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A:\TEXT\SUNCITY.TXT (Dec-85) 7-bit ASCII text/80 columns/200 lines
Reprinted, edited, and distributed for public reading by the anti-apartheid
people at VANC0 (Sunnyvale, Ca.) Re-edited for telecom by Karen A./Dec-85
"Apartheid? I thought they broke up..."-- Ron S. van Zuylen (16-Nov-85/20:15)
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SOME FACTS ABOUT APARTHEID
EDUCATION
Education is free and compulsory for white children. For black children, it
is not compulsory and there is a special education tax. All public education is
racially segregated with racially differentiated curricula. Per Capita
Expenditure (1983): Whites - $692; Africans - $96
HEALTH
Health services are extensive and advanced for whites. (The first heart
transplant was performed in South Africa.) The infant mortality rate for whites
is 13 per 1,000 live births; for rural Africans it is 240 per 1,000. Between 30
and 50 percent of African children die before the age of five.
EMPLOYMENT
Average monthly industrial wages: Whites - $701; Africans - $186
ECONOMY
South Africa is the world's leading producer of gold and gem diamonds. It is
a major producer of strategic minerals and ores like uranium.
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In August, 1985, President Ronald Reagan compared the South African system of
apartheid with earlier "racial segregation" policies in the United States. He
suggested that apartheid, like legislated segregation in our country, had been
"eliminated."
A short while later, the President publicly apologized for his misleading and
inaccurate remarks. When even the President of the United States finds it
difficult to comprehend the reality of South Africa, how can the rest of us hope
to understand it?
The story of apartheid in South Africa is the story of a white minority that
runs a government opposed to the legitimate needs of a majority of black people.
Blacks, who out-number the whites almost five to one are asking for justice and
the end of that country's racially organized political and economic system.
They are demanding the abolition of apartheid, not its reform.
The strategy of apartheid is to divide and conquer - to keep Africans divided
along tribal lines and then to seperate them from other, more privileged racial
groups. 23 million Africans make up 74% of the population; 2.6 million people
of mixed-descent, called "coloureds," make up 8.5%, nearly a million people of
Asian descent, primarily Indians, make up 2.5%, and the 4.7 million whites make
up 14.5%. Not all South African whites support apartheid.
317 LAWS
Africans are forbidden to vote, buy or sell land in most areas, or choose
where to live and work. They are deprived by law of any control over their
lives. There are 317 laws to enforce the subjugation of Africans. These laws
permit the jailing of the government's opponents and allow the police to operate
with impunity. But when you look at only the racial aspects of South African
apartheid - as shocking as they are - you only get part of the story.
The reason? Apartheid is not only a system of racial domination - it's also a
system of economic exploitation. Apartheid is no more - or less - than a system
of modern slavery. Blacks are used as cheap labor to dig out the gold,
diamonds, and strategic minerals that have made white South Africans rich. This
low-cost, dependable, and controlled labor system has also made South Africa a
very attractive investment to foreign corporations and banks. United States
corporations, banks and individuals alone have more than fifteen billion dollars
invested in South African apartheid.
HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS
All Africans have been forced to register with the government and to carry
photo passbooks filled with an individual's work history and tax status. The
government decides where they can live and work. 87 percent of the land is for
whites only. The remaining 13 percent - the most barren and least usable land
in the country, is allocated for African people. Many live in township - huge,
impoverished ghettoes surrounded by military patrols like Soweto outside
Johannesburg - and are allowed to commute to work in the cities but not to live
there.
If you are black in South Africa, and you are caught somewhere you are not
authorized to be, or if your pass is not in order, you are jailed. Such actions
by the police are commonplace. In fact, every `two-and-a- half minutes`, a
black South African is arrested for a crime that, by definition, a white South
African can never commit. Even if the pass system is modified, apartheid
controls are unlikely to lapse.
In response to world-wide pressure, the South African government recently
indicated an intent to relax certain restrictions imposed by apartheid. Black
leaders have denounced these "reforms," saying "they polish our chains but won't
remove them." For example, talk of giving people "citizenship" without giving
them power over their lives is meaningless.
