The Black Man's Place in South Africa Part 4

I have said that the Natives do not hanker after intimate social intimacy with the whites, but this does not mean that the civilised black man who has risen to the economic and educational level of the European remains indifferent whenever his claim to ordinary social recognition is denied or ignored. He would not, indeed, be human if he did not feel hurt whenever he is slighted and treated with contempt by people from whom he differs only in his physical appearance and colour.

In one of his essays, dealing with Native matters, Professor Jabavu, a Native, describes how "high" feeling arose among the Native teachers and boys in a certain training inst.i.tution in South Africa at which he had been invited to lecture because he was not allowed to see the inside of the European princ.i.p.al's house, despite the fact that he had ten years of English university life behind him.[26] Such feeling is only natural and must tend always to create ill-will, and, knowing how strong is the convention of the whites against social recognition of the educated Native, we must expect increased bitterness in the future, rather than growing good-will.

The thinking white man, who would fain be just to every one, is perplexed by two conflicting emotions. He feels that the clean-living, law-abiding, educated Native is a man not inferior to himself whom he therefore ought to recognise as a fellow-citizen, but whenever he sees this fellow-citizen aspiring or laying claim to the social recognition that involves contact with white women he is filled instantly with wrath which he cannot justify to himself and yet cannot suppress. It is easy to see that where instead of common courtesy and mutual recognition from one another of two sections of a community, constant irritation and ill-will result, there the existence of the whole is threatened with disaster. Under such conditions we must expect, not parallel progress, but strife and enmity; not peace, but a sword.

The Jews may be cited to show how a separate and peculiar people may be able to live together with other races without either clashing with or being a.s.similated by these but we must remember that the ethnic difference between the Jews and Europeans are too slight to sustain serious and lasting race-antipathy. Parallelism, when applied to the Native problem of South Africa, is clearly nothing more than the old, plan-less drift continued in the pious hope that human nature will sooner or later change into something better than what it is to-day. But human nature will not change. We must never leave pa.s.sion out of account. If we recognise love we must recognise hate also as a moving force of mankind. Neither must we overlook vanity and arrogance. The white man, being human, will not cease to be vain and ambitious, he will not cease to feel the hatred that comes from the fear of losing possession of his mates, and possession is the natural man's definition of love. Where there is a sense of possession there will also be jealousy and hate, and it will only be by securing the white man in his sense of racial integrity that peace and good-will can be made to last.

Territorial separation of the home-life of the two races is the only way by which parallel development can take place. Some of the Native leaders who have opposed this policy have done so in the belief that their people might eventually be able to prove and enforce their claim to full racial equality, but they have not realised that this claim will be denied always on physical grounds, and not on considerations of moral worth. These leaders mean well but they do not see well. Smarting under the pain of their treatment they do not perceive that the real issue is one of unalterable physical disparity.

The hardships and disabilities under which the educated Native suffers in the Northern Provinces of the Union and in Rhodesia are patent and serious. It is hard that a civilised man may not travel in his own country without a "certificate"; it is hard that he must do only rough or menial, but always ill-paid, work when he is capable of doing skilled and well-paid labour; it is hard that when he is allowed to do skilled labour he cannot claim the wages of a skilled labourer; it is hard to be denied always the privileges of a civilised existence for which he has proved himself fit and worthy; it is hard to be treated always as an inferior and an alien in the land of his fathers; all this is hard, but--'tis the law, written and unwritten, made and enforced by the dominant race, and there is no reason to think it will be made less hard as the pressure of black compet.i.tion increases.

But if good and ample land can be set aside in the various territories of s.p.a.cious South Africa in which the Natives can live and move without let or hindrance; in which they can do what work they like for themselves and for their own people; in which they can engage, according to their individual desires, in all kinds of trades and commerce without the prohibition of the white man's colour-bar; in which they can earn the wages that are governed by the laws of supply and demand only; in which they can build up after their own fashion courts of law and political councils for themselves; in which, _in fine_ they can live and work out their own salvation, unhurried and unworried by strange and impatient masters, then, surely, the Natives of South Africa will have gained a great gain, far greater than any they can ever hope to win by pitting their undeveloped strength against the organised resistance of the whites.

