Sartre on Apartheid
THOSE WHO ARE CONFRONTING APARTHEID SHOULD KNOW THEY ARE NOT ALONE
Statement at press conference of the French Liaison Committee against Apartheid on 9 November 1966 in Paris
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Today there is in Africa a cancer that could quickly spread all over. It is Apartheid, a policy systematically practised by the Government of South Africa.
Apartheid is both a practice and a theory. The practice is known euphemistically as “separate development”. In other words, it is the enforcement by a minority of three million people of European origin of a policy designed to keep in slavery (the term is not too strong) 14 million inhabitants of African or Asian origin or of mixed descent.
These 14 million inhabitants have no political rights. They cannot vote, hold meetings or belong to trade unions. They are obliged to carry on their person passbooks to justify their presence in various places, passbooks so demanding that they cannot comply with all the requirements and are always potential candidates for arrest. At the same time, they are the focus of a “separate development” or tribalism policy designed by the central Government to prevent the awakening of a national consciousness.