Freedom Struggle in Southern Africa
An Interview with Franz J. T. Lee
in
“Young Socialist”, Oct./Nov. 1966, Vol. 10, No. 1
The following interview
was given to the Young Socialist by Mr. Franz J.T. Lee, the European Representative
of the African Peoples Democratic Union of Southern Africa, who is currently
touring the United States and Canada under the auspices of the Alexander
Defense Committee. While here, Mr. Lee will also address the United Nations
Special Committee on Apartheid.
The interview was given
on September 5, the day before the assassination of Prime Minister Verwoerd
of South Africa.
Mr. Lee, how did
you become involved in the liberation movement of South Africa?
As a rule, any African
in the Republic of South Africa who is of poor parentage, aspires to live
a decent life, to have human worth and dignity and is concerned about the
welfare of his or her black fellow human beings, must sooner or later come
into conflict with the South African racially discriminatory society.
From my birth, because
I have a white father and a black mother, I was flung into the midst of this
racial and economic conflict. My whole youth was simply a struggle for survival,
a struggle for education, a struggle for hope and freedom. With time, I came
to realize that as social beings my black brothers and sisters and I could
only free ourselves through social relations and united action.
I became involved in
the liberation movement in 1960 and joined the Unity Movement of South Africa.
What is the African
People’s Democratic Union of Southern Africa, generally known as APDUSA?
Under the banner of
the Unity Movement of South Africa, APDUSA was formed in 1961, after the
Sharpeville Massacre of black African workers who demonstrated peacefully
against the hated passbook laws and for higher wages, and after the Pondoland
Massacre of black peasants in the reserves who were struggling to achieve
land and liberty. APDUSA came into existence as a direct result of these
massacres, and at a time when a workers’ and peasants’ organization was an
immediate necessity.
What is APDUSA’s
program?
The name of the organization
itself contains its central theme: democracy. The constitution of APDUSA
states its chief aim: „To struggle for the liquidation of national oppression
of the oppressed people in Southern Africa, that is, the removal of all disabilities
and restrictions based on grounds of race and color and the acquisition by
the whole nation of those democratic rights, at present enjoyed by only a
small section of the population, namely, the white people.“
APDUSA inherits from
the Unity Movement of South Africa the policy of non-collaboration with the
oppressors and the political boycott as a weapon of struggle.
Many American students
have heard of the Group Areas Act, the Bantu Education Act and the attempts
of the Verwoerd government to re-institute a system of tribal law. Could
you tell us a little about these conditions in South Africa at the present
time and how they affect the work of APDUSA?
First, the Group Areas
Act. It was passed in 1950 and reserves certain areas of South Africa for
each of the racial groups. Great resettlements of the population were organized,
mainly at the cost of the blacks, and by 1961, 7,500 whites, 95,000 Africans
and 5,000 Asians had been resettled.
The Africans have no
residence permit in white South Africa, which comprises 86.3 percent of the
total land area. Furthermore, over the last decade, black masses have been
streaming into the industrial centers in search of work, and we now have
an urban working class of five million. The government plans to return these
masses to the reserves, which total 264 at present, and which are in fact
the labor concentration camps of South Africa.
Even in these reserves,
however, the Africans are not allowed to possess, buy or sell land. In short,
the whole black population of South Africa has been robbed of all land and
all political rights.
Thus it is clear why
APDUSA has adopted the slogan: Land and Liberty. This revolutionary spark
has set the „Bantustan-prairies“ on fire over the last half-decade and made
the rulers of South Africa tremble.
And the Bantu Education
Act?
The Bantu Education
Act, initiated by Dr. Verwoerd, the present Prime Minister of South Africa,
was passed in 1953. Its distilled essence can be found in an utterance by
Hitler in 1933: „If you want to control a people, you must get hold of their
education.“ The enslavement of the human mind in order to oppress a certain
section of the population has been a weapon used by ruling classes throughout
history.
Bantu education intends
to re-enslave and retribalize the Africans, cut them off from modern education
and detain them in an intellectual and spiritual ghetto. Only 0.0008 percent
of the black population attends a university, or rather one of the five special
tribal colleges. Among other subjects, they have to study Bantu law, Bantu
education, Bantu history and Bantu medical science.
Bantu law is, of course,
the laws passed by the black chiefs who are in fact the Tshombes and Uncle
Toms of the „Herrenvolk“ (master race) of South Africa. Dr. Verwoerd explains
Bantu education as follows: „. . . Until now, he (the native) has been subjected
to a school system which drew him away from his own community and misled
him by showing him the green pastures of European society in which he was
not allowed to graze. . . . If the native in South Africa today . . . is
being taught to expect that he will live his adult life under a policy of
equal rights, he is making a big mistake.“
Bantu history, quite
obviously, is the history of the past three centuries from the vantage point
of the ruling class. The students have to study about the so-called „Kaffir
Wars,“ („Kaffir,“ meaning „Heathen,“ has its origin in the Arabic-language),
and about the „ferocious, savage“ chiefs, Dingaan and Chaka or Cetewayo,
who were, in fact, military geniuses and great statesmen who fought the white
invaders.
Bantu medical science
is the study of the herbs and tribal rites of the witch-doctor.
