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Book reviews
a a a b c
Tom Lodge , R. L. Cope , J. D. Lewis‐Williams , J. Kiernan , Ellen Hellmann ,
a a d
Phyllis Lewsen , J. D. Lewis‐Williams & F. J. G. Antonie
a
University of the Witwatersrand , Johannesburg
b
University of Natal , Durban
c
Lower Houghton , Johannesburg
d
The University of Leicester ,
Published online: 19 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Tom Lodge , R. L. Cope , J. D. Lewis‐Williams , J. Kiernan , Ellen Hellmann , Phyllis Lewsen , J. D.
Lewis‐Williams & F. J. G. Antonie (1981) Book reviews, African Studies, 40:1, 43-49, DOI: 10.1080/00020188108707570

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 BOOK REVIEWS
The Rulers of Belgian Africa, 1884-1914. L. H. GANN AND P. DUIGNAN.
Princeton University Press, 1979. 265 pp.

The main focus of this study is the development of the colonial apparatus in the Belgian Congo,
with special emphasis on the Free State period of 1885 to 1908. The most detailed and sub-
stantial chapters are consequently those which deal with the evolution of both civil and military
institutions, the nature of their organization, the social origins and outlook of those who staffed
them and the assessment of their performance according to criteria of efficiency and competence
rather than latter-day moral hindsight. In these areas the book is informative and useful:
military indiscipline which was to become an important factor in decolonization politics is
shown to have been a well established colonial tradition; rigid class distinctions within the
colonial hierarchy help to account for the lack of avenues of social mobility for the indigenous
population comparable even to those limited opportunities that existed elsewhere for Africans.
Features of colonial society are traced to their origins in an advanced industrial metropolis
with an unusual degree of social inequality. Together with the biographical information on
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individual colonists such material is a useful source for any comparative work on different
national colonial styles.
If the authors had contented themselves with a survey of the social mores of Belgian
colonialism there would be little to object to in this slight volume. However they have attempted
a more all-embracing study and have included chapters on the colonial economic record with
the intention of drawing up an evaluative balance sheet. There is little in these sections of the
work that is new to any reader of Joseph Conrad and, in the absence of any sustained effort by
the authors to quantify alleged costs and benefits, their final conclusion that the colonial
experience was generally beneficial to Zaire is unconvincing. In any case, this study deals with
the period when Belgian influence within the Congo was, though brutal, comparatively super-
ficial. Without any serious consideration being given to the impact of the development of the
Katangan economy, it is difficult to see how Drs Gann and Duignan can arrive at any kind of
over-all evaluation of Belgium as a colonial power. Because of its pedestrian quality and
reluctance to grapple seriously with opposed Marxist approaches this is an inadequate study.
TOM LODGE
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Togo under Imperial Germany, 1884-1914. ARTHUR J. KNOLL.

Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, 1978. 224 pp.

This is the first full-length treatment of Togo under German rule to appear in English and
constitutes a useful addition to the limited range of studies on German colonialism accessible to
a non-German reader. The over-all intention is, to detect the specific characteristics of German
administration in Togoland in the light of practices in other German colonies, and more
ambitiously, to decide whether German colonialism in Togo could be "equated with development
which started the continent on the path of modernization". The author succeeds entirely in
the first aim but lacks both the empirical material and theoretical knowledge to draw any
significant conclusions in his second line of inquiry.
The book itself comprises seven chapters and a short conclusion. Knoll begins with a brief
account of the underlying motives of German imperialism in general and the colonization of
Togoland in particular, largely following the lines of Hans-Ulrich Wehler's characterization of
Bismarckian expansion as "social imperialism". He does not indicate precisely why Hanseatic
mercantile capital should have had sufficient influence to overcome the substantial political
opposition towards a not especially economically attractive imperial venture. Two chapters
follow which describe the extension of German influence initially through both the informal
means of trade and mission activity, and later the conclusion of treaties and 'pacification'. The
next three chapters form the kernel of the study. In the first, a brief treatment of the system of
administration is followed by a series of short biographies of Togo's governors. Chapter V out-
lines some of the functions of administration including its exertions in the field of law, punish-
 44 AFRICAN STUDIES, 40.1.81

