Cape Racial Reform : Open Beaches Unnerve Many South Africans

Beaches that for years were exclusively reserved for whites have now been opened to other races, but the resulting controversy has raised questions about South Africa’s willingness to fully end its policy of apartheid, the strict separation of the races.

As thousands of blacks and Coloreds (those of mixed race) have flocked with their families to the once-forbidden seafront, whites have loudly protested their behavior and their numbers.

“If this is what reform brings, then we don’t want it,” said Mollie Kovins, a declared liberal and community leader in Sea Point, one of the popular beach areas now open to blacks. “Sharing facilities is one thing, but giving up everything and seeing it ruined is another.

‘I Am Not a Racist’

“I am not objecting to their being black or brown--God knows I am not a racist--but their behavior is so uncouth, so uncivilized. And, well, there are so many of them that we are swamped.”

This “battle of the beaches,” as it has been dubbed, is being fought at City Council meetings, at civic association rallies, in local newspapers and, most recently, in the South African Parliament, which is now in session in Cape Town.

Whites are complaining that Coloreds and blacks swim in their underwear, change clothes in public, picnic and drink on the beach, play loud music, spit and urinate in the sand and smoke marijuana, which is illegal here though widely used.

These complaints brought a flurry of rebuttals from whites as well as from blacks and Coloreds.

“Have the privileges accorded white South Africans shriveled their souls and robbed them of the capacity to rejoice in the happiness of their fellow human beings?” a woman of mixed race asked in a letter to a local newspaper.

Double Standard Implied

Another woman, a white, asked in another letter why it is acceptable “to display oneself in an expensive bikini” but not to swim in bra and panties.

And a Colored member of the new three-chamber South African Parliament joked over dinner, “There is so much fuss that I think (the complaining whites) must be worried that our color will wash off and maybe dye some of them a slightly darker shade.”

The biggest problem, whites assert, is the sheer number of blacks and Coloreds at the formerly white beaches and pools. What was once all white, they say, is quickly becoming all black, and whites now refer to Green Point, another popular beach, as Black Point.

“I am not prepared to jump into a swimming pool with 10,000 little klonkies from Guguletu,” said Chris Joubert, a Cape Town city councilman from Sea Point, using a derogatory term for black children coming from an outlying black township. “If this was done to promote racial integration and harmony, it is having the opposite effect.”

Neighboring municipalities, in fact, have now put up new “whites only” signs on their beaches and have told their police officers to enforce the race restrictions. In Sea Point, the white backlash has led Councilman Joseph S. Rabinowitz to propose that the community secede from Cape Town so “we can regulate our own affairs.”

Flouting Taxpayers’ Wishes

And John Wiley, minister for environmental affairs and tourism, who represents the seafront community of St. James in Parliament, declared that the Cape Town City Council is guilty of “flouting the law” in opening most of its swimming pools and beaches to all races and has shown “deliberate disregard for the interests of the taxpayers and visitors to the city.”

“What they have done to Cape Town is a disgrace,” Wiley said in Parliament’s white House of Assembly.

The Cape Town City Council has so far withstood all this criticism--in addition to a telephone threat to assassinate the mayor--with a determination to make this experiment in integration work and to set an example for the rest of the country.

“We are not unsympathetic to the complaints, but we are not prepared to solve the problems by reintroducing racist measures,” Peter Muller, chairman of the council’s Amenities and Health Committee, said, agreeing to post and enforce regulations on “proper beach behavior” and to limit, on a first-come, first-admitted basis, the number of people allowed to use a beach or pool.

City Known for Openness

Mayor Sol Kreiner and other council members have urged patience and tolerance in what has become a test of conscience for a city that prides itself on its racial harmony.

“If white bathers were startled by the habits of some black visitors to the beaches,” Jan van Eck, a member of the Cape Provincial Council, said, “perhaps they should ask why. Maybe it is time they met the rest of our country’s population.”

The liberal Cape Times made a similar point in an editorial supporting an end to beach apartheid. “The white people of Cape Town must realize that they are not living in Brighton, Nice or Santa Monica,” the paper said. “They are a minority in South Africa and cannot expect a continued monopoly of the best of everything. . . . People will have to learn to share. This may be unpalatable to those used to exclusive white privilege, but it will be slowly forced upon them--whichever party is in power.”

Although the National Party government of President Pieter W. Botha had no part in the Cape Town City Council’s decision, and probably would have objected to it if asked, Cabinet members acknowledged that the end to beach apartheid here has considerable political implications for the country as a whole.

Equal Access a Key Issue

For example, Coloreds--who constitute two-thirds of the Cape peninsula’s population and who last year elected amid much controversy members of the new House of Representatives in the three-chamber Parliament--see equal access to public facilities as a major issue. This makes open beaches a test of the new political system as far as Coloreds are concerned.

“To be told we are not wanted on the beaches is just not acceptable,” David Curry, the minister for local government in the Colored House of Representatives, told his Labor Party convention recently. “For us, the issue of the use of beaches is an emotional one.”

Also, Botha’s recent promises of further reforms, including measures to give blacks a political voice and to improve their living conditions, will be measured to some extent by his support of Cape Town’s actions. While the government says it will retain racial separation in housing, it also pledges that public facilities will increasingly be integrated.

Also, the National Party’s ability to reassure whites, a worried minority of 4.8 million in a population of more than 32 million, without going back to strict apartheid, will also be tested here.

Official Hopes for Success

“Frankly, I wish they had not done it quite this way, causing such an uproar,” a white junior Cabinet minister said, asking not to be quoted by name. “Now that they have, it means a lot to the country if they succeed. . . .

“We need for very complex historical and demographic reasons, I believe, a political system based on group rights, but that does not mean we should continue forever the social separation we have had up to now. What I am saying is that successful integration on the beaches of Cape Town can make integration in other areas easier, and this in turn can help our political evolution.”

But the successful integration of the beaches and whites’ acceptance of it are still very problematic.

“The thing about beaches--what makes them different from, say, schools or restaurants--is that they are more intimate in many ways,” Joseph Boyle, a white schoolteacher, said as he watched blacks and whites together at Sea Point. “White women, for example, don’t like to be ogled by blacks, and they don’t want their husbands looking at pretty Colored or black girls.”

‘Latent Personal Racism’

Jennifer Snullin, a white marketing specialist, commented: “When apartheid is corporate racism, we can distance ourselves from it and say we are not responsible, can’t do anything about it, and so on. . . . But on the beach, many discover a latent personal racism, however liberal they may be politically.”

A related point was made by Sheila McLennan, a white nurse. “Many, many of us (whites) have Colored and black friends--people with whom we work, go out with, invite to our homes and so on, but we see them on our terms,” she said. “Here, we cannot set the terms and have to take people as they are, and that bothers a lot of whites.”

Allan Abrahamse, a mixed-race government clerk, agrees.

“The thing about whites in this country is that they don’t mind us a few at a time and are even quite warm toward us,” he said. “But when they see how many we are they become scared, and when they see us getting what used to be all theirs, some of them just flat-out panic. And that is the reason for all the fuss here.”