SOUTH AFRICA Black headlines last week told South Africans of the troubles elsewhere. RACES IN U.S. ON COLLISION COURSE, announced the Natal Mercury, while the Johannesburg Star gave prominence tO THE TRIBAL WAR IN NIGERIA. In the bright and busy nation at Africa's southern tip, however, such difficulties seemed far away. Topless nighties were the talk of Cape Town. In Johannesburg, where last month's antique-car rally had drawn 69 entrants—from a 1907 Diatto-Clement to a 1938 Bugatti—the city was debating whether the miniskirt should be banned, and the ballet season began with performances by South African Stars Gary Burne and Phyllis Spira. In the Johannesburg dusk, golden with light reflected from the mine dumps surrounding the city, the streets were jammed with well-dressed crowds on their way to the bioscope , restaurants, cafs and espresso bars. Giant construction cranes hovered over the beginnings of three new skyscrapers, the tallest of which will have 51 floors. The Johannesburg stock exchange hit a new high, and the city was in the throes of a water shortage, limiting the hours that home owners could water their lawns. Chin in Palm. On the farms of the Transvaal, bearded Afrikaner patriarchs, who still rule their Bantu field hands with a Bible in one hand and a rawhide sjambok whip in the other, were talking mostly of wool and cattle prices—and of their trip to Pretoria last May to see the great military parade and Boer festival celebrating the fifth anniversary of South Africa's resignation from the Commonwealth. In Cape Town, Parliament droned on in the third week of its new session, as Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd sat, chin in palm, in his green leather seat on the government's front bench. To all outward appearances, South Africa was a nation without a serious problem in the world. Less than two months ago, it had won a surprising victory in the World Court's decision not to interfere with its mandate over South West Africa, and so delirious was the response that special thanksgiving services were held in churches throughout the land. Proclaimed President Charles Swart at the opening session of Parliament: “In contrast with most countries of the world, South Africa is blessed with racial peace.” Symbol of Oppression. Racial trouble is indeed becoming an everyday occurrence in the U.S. It is also a gnawing problem for Great Britain, now flooded with Negro and Indian immigrants. In the past decade, 28 new African nations have gone through the upheaval of change from white to black rule, and many are now beset by shattering tribal conflicts. But nowhere has the violence of one race against another reached the proportions of the apartheid of South Africa. It is not the bloody violence of hurled bricks and broken bones, but it is violence nonetheless—the moral violence of oppression imposed by a dominating minority. To most of the world, South Africa is the very symbol of racial conflict. The United Nations maintains a special committee to catalogue and denounce the injustices of apartheid, which is under almost constant attack in the General Assembly as well as in the capitals of the free world. Former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan flew to Cape Town in 1960 to urge South Africans to bend