ment, taxation, labour recruitment, health and ecology. Hampered by stringent budgetary
policies — Togo was essentially self-supporting — the administration's achievements were
generally negligible save in the fields of taxation and forced labour. On the more positive side
its main achievement was the prevention of large-scale land alienation. This, as the especially
interesting seventh chapter makes clear, was due mainly to the ascendency in influence of
mercantile capital (in alliance with missionary societies) over monopolistic firms which sought
to control both production and trade. The enduring influence of mercantile capital on German
colonial policy in Togo assured the development of a small-scale class of peasant producers and
the increasing alienation of aspirant Togolese entrepeneurs drawn from a pre-colonial Afro-
Brazilian planter class. s
Although the text carries frequent references to the responses and feelings of aspirant African
groups, scant attempt is made to treat them systematically. Indeed the social effects of German
rule and the nature of African society both within the colonial nucleus and outside it are more
or less neglected. This is perhaps excusable given the Eurocentric orientation both of the book
and the series of which it forms part. It is, indeed, unlikely that a more "dispassionate
reassessment" of the colonial experience (Foreword p. xi) will be convincingly achieved until
subsequent monographs on colonial territories are more all-embracing in their approach than
that here under review.
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TOM LODGE
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

A Pictorial History of the Great Trek. Visual Documents Illustrating the Great Trek.
C. F. J. MULLER.
Cape Town, Tafelberg, 1978. I l l pp. R33.00.

This has evidently not been an easy book to compile. Photography was invented in the 1840s,
but no photographs exist of any event associated with the Great Trek. The Voortrekkers them-
selves neither painted nor sketched. Thus. Professor Muller has had to rely for "visual docu-
ments" mainly on later photographs of Voortrekkers, their descendants and places associated
with the Great Trek; on sketches made by British officers and a few other travellers with whom
the trekkers came into contact; and subsequent paintings, friezes, etc., based on oral tradition or
secondary sources, many the product of the rise of Afrikaner nationalism.
Professor Muller is anxious that this volume should not be regarded simply as a coffee-table
book. It is, he says, "a carefully selected series of visual documents by which it is attempted
to reconstruct a critical period in South African history... The aim is to let the reader of this
book see the raw material with which the historian works..." Anything which survives from
the past, including pictures, may serve as raw material for historians, but written documents
are their principal source. Collections of documents concerning this period of South African
history already exist. This book, however, includes a number of facsimile copies of letters,
newspapers items and maps, which are thus also pressed into the category of "visual documents".
Professor Muller is the leading authority on the Great Trek, and his book contains much of
interest. One nevertheless cannot help feeling that it falls somewhat between two stools.
People looking for a picture-book (as a suitable Christmas present, for example) might find it
forbiddingly academic. On the other hand, it is doubtful that as a work of scholarship it lives
up to what is claimed for it. Some of the items included in it are not really the "raw material"
of historians: late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century paintings and friezes are very
definitely secondary and not primary sources. Even the drawings made by eyewitnesses often
tell us little of importance. Written documents do not become more informative by being repro-
duced in facsimile; indeed, reduction in size and the unavoidable fuzziness of photographic
reproduction have in some cases rendered them virtually illegible. From a strictly scholarly
perspective the most valuable aspects of the book are the non-"visual" — those written
documents which have been reprinted, and Professor Muller's own brief introductions and
commentaries.
R. L. COPE
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
 BOOK REVIEWS 45

Social and Ecological Systems. P. C. BURNHAM AND R. F. ELLEN (eds).

ASA Monograph 18. London, Academic Press, 1979.

Only in comparatively recent years has cultural ecology become a recognized approach, if not
discipline: earlier writers tended to accord the environment only a cursory glance before
explaining social structure in purely sociological terms. But with the bourgeoning interest of the
last ten years in the relationship between society and environment it was, perhaps, inevitable
that an ASA conference and subsequent volume would eventually be devoted to Social and
Ecological Systems.
One of the editors, Roy F. Ellen, traces concisely but usefully the emerging interest among
British anthropologists in environmental relations, before placing the diverse contributions in
context. Most writers have used ecological studies of specific societies as a basis for introducing
some theoretical discussion either briefly or more deeply; a minority, on the other hand, has
concentrated on some of the very important theoretical problems which beset the approach:
writers from both groups move away from naive mechanistic explanations which have often
discredited the study. In doing so, some challenge assumptions concerning the existence of
simple equilibrium systems in the pre-colonial period. Ingold, for instance, takes the view that
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in practice social systems have never been adaptive in any static sense and that their dynamics
are accumulative. Whatever may be the different reactions to such issues, all contributors
agree that the ecological approach is not an alternative to received theory, but a valuable
complement providing a range of procedures and organizing concepts which can no longer be
ignored.
The varied material and conceptual problems discussed in this book will be of interest to
anthropologists, archaeologists and human geographers whether they embrace or eschew the
ecological approach. j . D . LEWIS-WILLIAMS
University of the Witwaterstand, Johannesburg

Afro-Christian Religions. Iconography of Religions Section XXIV, 12.

