Usufu!

In the land of apartheid, where the will of the minority is reinforced by the rule of law and the mightiest military arsenal south of the Sahara, an ever-present nightmare for the country's 4,000,000 whites is the possibility, however remote, of a revolt by South Africa's 16 million repressed blacks. Even an illegal strike by black workers for higher wages can send tremors through the country. Last week South Africa was quaking slightly, after a series of strikes that crippled the port city of Durban.

Among the 50,000 black strikers, the majority of them Zulu tribesmen, were 16,000 Durban municipal employees; their walkout caused litter to pile up in the streets and forced white housewives to perform the unaccustomed task of carting away their own garbage. At nearby Hammarsdale, where 7,00 blacks left their jobs, a crowd of 200 was dispersed by police with tear gas after the demonstrators had brandished clubs and chanted "Usutu!", a traditional Zulu war cry.

White authorities feared that me Durban strikes would spread to other cities and particularly to the economically vital minefields, where the average white worker earns $475 a month and the average black receives $30. "The cry to raise wages is not peculiar to Durban," said Drake Koka, general secretary of the Black Allied Workers Union, calling for a "total overhaul of the South African labor system."

In Parliament, the opposition United Party described the wide gap between black and white wages as "a source of shame." The tiny Progressive Party's only M.P., Mrs. Helen Suzman, demanded: "How much does it take to agitate a black man who has to live on $14 a week?" Labor Minister Marais Viljoen promised that the government would introduce legislation to "encourage" white employers to make greater use of "works committees" to discuss problems with black employees. In a surprisingly conciliatory statement, Prime Minister John Vorster strongly implied that employers had better cooperate. "They should not view their workers merely as units working so many hours a day," he declared, "but also as human beings with a soul.

By the end of the week, many of the Durban strikers were returning to work, but their protest had left its mark on the country. As the Rand Daily Mail observed: "The Zulus have brought home to employers that they can no longer get away with appallingly low wages."

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