Towards Darkness and Death: Racial Demonology in South Africa

In: The journal of modern African studies: a quarterly survey of politics, economics & related topics in contemporary Africa, Volume 26, Issue 4, p. 567-590

Abstract

Many students of human relations in South Africa would probably agree that an understanding of the policy of racial separation and the general determination of whites not to yield power to the black majority necessitates an awareness of their fears. The importance of this factor can hardly be overlooked, especially if it is defined broadly along the lines suggested by Philip Mason in his succinct study of racial tensions around the globe: There are fears of all kinds… There is the vague and simple fear of something strange and unknown, there is the very intelligible fear of unemployment, and the fear of being outvoted by people whose way of life is quite different. There are fears for the future and memories of fear in the past, fears given an extra edge by class conflict, by a sense of guilt, by sex and conscience… Fear may also act as a catalytic agent, changing the nature of factors previously not acutely malignant, such as the association in metaphor of the ideas of white and black with good and evil… Where the dominant are in the minority they are surely more frightened.1