G. C. OOSTHUIZEN.
Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1979. 40 pp. plus pi. 48 pp.

This book is about ritual symbolism in African 'Spirit' churches. From another perspective it is
all about photographs. From these two statements flow its essential weaknesses.
The bulk of the volume is devoted to the reproduction of 105 photographs of scenes of
religious activity culled from works on African Independent Churches all over Africa. These are
now referred to as Afro-Christian religions in a conscious attempt to get around objections to
the author's earlier depiction of them as being "post-Christian". Only fourteen of the photo-
graphs were taken by the author himself, so that what is said of the remainder lacks the
authenticity of direct observation and is devoid of first-hand knowledge of the context in which
the illustrated actions occurred. A preceding section provides a brief and rather facile descrip-
tion of the visible features of each photograph, much of which would be rendered unnecessary
were the photographs in colour. Since this section is entirely descriptive, the burden of
explanation is thrown completely upon the introductory essay.
Apart from instances of a leader's image being worn in the manner of an amulet, there is
little of iconography in the accepted sense to be found in these religions. What is discussed
instead is the whole range of ritual symbols which appear in the photographs, each being
accorded a separate entry, the major concern being to indicate what the functions of these
symbols are in Afro-Christian religions. Here, a whole medley of differing viewpoints emerging
from various studies is brought to bear on the topic. This essentially eclectic approach is far
from satisfactory as the author forbears to indicate where he agrees or disagrees. While it is
conceded that "the total significance of a symbol could only be detected within the ritual
context in which it appears", the implied methodology is rather ruled out by using photographs
as data. These represent moments of a process, frozen and lifted out of context. Any attempt
to understand the symbols displayed in them, "without supplying the context and source from
which they derive their meaning, runs the risk of being superficial.
University of Natal, Durban J. KIERNAN
 46 AFRICAN STUDIES; 40.1.81

'Coming Through': The Search for a New Cultural Identity. MIA BRANDEL-SYRIER.
Johannesburg, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1978. R9,95.

In an introductory 'Personal Note by the Author' Brandel-Syrier implicity warns any would-be
reviewer to step warily. "It is a fact, and I have been so warned by colleagues", she states,
"that any social anthropological research on Blacks will be judged in political terms. 'It's like
walking a minefield', one expert told me after reading the present MS. 'You will be skinned
alive by the critics or penalized by silence', another said. I had already had some experience of
this after the publication of my previous book, Reeflown Elite. I was also warned that I was
ruining an enviable academic reputation..." As this particular reviewer found herself unable
to accept the validity of this initial 'fact' so early in her reading, the whole further exercise
seemed somewhat questionable. The more so in the light of the concluding paragraph (p. 202)
of the final appendix on 'The Field Research', which states: "This country's reputation and the
world's opinion about race relations is such that any urban Black research except the most
superficial means raising a hornet's nest around one's ears... It then needs courage and
academic independence to describe one's findings and stand by one's conclusions whether these
are popular and in line with present trends of thought or not... Needless to add, it also needs
courageous publishers." Again I found myself in disagreement with these dogmatic assertions.
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The subject of this book is the study of cultural change, of adaptation to the requirements of
modernization in the urban situation, as exemplified in the behaviour, attitudes and values of
the sixty families who constitute the acknowledged upper class of an African township of some
100 000 people on the Witwatersrand. Of the township itself, the author states in her opening
paragraph (p. 3): "Reeftown is one of the large number of new Black towns, in South Africa
called townships (actually subsidized housing estates), which have been founded all over the
country adjacent to the larger White cities and industrial centres since the Nationalist Party
came to power and launched its national housing programme to provide decent and centralized
housing for its growing Black urban population." Whilst aware of the need for condensation,
there would possibly be general agreement that this description is more than somewhat mis-
leading in its implications.
Coming Through replicates some of the material and the findings given in Brandel-Syrier's
1971 publication, Reeflown Elite, which covers an incomparably wider field. New material in
the present study is largely based on a questionnaire (p. 203) which is of doubtful value by
reason of its incomprehensibility to respondents and, the way in which it was administered.
Brandel-Syrier does not minimize the difficulties encountered: "It simply was not possible to
represent the replies to our questions in tabular or statistical form. They were too formless and
elusive. The same respondent would give a different reply to the same question when asked by
the Black or the White investigator, or when asked again after some time had elapsed. Edu-
cational references were changing and changeable; occupational choices were usually tentative;
aspirations were far from stabilized and there were the strangest alternatives. The replies
lacked coherence and consistency; they were often self-contradictory and fanciful. In fact,
they were as incoherent and inconsistent as the world in which the spokesmen lived. Perhaps
it was exactly in this very fluidity and formlessness that lay the secret of our elite's successful
'coming through'" (pp. 164-65). In consequence, interpretation becomes all-important in the
presentation of such data as the replies to the questionnaire yielded, thereby increasing the
scope for subjectivity.
In sum, this study reaffirms a finding made in the earlier publication: that beyond a sim-
ilarity of social status deriving from education and/or occupation, together with a relatively
high standard of the family's house and furnishings, ownership of motor car/s and other
material possessions, diversity is the main characteristic of this Reeftowh dlite, ranging in age
from 24 to 75 years, both in respect of values and attitudes and of the circumstances which
lead to the attainment of a position of social pre-eminence. Reeflown Elite deals with the
income of the £lite and some further data on their economic circumstances. Coming Through gives
no such data and consequently the not infrequent references to the "wealth" of respondents
raises, in my opinion, justifiable questions. The analysis of the increasingly restricted role of the
Reeftown upper crust and their relegation to the position of purely social leaders, while a new
political leadership emerged from the ranks, appears to owe as much to general observation of
ongoing events, including those in Soweto, as to Reeftown itself.
 BOOK REVIEWS 47

