON

  Respected Editor

  I visited Pretoria last week and I thought your readers would like to know that I went to the Groot Gedenksaal to hear Ohrigstad’s most famous son, Dr. Jan Woltemade Fischer, B.A., B.Ed., LL.B., Ph.D. The occasion was the celebration of Oom Paul’s birthday, and the hall was full to overflowing. It was one of the most wonderful speeches that I have ever heard. I have listened to General Hertzog, Dr. Malan, Mr. Strijdom and Dr. Hendrik, probably the four greatest speakers in the history of Afrikanerdom, and Dr. Fischer will in due course join their ranks.

  There is nothing in Ohrigstad to show that Jan Woltemade Fischer is one of our sons. Why do we not name a street after him? I suggest that Jan Smuts Street should be renamed Jan Fischer Street. What do your readers think?

  Yours faithfully

  Barend Hertzog van Rensburg

  Mr. Robert Mansfield

  Natal Chairman

  The Liberal Party

  Have you thought of getting Chinks and Japs to join your party? I can see them from my window, these dago sailors from the East, with their white and black dollies. The dollies go down every night to the ships. The black ones take my breath away. Everyone knows what they are and where they are going and what they are going to do. You know too, eh, with your knowledge of the poker game?

  The black dollies are not supposed to get into the ships, but they do it all right. They go down to the crew’s quarters, they open up their . . . ugh, it’s disgusting, it makes me ashamed to be a woman.

  Why don’t you get these Chinks and these Japs and their white and black dollies to join your filthy International Club? Everyone knows what goes on at your club. Isn’t it wonderful to get all the men and women of the world together, so that they can paw one another in your private rooms, and spawn their mongrel babies all over the place, except they’re too clever, eh? The police found a Portugoose and a black dolly in your reading-room, they weren’t reading, ha! ha!, because the lights were off, and all their clothes too. One day God will strike you down, that’s for sure.

  I read in the paper about your meeting at Port Shepstone. So you’ve .got a teenage daughter, eh? Is she safe from you? If I were your wife I’d keep my eye on you, but I bet she’s too busy with black lover boys.

  Do you wonder sometimes who I am? I’ll bet you do, and I can read your filthy thoughts. Well, you’ll never know. My mother warned us against all men, especially those of the black nation. But don’t be disappointed, you’ll hear from me again. I’ll keep in touch.

  I sign myself like I did before

  Proud White Christian Woman

  Mr. Robert Mansfield

  Natal Regional Office

  The Liberal Party

  You will no doubt have observed that you have not so far been eliminated. Your obs
ervation is correct. We have decided that this would be too easy for you, and that you should pay materially for the treachery of yourself and your party. In fact you have already paid the first instalment.

  You must look after your new engine very carefully. A few locks here and there are not much protection. But of course we will not necessarily confine our attention to your car. You have a son and a daughter, have you not, not to mention a wife who no doubt values the good looks which she has at the moment? Are you going to lock them all up too?

  We sign ourselves

  The Preservation of White South Africa League

  . . . Yes, my dearest aunt, the Government has at last been able to change the Cape coloured franchise. I wrote to you, last year I think, to say that the Prime Minister was going to enlarge the Appellate Court so that the Government would be able to expect a more enlightened attitude towards its constitutional legislation. Well, he did this, but he still was unable to get a two-thirds majority of both Houses sitting together, which he required to alter the Cape franchise.

  He has now made sure of his two-thirds majority, by enlarging the Senate in such a way that it will be overwhelmingly pro-Government. The achievement is magnificent, and was the work of the finest legal brains in the Public Service.

  The Prime Minister was not able to increase his majority in the Lower House by any honourable method. The number of seats he holds is decided at every general election and, if he had called a general election, he might have gained more seats, but not enough to secure the two-thirds majority.

  Therefore it was decided to reform the Senate. Up till now the four provinces have each elected one-quarter of the elected senators, but now they each elect a number of senators proportionate to their number of members in Parliament. That in itself increases the number of pro-Government senators.

  The next step was to increase the Senate from forty-eight members to eighty-nine. That again increased the majority.

  The third step was the most brilliant of all. Up till now, if a province had twenty National Party M.P.s and ten United Party M.P.s, the National Party would get two-thirds of the senators and the United Party one-third. But now the candidates are put up individually and voted upon, and therefore in this case every National Party candidate would be elected by twenty votes to ten.

  This meant that there would be seventy-seven National Party senators for the Cape, Transvaal, and the Orange Free State, out of a total of eighty-nine. The Prime Minister thus secured his two-thirds majority, and Parliament, on 27 February 1956, by one hundred and seventy-four votes to sixty-eight removed the coloured voters to a separate roll and gave them four separate constituencies, which must return white members of Parliament to the Lower House.

