M A


N “


T T


T


ichael neatly moved us on to the Apartheid era and asked the hypothetical question


“Why introduce it when it was there already?”


fter the war there were rumours that the United Party, who were in power, and whose


deputy Prime Minister was Jan Hofmeyer, a liber- al, was going gradually to improve the lot of the black population and integrate them into society but the Afrikaners did not want any change and went to the Old Testament verses to reinforce their interpretation of how the Africans should be treat- ed.


oah had cursed his son Ham saying that Ham’s descendants would be “a servant of


servants unto his brethren”. The Bible does not say that Ham was black but the Afrikaners inter- preted the curse to assume that the black Africans were Ham’s descendants.


Apartheid” means “separateness”. The gov- ernment said that they were implementing


“separate development”. although as Michael pointed out there was none of the latter as far as the black Africans were concerned.


here followed the brutal demolition of the in- ner city townships and the people were


moved to the country away from facilities and ser- vices.


he Pass Laws were strengthened and workers were not allowed to live in towns. They had


to have a pass to get into town and former servants were no longer allowed to live on the premises in the ‘out houses’.


he Group Areas Act came into being. This said that each tribe or race had to live in their


own area, and in theory the Africans had full rights in their Bantustans. In the Mixed Marriages Act any mixing of the ‘races’ was forbidden. There were many who spoke up for it, so very much like the Nazi Party! The Immorality Act stated it was Immoral for there to be sexual inter- course between whites and non-whites. The differ- ent groups were identified by colour and all had to live separately.


D


uring the period from 1954 to 1955 Michael witnessed people from Sophiatown being


loaded onto lorries for removal and on a daily ba-


sis he saw examples of the problems of the system and how badly people were treated.


M


ichael spoke of an incident in the Johannes- burg General Hospital when he was asked


to look at a “boy”. All black males between 15 and 80 were called ‘boy’ by most whites. Because of segregation he was not allowed to look at the man in the hospital for whites so he asked the employer why he did not use the ‘black’ hospital. The very indignant reply from the employer was “They are very rude over there. I called the man behind the desk “John” and he said “My name is not John. It is Horatio.” I called a white doctor, and told him what happened. He said that the man’s name was Horatio.


W W


M I


Sun City where people could play at racial integra- tion!


N (Editor’s words, approved by Natalie) 11


hen Michael was working in the whites- only fever hospital he was asked as a spe-


cial favour to admit a 3-year old Chinese boy, with the suggestion (not taken up) that the curtains be- tween the bed could be kept drawn. Japanese peo- ple on the other hand were treated as ‘honorary’ whites.


hen Michael left South Africa in 1955 and came to London he was surprised to see a


black man walking with a white girl. Having never seen such a sight in South Africa he finished his extremely interesting talk with the profound state- ment that it is difficult to know what other coun- tries are like until you experience them.


ichael demonstrated once again his passion for the subject of ‘race’ and it is easy to see


how he could have spent a great deal more time talking about it. However he was true to his word and he kept his talk to ‘Rotary’ time


n a very brief question time he was asked whether the war which going on in Europe and


Asia had any effect on his life and on South Afri- cans in general and his answer was “No”. There were people from South Africa who did go and join up with active forces but generally speaking life went on as normal.


atalie Kehr brought a smile to everyone’s face as she mentioned the development of


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49