Undoubtedly Brandel-Syrier achieved very close rapport with the Reeftown elite she associ-
ated with as participant observer and helpful friend for a long period. I consider her vivid and
discursive account of her subjects as "cultural commuters" between two cultures well sub-
stantiated, tellingly illustrated by direct quotations and punctuated by perceptive insights.
The book offers numerous challenging leads, many of them indeed arising from generalizations
put forward as findings. But whether it is a detached and objective assessment free from the
political bias Brandel-Syrier decries in others seems to me extremely doubtful.
ELLEN HELLMANN
Lower Houghton, Johannesburg

Africa Seminar: Collected Papers, Vol. 1.

Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, 1978.
Although presented not as "finished products of research" but as working seminar papers, this
excellent published series reveals the high standard of the Cape Town seminar both in the
quality of research and the clarity of presentation. Several papers explore new research fields
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and all are scholarly and lucid.

William Beinart's two papers, 'Peasant production, underdevelopment and stratification:
Pondoland c. 1880-1930', and 'The livestock levy in Transkei' are outstanding in his skill in
handling a diversity of forms of evidence and his clear argumentation. In the first paper he
shows that Dr Colin Bundy's well-known argument that Cape peasant agriculture was, firstly,
dominated by Christianized Africans and, secondly, already in decline, does not apply to
Pondoland. To talk of a "traditional economy", Beinart argues, is misleading, for trade was
conducted since the sixteenth century. Moreover it was the Pondo chiefdoms, in their current
organization and with a minimum of class stratification, which took advantage of the new
market opportunities, and stimulated the increased production and sale of agricultural goods
and cattle. The traders were the link: "the Mpondo did not export themselves"—i.e. resort to
migrant labour — "but sold all surplus produce to European traders in the area". This study is
an important addition to Bundy's pioneering study of peasant evolution and modifies his
well-known argument, which was in danger (through no fault of the author) of becoming a
stereotype.
Beinart's second paper is a balanced assessment of the motivation and probable results of
the proposal for a livestock levy in the Transkei. The original tax suggested in March 1977 was
RIO for each head of cattle, R5 for each horse or mule, R4 for each sheep or goat, and RIO for
each donkey, but this exorbitant levy was subsequently modified, and in 1978 stood at R2 on
cattle, Rl for horses and mules, 50 cents for sheep and goats and R5 for donkeys. Beinart
suggests that the motive was not primarily fiscal and budgetary, but to induce "a more com-
mercial attitude to stock" and hasten cattle culling. His counter-contention is that "stock has
been one of the most rational investments for the migrant labourer", who is too impoverished
to buy land, or to hire or even to use tractors in his mountain terrain. And though "the tax
would be beneficial if it would persuade people that one good quality cow was better than four
scrub beasts... purchase of a good milk cow is far beyond the means of most Transkeians"—
and the necessary fodder crops impossible to grow on the overcrowded land.
Robin Hallett's sparkling account of 'South African involvement in Angola, 1975-6' brilliantly
unravels the complicated narrative. It is "An exercise in contemporary history" derived from
Hansard, newspaper reports and inside evidence, and while admittedly tentative it makes
intelligible the various stages of that traumatic episode, the South African-Angolan campaign.
Before the overt physical intervention, South Africans were in touch with Portuguese emigre's
and Ovambo irrendentists, with the aim of setting up a "Groot Ovambo" to straddle the
frontier. There were parallel mysterious contacts with American CIA agents who were secretly
giving arms "to beef up the FNLA and Unita" (worth thirty million dollars). The South
African policy-makers were totally misled and were amazed at the apparent reversal of US
policy when Kissinger refused to see the South African envoy, Eschel Rhoodie. The "slow
escalation" of Cuban, intervention is also traced; and the division among Vorster's secret
advisers on the risks of deep-scale intervention, with the aim of seizing Luanda and setting up a
joint FNLA-UNITA government. Altogether a South African force of about 2 000, with a
 48 AFRICAN STUDIES, 40.1.81

