John Braine
MR. DOUGLAS BROWN seems not to have listened very attentively to what I said at the Catholic Institute of International Relations meeting on the sale of arms to South Africa. Nor does he seem to have any understanding of the moral issues involved.
I was concerned chiefly with stating the Government's case. This can't be done without reference to British defence policy. And defence in this context means defence against world Communism. The moral issue should be perfectly clear to anyone who takes the trouble to look up Marx's theories of dialectical materialism, the class war, and economic determinism.
did of course point out that the Governments of the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zanzibar and Nigeria are not only equally as racialist and tyrannical as South Africa's but even more so. This again is a moral issue. If the Hierarchy gives a lead on South Africa then it must also give a lead on all these other African countries.
Contrary to what Mr. Brown said, 1 specifically referred to the fact of apartheid becoming economically unworkable — the job restriction laws, for instance, increasingly are being disregarded. I don't know whether this is a sign that South Africa will eventually evolve into a genuinely multiracial community.
I do know that what the South African Communist Party is working for is a revolution in which the black proletariat will exterminate the white bourgeoisie. There won't obviously be any nonsense about sparing the children, either. I don't think that the revolution would succeed. How easy it would be to repress I shall not insult the intelligence of your readers by explaining.
But whether successful or not, such a revolution could only lead to the black people of South Africa being worse off—and that's an understatement of some magnitude — than before. And the chief sufferers would be the men of goodwill on both sides, labelled as pro-apartheid if black, and pro-Communist if white.
I shouldn't have to add that the majority of black South Africans don't want a revolution, but it's a fact which should be brought out. T would ask your readers to think about it rather than agree with me about it and to remember that if there is a revolution in South Africa, it won't be them who are killed.
At the CIIR meeting I cornmended the only wise and Christian statement made by the Archbishop of Canterbury on South Africa, which was— I quote from memory—that the white South Africans were no more wicked than the whites in this country. I asked the audience to put themselves in the shoes of the white South Africans.
I doubt if they did; most of them seemed intent only on expressing their opposition to apartheid, despite the fact that both Mr. Wall and I never have for one moment defended it. Again, I would ask your readers to think about it for themselves. Perhaps I ask too much.
I end with a statement about which there can be no argument; any organisation which has been infiltrated by the Communists will serve only the interests of the Communist Party. No Christian may be a member of such an organisation, any more than he may be a member of the Cornmunist Party. John Braine Woking, Surrey.
rrtHE Church has far less I. reason to condemn South Africa's regime than it has to condemn Britain's, and I can imagine the furore it would cause if the American bishops were to start a "No Arms for Britain" campaign! It must be pointed out that abortion is not legal in South Africa, there is no widespread pornography, and the family, marriage, and religion are not under constant attack.
Since the Church is doing nothing about the relentless war against Christianity in Britain, it would be monstrous if it were to attack one of the last bastions of civilisation. South Africa.
Anthony Grealish Middlesex.