Apartheid Television

SOUTH AFRICA Apartheid Television

Ach, man, can't you see what'II happen? It's afternoon. The kaffir's in the living room on his hands and knees sweeping the carpet. Someone's left the television on. He looks up at the screen. He sees a chorus line of white girls with scanty costumes. What does he do? Of course, he runs upstairs and rapes the madam.

So go the oft-expressed racial fears of the stern Calvinist Afrikaner society, which for years has successfully resisted the introduction of "the little bioscope," as TV is called in South Africa. Their chief anti-TV spokesman, Former Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Dr. Albert Hertzog, has even claimed that TV is "a deadly weapon" that has been used to "undermine the morale of the white man and even to destroy great empires." But when the walk on the moon by Astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin was witnessed by most of the world on television in 1969, South Africa's populace began demanding a look at TV sets of their own. Last week Premier John Vorster's government finally approved, in principle, a new plan that will bring TV to South Africa in about four years.

According to the government proposal, South African television will be under the strict control of the Ministry of National Education. There will be separate channels for South Africa's two major racial groups. One channel will carry only "white" programs and will be aimed at whites, Asians and "Coloreds" of mixed blood. The other channel will be TV-Bantu, and will carry programs intended for black viewers. Even in technical terms, black and white will never meet on TV--all transmission will be in color.

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