strong Black complement and Portuguese advisers and fighters was used. The "vicious quarrels"
between South Africa's two sets of Angolan allies was one major handicap, and another was the
ambiguous position of UNITA's SWAPO supporters, who of course detested the South Africans.
The Soviets were cautious. As for the USA: "Distrust of the CIA and a passionate refusal to
become involved in another Vietnam-type situation had a profound influence on many Ameri-
cans", while "the damage which the link with SA" was having on relations with Black Africa
was almost as serious.
Tom Lodge, in his paper on 'Patrick Duncan and radical liberalism' has used extensive
documentary sources and oral testimony, and subtly conveys the ambiguity both of the Liberal
Party's changing responses and of the idiosyncratic views of his remarkable central character,
Patrick Duncan. (One hopes he will go on to a full-length biography.) The Liberal Party's
central dilemma was whether to remain an elitist intellectual group or a mass-membership
Black party. Duncan in the main opted for the latter, but he too was ambivalent, and his
relationship with the Communist-dominated Congress of Democrats and towards Luthuli and
the ANC was complex and uncertain. The central theme is Duncan's interaction with the
Pan-Africanist Congress and its leaders, Sobukwe and Kgosana. And Lodge's main conclusion
is that no continuity exists between earlier Cape liberalism and the movement and party in
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which Duncan played so positive a role. This could be contested: even liberalism responds to
changed situations and pressures.
Christopher Saunders's paper on 'Segregation in Cape Town: the creation of Ndabeni' is a
painstaking record of public and pseudo-philanthropic hypocrisy, in which the advertised
motives of public health are tied up with migrant labour and segregation. Saunders's research
work is, as always, meticulous and his interpretations securely based on evidence.
David Ticktin, writing on 'White labour's attitude, 1902-4, towards the importation of
indentured Chinese labourers by the Transvaal Chamber of Mines' adds a significant dimension
to a subject very thoroughly explored from the capitalist and the workers' angles, arid he is
especially interesting on the nature of the Chamber of Mines' propaganda.
Patrick Harries in 'Production, trade and labour migration from the Delegoa hinterland in
the second half of the 19th century' deals competently with elusive source material, especially
among the complex of Mozambican peoples, and shows the internal techniques and pressures
used to provide the mines with this invaluable labour prop. He argues that the main reason for
Mozambican migrancy was the decline in local trading opportunities in the proceeds of hunting,
and the effects of drought and smallpox on self-sufficient subsistence economies. He is skilful in
combining disparate disciplines, and like David Ticktin provides a new angle on a well-explored
corpus of research.
Professor N. G. Garson, in his paper on 'Smuts and Africa' clarifies the rather inchoate
picture presented in Volume II of Hancock's biography. The first influence on Smuts was the
Rhodes "paternalist and authoritarian strand" aimed at extending "a grand racial aristocracy"
as far as the equator. The Anglo-Boer War altered Smuts's preconceptions; but the change to
co-operation with English capitalists was rapid, and the third phase was the attempt to absorb
Swaziland and Bechuanaland into South Africa. Well before the First World War Smuts had
fixed his sights on South West Africa, and German East Africa was inevitably added during the
fighting. Smuts's main "expansionist thrust", however, was towards Rhodesia; and his next
phase included using his influence to encourage British White settlement in Kenya. On the eve
of Hitler's war Smuts believed that the Versailles colonial settlement needed revision — though
not in respect of Tanganyika and South West Africa. His final phase, during the war, comprises
a "new initiative" to obtain the protectorates... The abrupt awakening came at the end of the
war"— and Smuts himself "recognized the irony in the use of the Human Rights Charter, whose
preamble he had written against South Africa". He also apprehended at last the effect of
domestic policies, notably in his 1942 Institute of Race Relations address. Yet Smuts's only
solution to the dilemma of reconciling civilizing contact with separation was migratory labour.
It is this contradiction which raises one doubt: whether Professor Garson is not over-generous,
in his admirable overview, in the statement that "Smuts's overall knowledge of Africa under-
pinned an ability, rare in a politician, to present an authoritative personal review of African
problems in the round". For this doubt complements the final assessment of Smuts: "There
was no legacy in the form of a policy" to meet the African challenge.
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg PHYLLIS LEWSEN
 BOOK REVIEWS 49

