affairs school." The author is Wendy Butlin. ]
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A three-day school on African affairs sponsored by The Week, the socialist news digest, took place over Whitsun at Africa Unity House in London. One of the main subjects under discussion was the struggle for democracy in South Africa -- the way ahead for the Africans fighting for liberation in that country and the role of their supporters in other countries, specifically the role of the British Labour movement. Speakers also talked of the theory and practice of neo-colonialism and the prospect for socialism in Africa as a whole,
The most striking thing about the achool was that the whole discussion about South Africa took place within the framework of
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the assumption that the only possible outcome there is armed revolution. All the official speakers and almost everyone who made a contribution from the floor assumed this. Mr. Mathew Nkoana of the Pan Africanist Congress said:
"we accept boycotts and discussion of sanctions as a symbol of solidarity, but we are not pleased when a boycott campaign is made the main international platform. We want material support for an armed revolution in South Africa."
Mr. Charles van Gelderen, an ex-Labour councillor for Hammersmith, who spoke on the role of the British Labour movement, said that the Labour Party must see itself as part of the colonial revo~ lution, which is the most important thing happening in the world at the present time, It must be ready to supply arms to the revolutionaries in South Africa,
There was strong criticism of the Anti-Apartheid Movement from several speakers. Some said that it did useful work but did not go far enough. But others said that it in fact does more harm than good by claiming there can be a peaceful solution in South Africa and deflecting attention from the need to build up support for armed revolution.
Several speakers interpreted the South African situation basically as an economic problem, not a racial one; they said that the racial question was invented to cover the truth of the situation which is that once the early settlers had turned the indigenous people into an economic asset by using them as a cheap labour force they needed to keep them in subjugation.
Among the speakers, in addition to the above-named, were Raymond Kunene, European representative of the African National Congress; Cardiff Marney, chairman of the South African Coloured Peoples! Congress; Ernest Mandel, of La Gauche, Belgium's left-wing weekly; Ken Jordaan, an exiled South African; and Kojo Amoo-Gottfried, last. year's president of the Council of African Organisations.
South Africa presents an acute problem for everyone concerned with liberty and social justice. The feeling uppermost in my mind after attending this symposium was that those among us who hope to help the coloured peoples of South Africa to attain liberty and justice without recourse to violence and bloodshed need to think very hard and move very fast.
ARMS STOLEN IN SOUTH AFRICA
The June Anti-Apartheid News reports that 13,236 firearms have been