  As the Prime Minister explained, there was no diminution of rights, quite the contrary, for, whereas coloured voters previously constituted a fraction of each constituency, now they have four constituencies of their own and are therefore directly represented in Parliament. They were previously used as pawns in the game between the two big parties, but now the Government has saved them from any further humiliation of this nature. White South Africa also derives benefit from the amendment, which goes part of the way to make reparation to the two defeated republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, who were forced to enter a Union in which their sacred principle of ‘no equality in Church or State’ was allowed to be flouted over a large part of the country.

  Of course the liberals and the leftists are howling. The biggest squealers are the women of the Black Sash. They wear a black sash over their white dresses to show that they are mourning the death of the constitution. They stand on street corners to protest against this and that, and hold vigils in churches and at monuments. Whenever a Minister opens a bridge or a roadway, or visits an institution, they parade near the site of the occasion. They do not speak, but carry signs and placards. It is interesting to note the reactions of the Ministers. The Prime Minister tries to take no notice of them, but you can see that he is trying. Minister Louw takes off his hat and bows to them. My own Minister, while trying to avoid them at Westville near Durban, took another route and got into deep mud and had to be rescued. Minister Hendrik does not like them at all; he thinks they are impertinent to picket a Minister of State on a public occasion, and his irritation shows plainly. I do not blame him. It is irritating to see these women standing in the amphitheatre of the Union Buildings. These majestic buildings have become almost sacred to me. I started my career there, and was there till I went to the Palace of Justice.

  In any case it is not in the Afrikaner tradition for women to demonstrate in public places. My dear mother — your dear sister — would never have done such a thing. She was a power in our home, but we always regarded my father as the head of the house. It pains me to see the wife of the leading surgeon in Pretoria standing holding a placard outside the Union Buildings. Even though she is English-speaking, I am ashamed to see her standing there, with apparently no conception of the way in which she and her friends are lowering the status of womanhood. The real beauty and dignity of womanhood has been captured for ever in the Vrouemonument at Bloemfontein, where Anton von Wouw immortalised in stone the story of the death of the twenty-eight thousand women and children in the concentration camps of the War of Freedom. Those British sins may be forgiven, but they must never be forgotten.

  Dr. Hendrik goes from strength to strength. He gives to me not only a feeling of pride that I am an Afrikaner but a feeling of total security for the future. He predicts that in twenty years, that is in 1976, the black tide to the cities will turn and will flow back with ever-increasing volume to the homelands, which will by that time have become increasingly attractive to black people, not only because the eroded lands will have been restored, but because white industrialists will have established more and more factories on the borders of these countries.

  This idea of border industry must be one of the most creative that has ever been thought of in the history of our country. Black workers will leave their homes in the early morning, cross the border to the factories, earn good wages, and return to their homes in the evening to rejoin their families. The whole idea has a kind of beauty about it because of its very simplicity. It must surely come from Dr. Hendrik, who is undoubtedly the greatest intelligence that South Africa has ever produced. Of course one can quibble and say that he was produced in Holland, but it was South Africa that nurtured him. Dr. Hendrik towers over the Cabinet, and I do not want to be disloyal to the Prime Minister, but my feelings of pride and security will be even further strengthened when Dr. Hendrik rules our country.

  I believe that under Dr. Hendrik we shall enter a new age. In fact I believe we have already entered it, an age in which all of our nations — and do not forget that we have at least ten of them — will have their own identity, cherish their own customs and culture, preserve their own languages, and enjoy the freedoms which white South Africa enjoys.

  In addition to the economic forces which Dr. Hendrik is setting in operation, I believe also that there is a powerful desire on the part of black people who have been drawn willy-nilly into our cities, to return to their homelands. We must not think that black people do not resent the eternal surveillance of the police, the humiliating pass laws, the crowded trains, the crime in the townships. They resent them bitterly and endure them because at the moment it is only in the cities that they can find work.

  I must admit that the coloured people pose a problem because they have no land of their own, but I am confident that Dr. Hendrik will solve that also. The Indian people also pose a problem for the same reason, but I do not see why they should not be given the north and south coasts of Natal. The white Natalians will squeal of course, but what have they done for South Africa except to grow a bit of sugar?

  The year 1976! I cannot wait for it, my dearest aunt, and I shall probably be alive to see it. For I believe that in that year the world will admit that we were right.

  I must confess to you
that this letter has been written in a mood of euphoria. This is not entirely because I have such trust in Dr. Hendrik. It is because my own Minister said to me yesterday, ‘Van Onselen, I want to tell you that you are my ideal of a public servant. I know that if I ask you to do something, and if I tell you how I want it done, it will be carried out in every detail. I can’t say that for everybody.’

  I could not help thinking, of course, that perhaps he found Dr. Fischer lacking.

  Black man, we are going to shut you off

  We are going to set you apart, now and forever.

  We mean nothing evil towards you

  You shall have your own place, your own institutions.

  Your tribal customs shall flourish unhindered

  You shall lie all day long in the sun if you wish it

  All the things that civilisation has stolen

  Shall be restored. You shall take wives

  Unhindered by our alien prohibitions