order. The response
included
skillfully formulated
ideological
compo-
nents. As decolonization
swept through tropical Africa, Verwoerd present-
ed his Homelands
policy as an analogous
process.
In 1961, he told a
London audience:
Wedo not only seek and fight for a solution which will mean our survival as a
white race, but we seek a solution which will ensure survival and full develop-
ment-political
and economic-to
each of the other racial groups ....
We
want each of our population groups to control and to govern themselves, as is
the case with other Nations ....
In the transition stage the guardian must
teach and guide his ward. That is our policy of separate development. South
Africa will proceed in all honesty and fairness to secure peace, prosperity and
justice for all, by means of political independence coupled with economic
interdependence.F '
Above all, South African foreign propaganda
was well tuned to the cold
war fears and prejudices of Europeans and Americans. It portrayed South
Africa as a stable, civilized, and indispensable
member of the "free world"
in its unremitting
struggle against international
communism.
Moscow's
aim was world domination.
The imperial
powers were leaving tropical
Africa open to communist
infiltration.
The ANC was a communist
organi-