THE WHITES IN SOUTH AFRICA
627
most cynical supporter of Apartheid needs this proof that the
doctrine he follows has a "real" meaning; and that Apartheid
in
some degree like all counter-revolutionary movements must
be
excessive for only so can it be assured that it is fighting with
its
back to the wall. The last trek for the Afrikaners is over;
there is nowhere for them to go, since the rest of Africa is steadily
becoming African dominated (or in popular White South Afri–
can speech is "nothing" or "nowhere"). Compromise perhaps
is
still possible with African leaders like Chief Luthuli; it cer–
tainly was so until quite recently; but
this
possibility the Afri–
kaner mind cannot conceive if it is to remain insane. The shape
of their myth demands the march onwards to Valhalla, to the
bunker in Berlin, taking with them the alarmed but feeble
. English. To justify
this
suicidal march it is necessary to push
everything to extremes. And so Indians, Cape Coloureds, Malays,
all
must be put through the cruel machine as part of the tragic
drama-the drama of the little handful of brave Afrikaner
whites who are fighting all the corrupting forces of the world's
~called
progress. Of course, even here, there is some measure
of expediency, witness the playing down of that anti-Semitism
which was so strong a feature of Afrikaner nationalism when
Hitler still might have redeemed them from British bondage.
What is it all for, this prolonged suicidal fight, which, at
any
rate, until a year or two ago, could have been avoided by
compromise with moderate African leaders anxious for white
, fmancial and technical aid? In some degree, I think, one has to
answer that paranoia has bred its own world hostility and this
in
turn has united all South African Whites save a handful of
the more intelligent in a paranoid rally. Then, for non-political
men with much' to lose, an extremist policy which assures them
that,
if
they stand firm and make no compromise, they need
.
~
nothing, has a desperate attraction. For a community that
has
given itself to acquiring,
it
is difficult to believe in the social
or political necessity of dispensing with any part of its acquisi–
lions.
The least convinced supporters of Apartheid- the busi-