The policy of territorial separation, which is now part of the law of the Union of South Africa,[27] is the only policy that will make possible a home existence for the Natives in their own homeland, for we know that, however educated and however worthy the civilised Native may become, he cannot hope to find a home, or to feel at home, among the whites. Rightly or wrongly, the whites have banged, bolted and barred their doors against the blacks, and neither moral worth nor educational qualifications will serve to open them. But in their own areas the Natives will have their own homes and their own home-life, without which human existence is indeed miserable. Those among them who long for the privilege of private ownership will be able to acquire land in freehold in localities set aside therefor, while those who cling to the old ways will be allowed to continue as before under their old system of communal land tenure.

With freedom of movement and action under a minimum of European supervision and control the Natives will, in their own areas, have full opportunity and scope for the development of a home-civilisation of their own along lines similar to, if not identical with, those by which the Europeans follow their separate ways. It is a heroic plan, and it will demand great sacrifice from both peoples, but who can doubt that the end will be worth the effort? The Natives may in some places have to leave the land where their ancestors are buried, and the whites will, in many places, have to accept the price of expropriation for land and houses hallowed and made precious by effort and memories, but the great general gain at the end will undoubtedly be worth all that must be surrendered now. This policy is the only one that holds out hope of peace and happiness for both races. If the fears and objections that are being raised by a few Natives and by individual Europeans here and there are allowed to frustrate this, the only practical plan so far devised, the future generations of both white and black in South Africa will a.s.suredly curse the day their fathers wavered and failed to make the only just and fair provision that could be made.

To those, who for religious reasons feel doubtful about the righteousness of a plan that denies to the Natives the privilege of social equality which is implied in the ideal of the brotherhood of man, I would quote the words of Paul who, when speaking at Athens of the separation of the sons of Adam, said that G.o.d "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations,"[28] for, whether we take this statement to be the inspired utterance of a holy apostle, or simply the reasoned opinion of an acute observer, we must admit that the words convey the experience of the ages that races which are physically dissimilar tend naturally, and therefore, rightly, to dwell apart within their respective racial boundaries.

Some people have professed to be afraid that the territorial separation of the two races will tend to consolidate the Natives, and thereby foster animosity towards the whites which may eventually lead to open war, but this fear seems to have no ground in reason, because it is not proposed, nor, indeed, would it be physically possible, to segregate the Natives by themselves in one great area. On the contrary, it is proposed to dispose of the Natives, as far as possible, according to present geographical and tribal conditions, in several and separate territories, so that race-consolidation of a kind inimical to the whites will naturally be less likely to occur where the Natives live as separate tribes, speaking their different languages, than where, as in the Southern States of America, the Negroes have English as a common medium for the expression of a common race-interest.

Other people, again, are in doubt as to whether the Natives, as a whole, approve of this policy by which their future existence is to be shaped and determined. The answer is contained in the words of Sir William Beaumont, in his report of the findings of the Native Lands Commission, which gathered evidence from all concerned in 1916, where he says "The great ma.s.s of the Native population in all parts of the Union are looking to the Act (the Act providing for territorial separation) to relieve them in two particulars--the first is to give them more land for their stock, and the second is to secure to them fixity of tenure."[29]

Regarding the Natives of Rhodesia I am able to say that all the elderly Native men with whom I have spoken about this subject--and I have conversed with a large number--agree that the policy, as outlined in the Native Lands Act and the Native Affairs Act of 1920, as I have explained it to them, is good and sound.

It is true that certain prominent Natives of the educated cla.s.s have protested strongly against this policy, but it is not true that these men have spoken on behalf of the Natives as a whole; indeed, it is safe to say that the vast bulk of the Natives of South Africa have even now no clear knowledge of the legislation that has been made recently in the pursuance of this policy. The protests that have been made from the Native side, moreover, have been directed against the hardship caused through harshness in carrying out the Act in certain places, and against the relative smallness of the areas proposed for Native occupation, and not against the principle itself, and there can be no doubt that the statement quoted from the Report of the Native Lands Commission conveys the true feeling of the large majority of the Natives.

These are some of the objections that have been raised to the policy of territorial separation, but the gravest danger to the successful working of that policy remains to be mentioned. It is the possibility that the cupidity of the whites may lead them to remove their black neighbour's landmarks in the event of the discovery of new fields of gold or other valuable minerals within the Native areas. The danger of such a lapse from the righteousness that exalteth a nation can only be averted by the constant exercise of the public conscience of the whites themselves.