Anthropological Literature: An Index to Periodical Articles and Essays.

Tozzer Library, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, Harvard University.
$28,00 p.a.
Anthropological Literature is a new quarterly index to papers published in more than 1 000
periodicals, festschrifts, symposia and collections of readings. The list of titles and sources is
divided into five parts: Cultural/Social; Archaeology; Biological/Physical; Linguistics; General/
Method/Theory. These sections are followed by indexes to authors, archaeological sites, ethnic
and linguistic groups and geographical locations. The absence of a topical index is unfortunate,
but further detailed indexing would doubtless delay publication; the publishers hope to have
each issue ready within three to six months. The author indexes will be cumulative annually
and other indexes quinquennially.
The first issue lists 2 387 papers in English, French, German, Spanish and Slavonic languages.
It should provide a useful means for keeping up to date with the voluminous anthropological
literature in journals and languages not readily accessible.
J. D. LEWIS-WILLIAMS
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
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Human Rights: The Cape Town Conference. C. F. FORSVTH AND J. E. SCHILLER (eds).
Johannesburg, Juta, 1979.
The proceedings of the first international conference on human rights in South Africa were
largely concerned with the legal aspects and consequences of apartheid. (A notable exception
was Lawrence Schlemmer's paper on 'Social foundations of human rights' which, following
Weber, attempts to consider the conditions necessary for the emergence of "democratic
responsiveness" of which human rights are a part.)
The legal background of the organizers and of the majority of the participants afford much
insight into human rights violations in South Africa — theirs, after all, is the unhappy task to
teach and to practise 'apartheid law'. However, one must question John Dugard's submission,
implicit in so many of the papers that "[the] apartheid order is in essence a legal order" (p. 273).
It would be foolish to deny the possibility that 'change' may be brought about by legislative
means; but certain conditions must first be met before this can occur. As Jack Greenberg
pointed out so forcefully in his paper 'South Africa and the American experience', the 1954
decision in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka "came at a time when vast social economic
and indeed international forces were making their influence felt on the United States, pressing
it to move it from a racist to a race-free regime" and, " . . . Brown would have been lost if it
had been argued in 1896" (p. 114). Legal relations, it can be argued, do not cause but rather
reflect socio-economic relations: apartheid can more accurately be described as a system of
political domination and economic exploitation, with the South African legal order reflecting
and legitimizing socio-economic relations.
Three main themes emerged from the conference, viz., human rights violations in South
Africa, the comparative treatment of human rights with reference to the U.N. covenants and
European and American experiences, (James Read's scholarly paper 'The protection of human
rights in municipal law' considers the legal protection of human rights in Africa) and, lastly, the
possibility of legal reform and the introduction of a Bill of Rights in South Africa.
Amongst the wide variety of papers presented many, like William Gould's 'The rights of the
wage earner', were relevant to the question of human rights in South Africa; others, not so
relevant... I doubt whether those Nationalist politicians who purport to take a public stand
against race discrimination are really influenced by the "controversy surrounding the genetic
composition [sic] of the Coloured people and, even more, the Afrikaans-speaking Whites"
(p. 56).
What does emerge from the conference papers, but not always from the panel discussions
which followed the presentation of the papers, is the belief that, while time is running out, there
may still be the chance to salvage something of South Africa's "anaemic liberal tradition". Be
that as it may, pp. 153-4 and p. 290 of the volume, where (censored) allegations of police torture
were made, bear silent but uncomforting witness to that tradition.
F. J. G. ANTONIE
The University of Leicester