A

7

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J

Policy of peace and friendship vital

Can Israel
be secure?

By SOLLY KAYE

and Canadian
and for many others,

events in the Middle
been the cause of

g security.
ands more have emigrat-
n the earnest hope that
ablishment of a Jewish
1 state in Israe] would
the age-old problem

it is a fact that one and

f million Jews ar

in Israel, and that

land is now in the 1

a powderkeg.
Many Jews |

that by

nestly believed
on Egypt,
put a stop to fron-
strengthen

Isr ge wou

ts and

Today. they know

book of
I it armed
Jordan to. invade

ished state of

the book of
ers, ~ ey encour-
mmigration of
sums of

invested huge
money in Israel and wooed it
At the same
their: best to
Arabia’s_ king
bitter in his hatred
anyone) with arms

“for the

old imperialist sto
and conquer.

pendence of
yas promised to the
reward for helping

Ar abs as a
the Allies in the First World

estine wi
Zionists
reward for the

ac hz a ror
Ss in the same war.

NE

iends?
Added to the division be
tween the countries of the Mid-
there is rivalry be-
ests in, France and the
. 22 is “vital area. They
would love to sink their dif-
ferences in unity inst the
Soviet Union, but cannot turn
backs lest their “allies”
march on them.
friend of Israel knows
t without the help of the
Soviet Union the newly born
state would have had a far
tougher in the danger
years Indeed, it is

— home for

es

RE

0

Fates Se

This picture shows Chaim
Israel, addressing the constituent

questionable as to whether it
would have survived at all.

The Soviet Union made it
clear from the outset that it
believed the best solution to
the problem in Palestine was
for all the people there*to take
part in its government. And as
the overwhelming numbers
were Arab and Jew, there
should be set up a bi-national
state, in which both peoples
would have equal rights.

This was opposed by im-
perialists. It was opposed by
the Zionists. It was opposed
by the rulers of the Arab coun-
tries.

In the face of this the Soviet
Union agreed to a_ solution
that two states, one Jewish
and one Arab, be set up in the
territory of Palestine. This pro-
posal was adopted by the
United Nations Assembly by
a vote of 23-13, with 10 absten-
tions, with all the Arab states
voting against.

In 1948 British troops were
withdrawn from Palestine, The
new state of Israel was set up
and was attacked by the armies
of the Arab states backed at

Weizman, first president of
assembly at Jerusalem in 1948.

that time by Britain under a
Labor government.

In this war,‘certain territory
that was to have been the
Arab state in Palestine was
annexed by Jordan (with
troops paid and léd by Brit-
ain), while other territories
were annexed by Israel.

Since then, the Soviet Union
pursued a policy of trade and
friendship both with the Arab
states and with Israel — until
the Israeli attack in November:

1956.
*

The situation worsened when
imperialist pressure was used
to get bases in the Middle East.
When this was rejected by
Egypt, earning the hostility of
the imperialists, Israel’s gov-
ernment pursued a policy of
friendship and aid to imperial-
ism.

The Bagdad war pact was
welcomed by Israel, but op-
posed by Egypt.

By its geographical position
and its economic and political
policy of helping more back-
ward countries on the basis of

Concluded on Page 12

JOHANNESBURG:
Gold and poverty

By ALEX LA GUMA

FONG ago it was alj roll-

ing land which grim, stern,
bearded men guarded with
long guns and narrow-minded
bigotry. They guarded the land
from the people from whom
they had taken it. They lived
in isolation, one from the other,

-and their minds grew stunted

and warped and murky with
the disease of racial prejudice,
until mental anaemia saw only
white and the black was to be
feared as a little child fears
the dark.

Then one day a man walking

in the long fields came across
a stone. It was soft as lead
and dull yellow. This stone
could be smelted, refined, pro-
cessed and turned into the
shiny metal which crowns were
made of. And then the people
knew that wealth lay beneath
the brown earth.

