630
ANGUS WILSON
justify any claim to a separate White South Mrican culture.
Some of the best writers like Dan Jacobson have left the
country;
others like Nadine Gordiner remain to cope. For the artist
this
is a personal problem. But both these writers are Anglo-American
writers with South Mrican subjects to exploit.
For the supporters of Apartheid, in any case, this is not the
culture that is in question. Apartheid is a defense of the tradi–
tional Afrikaner way of living. There is much that is attractive
if
narrow in this ,plantation-type life, especially in the older,
more cultivated culture of Cape Province. Yet even here wealthy
refugees from the less easy living of Europe have imported
English suburbanism or Hollywood living. How long
will
the
Cape Dutch world resist this? And in other areas, the Orange
Free State and Transvaal, migration to the cities is rapidly
denudirig the farms -of all but Mrican managers. It is difficult
to speak of a literature in a language that one does not read; and
I object strongly to the illiberal contempt that is often shown
towards the cultures of small groups. Nevertheless, though there
are excellent Mrikaner writers like Uys Krige who are clearly
concerned to maintain their contact with the native language,
the greater part of Mrikaner literature-its chief cultural
boast
-is rural epic or lyric poetry which, having flourished
in
the
agrarian slump of the 'thirties, surely must disappear before
the urbanization of the Mrikaners. It is difficult, in fact, to
fmd
a sufficient white culture of any sort to give solid support for
a determined campaign of resistance to Mrican nationalism.
Does this mean that Apartheid will die away because it
has
insufficient spiritual motivation? I do not think so. Men
will
die
for very insufficient legends. They will also die in defense of
their material possessions, and more, importantly, at this present
stage of the South Mrican struggle, will exterminate others
ru!h.
lessly to preserve their own material well-being.
If
the Mrikaner
could trek into heroic, pioneering solitude elsewhere, he would
do so. As he cannot, the ·will to heroic suicide is very strong. I
only met one shrewd Afrikaner liberal who believed that
this