Now, quite obviously,
Bantu education has nothing to do with modern education, nor even with education
per se. It is an outrage to human intelligence, human dignity and worth in
the twentieth century.
Would you give us
a picture of the present economic situation of South Africa?
Well, South Africa is
the most highly industrialized country in Africa, in fact, in the Southern
Hemisphere. At present, it is experiencing an economic boom. The main sectors
of the economy are mining, secondary industry and agriculture. The first
two are mainly under the control of British and American international financiers
who have invested over 95 percent of the capital. The Boer government controls
only the agricultural sector. The first two sectors are by far the most important.
All three industries
depend on cheap black labor. Thus the blacks carry the whole economy of South
Africa on their shoulders, and they are its Achilles’ heel. It is they who
will change the present oppressive socio-economic system and radically transform
the whole society in the future.
Of the more than, $
4,222 million of foreign capital invested in this unhappy country, some $
2,500 million is British, $ 800 million is West European and $ 464 million
is American. In 1964, U. S. monopoly capitalists earned, in South Africa,
a 27 percent ratio of net profit to net worth - the highest in the world.
The return on „raw“ investments was 13 percent, while the world average was
7.7 percent. Overseas investors have a stake in virtually every strategic
sector of the economy, and Britain, the U. S., France, West Germany, Canada,
Italy and Japan control nearly 75 percent of the export and import trade
of South Africa. So it is quite obvious that the above countries have a contradiction
between their stated political policies toward South Africa, which condemn
apartheid, and their economic policies, which strengthen the economic backbone
of apartheid.
What is the importance
for the liberation movement in South Africa of the struggle in Angola, the
establishment of Smith’s government in Rhodesia and the recent International
Court of Justice decision on South West Africa?
The Portuguese „overseas
provinces“ in Africa, the ex-British protectorates and Rhodesia all form
a front line of defense for South Africa, acting as buffer states, to protect
the vested foreign interests of the „free world,“ as I have just outlined
them. Thus, the liberation struggles in these areas are one and the same
as the struggle for liberation in Southern Africa. They are just different
fronts, reaching as far north as the Congo. In fact, it is the same struggle
throughout the colonial world.
Further, as I wrote
in my pamphlet, Anatomy of Apartheid in Southern Africa, „the declaration
of unilateral independence of Smith’s Rhodesian Front signals the impingement
of apartheid upon Rhodesia.“ An unholy alliance is being formed between Rhodesia
and the Republic of South Africa, and even Portugal; and a United Liberation
Front against the forces of fascism and ultra-colonialism in Southern Africa
as a whole becomes an immediate necessity for the oppressed peoples of this
area.
The decision of the
World Court fits in this same picture. Due to the laws which govern the capitalist
world, this court, which is its court, had to decide in its favor, against
the oppressed masses. Again, as I wrote in the same pamphlet, „The South
African revolution will be the work of the million-membered toiling masses
of South Africa and South West Africa, struggling for equality, justice,
human dignity, freedom and peace, in solidarity with the same struggle on
a global scale.“
As the founder of
the Alexander Defense Committee in West Germany, could you tell us briefly
what the ADC is, and how we can help?
It was formed to help
eleven opponents of apartheid in South Africa, headed by Dr. Neville Alexander,
a leader of the Unity Movement of South Africa and its affiliated organization,
APDUSA.
In July, 1963, he and
his ten friends were arrested, and later tried and found guilty in April,
1964, of „sabotage.“ The prosecution could not prove one act of sabotage
committed by them, only that they had read books that are banned in South
Africa and wanted to overthrow the police state of Verwoerd. (I might just
add that the books banned in South Africa include such works as Black Beauty,
Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, and Stendhal’s The Red and the Black.)
Of course, Dr. Alexander and his friends read books which any leader of the
struggle at this time is reading, including books on guerrilla warfare and
others.
The „Alexander Eleven“
were given prison sentences in Robben Island concentration camp, ranging
from five to ten years, and under South African law these could be extended
to life sentences. Robben Island is the South African equivalent of Belsen,
Dachau or Auschwitz. At present, it is minus the gas chambers, but the gasses,
soman, tabun, sarin, are already being produced on a large-scale in factories
on the Witwatersrand.
The ADC paid the expenses
for the trial and the two appeal cases, and continues to help the families
of the Eleven who are starving and in dire need, and pays for the studies
of the Eleven (as a special concession has been made for them to study, due
to the international interest in this case). The ADC also helps other victims
of oppression, and focuses world public attention on the oppressive situation
in South Africa.
Committees have been
set up in England, Erie, Japan, Scandinavia, the U. S., Canada and other
countries to continue this urgent work. At present, there are thirteen chapters
of the ADC throughout the United States, with a head office in New York.
Last year, the ADC organized a national lecture tour for Mr. I. B. Tabata,
the president of the Unity Movement of South Africa, and this year they have
organized a tour for me to lecture in Canada and the United States.
In Canada, as well as in
the United States, I have found a great
interest in and support for the liberation cause in my homeland. I was surprised
at the hunger for knowledge about South Africa, and international events
generally, especially among student circles.
Our determination to
fight for freedom and democracy for all South Africans is unconquerable,
but we urgently need your moral as well as material support. All contributions
can be sent to the Alexander Defense Committee, 873 Broadway, 2nd Floor South,
New York, New York 10003.