And then men came with
spades and pans and tools to
tear up the land and wrench
the richness from its bowels.
They fought and cursed and
killed for wealth below the
green grass. They built shan-
ties and sunk shafts. They
poured in from all horizons.
They built a roaring,-roistering
town, and called it Johannes-
burg.

% ot tt

But greed is a disease that
gnaws at the vitals and eats at
the soul. It spreads like mould
and its remedy _is its satisfac-
tion.

Foreign men coveted the
richness of the Transvaal and
the stern, bearded men tock
their rifles down from the
walls and their long columns
rode out to fight the invaders.
They lost because they were
overpowered by sup rior num-
bers and their own bigotry
And thereafter the yellow gold
was owned by. strange men
who sat in clamoring offices
and watched long ribbons of
paper winding out of clicking
machines.

Far across the seas, the gold
became tiny numbers which in-
creased or diminished. The
owners of the gold did not
dig it from the ground, they
did not hear the sharp sound
of a piclg striking rock or hear
the clatter of pneumatic drills.
They did not feel the sweat
dripping from the brow or
the hurt of strained muscles,
the hard horniness of calloused
palms.

Chinese werei brought to dig
the gold, and when they could
not do it, the black men were
torn from families, wives, chil-
dren and the ripe land to dig
down into the darkness to find
the yellow metal.

They sweated and died and
created mountains where once
the land had been green and
virgin. And around the man-
made mountains the shanties
dropped away, and in. their
place grew a jungle of granite
and steel and chromium.

The mud paths became
boulevards and macadam

roads. The swaggering miners
of old were replaced by
new swarms of harassed, wor-
ried people, fenced in by stone
and concrete and all forms of
oppression,

Alongside the mines new in-
dustries grew up and the army
of workers grew up in num-
bers and absorbed the atmos-
phere of strength. And the
workers were dark-skinned in
the main, and the rulers of
them feared them, and made
laws to bind and pinion their
strength.

es 03 es

Today the mark of racialism,
oppression and brutality lies
like a hideous birthmark on the
face of Johannesburg. It is seen
in the slums and locations, the
bulldozed stretches of the Wes-
tern Areas, the jam-packed
jails and the police with pistols
and sten-guns,

It is seen in hunger and rags,
gangsterism and rioting. You
can tramp the miles of streets
and see no place to quench
your thirst or appease your
hunger. The bright signs re-
flect the rule of white suprem-
acy. Bar-B-Que. 20th Century
Fox. Giacomino. Palace Beer
Hall. Woodpecker Inn,

The Flying Squad hurtles
past, dodging the ~all-white
buses. At the railway stations
the cops stand by, to demand
passes. Black men walk in fear.

But every coin has its re-
verse. Beauty is found even in,
a swamp. And the beauty is in
the determination of the peo-
ple. Beauty is in the long lines
of bus-boycotters, the roar at
a meeting of a people who no
longer wish to be slaves.

There is beauty in the coffee
stalls where you can buy a cup
of steaming, hot brew and two
delicious fat-cakes for a six-
pence, and chat idly with the
friendly man behind the coun-
ter.

There is a richness greater
than gold in the penny-whistle
man walking easily along Prit-
chard Street, playing his lively
tunes,

There is a wealth untold in
the welcome given by a work-
ing family in Vrededrop, the
cups of tea and the factory-
made biscuits; the at-home in
the location where the can of
beer is passed from hand to
hand, mouth to mouth.

There is beauty, too, in the
welcoming smile of the she-
been queen, for the shebeen
has become a place of relaxa-
tion, the local pub where pleas-
antries are exchanged and the
chatter is quiet and meaning-
less.

, Beneath the stony facade of
the City of Gold there is a song
which singing cannot express.
There is a cheerfulness -that
laughter cannot satisfy. There
is a vision that freedom will
make as réal'as the sweat and
the agony and the gold hihaa
is its heart;

JUNE 14, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—”AGE 10