No reasonable person will expect that this policy will do away entirely with all the little troubles that arise from the clashing of opposite racial interests. In the white areas the Native, who can come there only as a labourer or visitor, not as a settler, will remain subordinate to the whites, but his unavoidable compet.i.tion in trade and industry may nevertheless lead to friction now and then, and the continuance of the present pin-p.r.i.c.k policy of enforcing humiliating pa.s.s-laws and similar racial restrictions will certainly lead to trouble. But if tolerance and honesty prevail in our councils we shall be able to adjust and settle the many questions that are bound to arise from time to time through the juxtaposition in the industrial field of the two immiscible elements.

But I must come to an end. I have tried to show that there is good reason for accepting the Bantu as the equals of Europeans in every respect save past achievement, but that because of unalterable physical disparity, and not because of any mental inequality, the whites and the blacks cannot live in peace and good-will together in one place, wherefore it follows, as a necessary conclusion, that territorial separation is the only way to lasting peace and happiness in South Africa. I say, therefore, that the black man's place in his own country must be a.s.signed not below, nor above, but apart from that of the white man, for that which nature has made separate man may not join together.

I have endeavoured also to show that there is good reason for believing the Bantu to be no less capable of adopting and adapting Western civilisation than other races which in the past have risen from rude barbarism to high culture, but here I admit that the full proof of my belief must be given by the Natives themselves.

The difficulties in the way are many and serious, but if we of the power-holding race remain true to the great principles of justice and fairness which have guided our forefathers in their upward path we shall not go astray. So long as we remember the lesson of history voiced in the saying of the Romans "As many slaves so many enemies" we shall refrain from the means of repression which have always reacted adversely on the repressors; we shall realise that we cannot set artificial barriers in the way of the civilised Native if he proves that he has the capacity for going higher and the will to try, and we shall learn to treat him, not as a slave, nor as a child, nor yet as a brother in the house, but as a man. The Natives can in fairness demand no more, the whites can in fairness yield no less.

_Printed by_ CAPE TIMES, LTD., _Cape Town_.--S6420.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Article on Anthropology in Nelson's Encyclopaedia. The "gnathic index" is said to show that Europeans and Bushmen are orthognathous.

[2] "Man and Woman" by Havelock Ellis.

[3] "The Mind of Primitive Man" by Franz Boas.

[4] "Children of the Slaves" by Stephen Graham.

[5] "Anthropological Notes on Bantu Natives from Portuguese East Africa"

by C.D. Maynard, F.R.C.S.E., Statistician and Clinician to the South African Inst.i.tute for Medical Research, and G.A. Turner, M.B., B.Ch., Aberdeen D.P.H., Medical Officer to the Wit.w.a.tersrand Native Labour a.s.sociation.

[6] "The Growth of the Brain" by H.H. Donaldson, Professor of Neurology in the University of Chicago.

[7] "The Mind of Primitive Man" by Franz Boas.

[8] "The Antiquity of Man" by Arthur Keith, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.S., F.R.S.

[9] "Ancient Hunters" by W.J. Sollas, D.De., LL.D., Professor of Geology and Palaeontology in the University of Oxford.

[10] "Anthropology" by R.R. Marett.

[11] "The Antiquity of Man" by Arthur Keith, M.D.

[12] "Initiative in Evolution" by Walter Kidd, M.D., F.R.S.E.

[13] "The Antiquity of Man" by Arthur Keith, M.D.

[14] "The Growth of the Brain" by H.H. Donaldson.

[15] "Social Environment and Moral Progress" by Alfred Russell Wallace, O.M., D.C.L., Oxon.

[16] "The Varieties of Human Speech" by Edward Sapier, in Smithsonian Inst.i.tute Report for 1912.

[17] "730 Sechuana Proverbs" by Solomon T. Plaatje.

[18] "Throwing the Bones" is the usual form of divination practised by the Natives in Rhodesia.

[19] "What is Civilisation." Article by Professor W.M. Flinders Petrie, in the _Contemporary Review_ for January, 1921.

[20] "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli.

[21] "Children of the Slaves" by Stephen Graham.

[22] _Der Christliche Pilger_ of 9th May, 1920, and _Volklinger Nachrichten_ of 14th June, 1920.

[23] "Children of the Slaves" by Stephen Graham.

[24] "The Mind of Primitive Man" by Franz Boas.

[25] "The Colour Problem" by Sir F.D. Lugard, in _Edinburgh Review_ for April, 1921.