Millions of South African blacks have been forced to live in ten isolated
"homelands" or `bantustans`. The South African government wants to regard these
"homelands" as independent countries, and has already declared four of them to
be so. But no other nation on earth recognizes their legitmacy.
Many of the Africans now living in these homelands have been moved there
forcibly from the land they have lived on for generations. Eighty percent of
the families in the bantustans live at or under starvation levels. One of every
four children dies at birth.
Each year, millions of male Africans leave the bantustans to work on contract
as low-paid migrant workers in the mines and industry. The women and children,
who are not allowed to go along, barely survive. The old, ill and infirm do not
survive at all. Families are seperated year after year by this system; they are
together at most for short visits at the end of each contract.
SUN CITY
One such artificial country created by the South African government is called
Bophuthatswane. Its showplace is Sun City, an internationally famous, Las
Vegas-like casino resort complex. Sun City caters to white South Africans and a
few wealthy blacks who travel from urban centers to indulge in gambling and
other forms of recreation such as concerts.
Audiences are not officially segregated in Sun City, but few blacks can afford
the high cost of the tickets. To maintain the appearance of integration, hotel
owners have admitted giving blacks free tickets. Foreign performers and
athletes reap rich rewards for appearances at the luxury complex. Many of these
stars argue that they are not playing in the land of apartheid but to mixed
audiences in a separate nation.
The United Nations has called for a cultural and sports boycott of all South
Africa including Sun City; that boycott is monitored by the Special Committee
Against Apartheid. Those who detest apartheid and have chosen to honor the U.N.
call know that Sun City was built to get around the boycott, as a way to win
back international favor and break South Africa's isolation. The $90 million
resort is an oasis for the rich and privileged in the middle of the vast rural
slum of surrounding Bopthuthatswana.
Sun City is a symbol of apartheid. It tries to camouflage the reality of
South Africa and does more damage than good to the people of South Africa. Sun
City is controlled by political and economic interests that are part and parcel
of apartheid.
Not all performers have succumbed to the large sums they are offered to
perform at Sun City. A growing list of sarts have refused lucrative contracts,
including Stevie Wonder, Toney Bennett, Ben Vereen, Gladys Knight and the Pips,
Roberta Flack, the Kool (Newport) Jazz Festival, and the Harlem Globetrotters.
Tennis player John McEnroe has twice refused million- dollar offers to play
there. As protests mount against those who do go to Sun City, the ranks of
those who choose conscience over dollars will also grow.
--September 25, 1985
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WHAT YOU CAN DO:
* You can inform yourself and your friends about South Africa.
* You can urge your elected representative to take a strong stand against
apartheid.
* You can donate money to help meet the needs of those struggling in South
Africa, those forced into exile, and those organizing against apartheid.
* You can send a tax-deducatible contribution to The Africa Fund, whose
address is available at the end of this text.
* With your donation, ask for a list of publications and a roster of the many
organizations fighting against apartheid that need your help.
* You can buy the album, single, or video of Artists United Against
Apartheid's SUN CITY, whose royalties will be donated to The Africa Fund.
* One more thing: If you're asked, don't play Sun City, no matter how much
you want that money.
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The Africa Fund is a charitable trust established by the American Committee on
Africa in 1966 to aid Africans struggling for freedom and independence. The
fund is a registered nongovernment organization with the United Nations. The
income will benefit political prisoners and their families in South Africa, the
educational and cultural needs of South African exiles, and educational work of
anti-apartheid groups in the U.S.
Contributions to further these projects may be sent to:
- THE AFRICA FUND
- 198 Broadway
- New York, N.Y. 10038
- (212) 962-1210
(This text is to be distributed as much as possible. The truth about
Sun City and South Africa needs to be told. In other words, upload (wow,
computer talk!) it everywhere. Thanks for reading.)-- K.A. (Dec-85)