Left in the Lurch

Neither Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd nor any member of his Cabinet has ever set foot in the Negro-ruled new states of Africa, but this does not prevent South Africa's confident Prime Minister from speaking for the millions who populate them. "The mass of Africans do not want independence," he assured his Parliament last week. "They are just being used by a few small groups [of Africans] who are really considering their own interests." In the same building six weeks before, Britain's Harold Macmillan had warned of the "wind of change" sweeping the continent and of Britain's sympathies with nationalist aims. To Verwoerd, who edited a pro-Nazi newspaper during World War II and might have been expected to choose his historical comparisons more carefully, Macmillan's attitude smacked of Munich-like appeasement. "The West is abdicating in Africa and leaving the white man in the lurch," he complained. "It is robbing the black masses of training and all the advantages the white man brought to this dark continent. Africa will return to heathenism and the strengthening of Mohammedanism." If inexperienced African leaders of new countries flood the United Nations, Verwoerd added, the West will have to withdraw from the organization.

South Africa, said Verwoerd, will welcome whites who flee from lands that come under African rule, "because they . . . are the best immigrants," but his country would never surrender to the black tide. Apartheid was the only way Verwoerd saw, and he begged the opposition United Party to rally behind his policies in toto. He was to be disappointed in this, but could claim another victory of sorts last week. The South African government's Bantu Education department ruled that its officials no longer may shake hands with Africans they meet on official business. To get around any awkward encounters, they should employ "traditional" greetings to blacks--say, a hand raised in salute or, when squatting in tribal parley, the clapping of hands.

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