Apartheid South Africa Withdrawn from the British Commonwealth

Apartheid South Africa Withdrawn from the British Commonwealth

On 15 March 1961, at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, apartheid South Africa announced that it was to withdraw from the Commonwealth when the South African Constitution of 1961 came into effect. The 1961 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference was the eleventh Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in March 1961, and was hosted by that country’s Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan.

While Commonwealth conferences were normally held biennially, this conference was held after an interval of only a year, as the May 1960 conference ended in disagreement over South Africa and whether the country should be removed from the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth by 1960 included new Asian and African members, whose rulers saw the apartheid state’s membership as an affront to the organisation’s new democratic principles.

This was due to its policy of racial segregation, with Malaya’s Prime Minister, Tanku Abdul Rahman, demanding South Africa’s expulsion. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who was then the Prime Minister of Tanganyika, indicated that his country, which was due to gain independence in 1961, would not join the Commonwealth were apartheid South Africa to remain a member. The whole point of excluding South Africa was to save the Commonwealth from almost certain disruption; and to bind it more closely on the basis of the assertion of a common human value.

What Was the Value of Her Commonwealth Membership to South Africa? Trade preferences ensured that something like one-third of the apartheid South Africa’s total merchandise exports were exports to Britain protected by preferences. Secondly, in practice, Commonwealth citizenship entitled South Africans to all the privileges of a British subject – a South African could enter most Commonwealth countries and stay as long as he or she liked – and to those of a British citizen if he or she chose. He or she could live, work and vote in the United Kingdom. Thirdly, Britain had given South Africa a number of facilities by virtue of the special relationship between the two countries fostered by the Commonwealth, and these included the supply of technical, military and diplomatic information, as well as training opportunities in the UK for military and other personnel.

Commonwealth countries and Britain had acted as a kind of buffer between South Africa and the full weight of world opinion, especially relating to its policies of racial discrimination and the illegal occupation of South West Africa (Namibia). There was little doubt that South Africa’s Commonwealth membership inhibited some countries from taking positive steps against the apartheid South African regime. Moreover, at the United Nations (UN), the abstentions of Great Britain and Australia on motions critical of apartheid and of the illegitimate administration of the South West Africa mandate had undeniably weakened their effect.

Following the approach to the Commonwealth from the UN in March 1960, to use its influence to persuade South Africa to change its policy in South West Africa, a new resolution was passed since the Commonwealth admitted its inability to exert such pressure effectively calling for freedom for the territory, and asking the UN to take action, if necessary without the co-operation of the apartheid South African government. Nevertheless, Britain abstained on this resolution, together with Australia, France, Belgium and Portugal.

South Africa’s application was opposed by the leaders of African states under black majority rule, as well as Prime Ministers of India, Malaya and the other non-white Commonwealth countries, including Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, due to South Africa’s policy of apartheid. Canada was the only member of the old white Commonwealth to oppose South Africa’s application. The “Keep South Africa In” group included Britain, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Australia and New Zealand. Canadian Prime Minister, Diefenbaker, proposed that South Africa only be re-admitted if it joined other states in condemning apartheid in principle.

Once it became clear that South Africa’s membership would be rejected, apartheid South African Prime Minister, H.F. Verwoerd withdrew his country’s application and left the conference. Verwoerd only attended the conference to give formal notice that his country was to become a republic in May 1961 after having approved the constitutional change in an October 1960 referendum. Under the terms of the Constitution of 1961, South Africa left the Commonwealth and became a republic.

Republicanism was always a major tenet and objective of Afrikaner nationalism. Even when the Nationalists controlled the government, political realities prevented this goal from being attained prior to the 1960s. The Nationalists increased their demands for a republic partly to enforce a strengthening of the two major white groups in the population, the English and Afrikaner groups, and partly because of the traditional rivalry with Britain. And, by 1960, the time was considered opportune: “the final victory in the long struggle for supremacy”.

Prior to becoming a republic, the National Party government announced on 3 August 1960 that a referendum would be held in October of that year on whether South Africa should become a republic or not. The vote, which was only restricted to white South Africans, since the so-called Coloureds were no longer enfranchised as voters and were not eligible to vote in the referendum, was held on 5 October 1960, which was narrowly approved by 52.29 percent of the voters. The pro-republic campaign focused on the need for white unity in the face of British de-colonisation in Africa, with one campaign poster using the slogan “To re-unite and keep South Africa white, a republic now!”

Following a successful referendum, the Republic of South Africa Constitution Bill was introduced in January 1961, and it came into force on 31 May 1961. For white South African history, 31 May became a significant day, as it was both the day on which the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed in 1902, ending the Second Anglo-Boer War, and the day on which the Union of South Africa came into being in 1910. On the eve of the establishment of the republic, the “Die Transvaler” newspaper proclaimed: “Our republic is the inevitable fulfilment of God’s plan for our people… a plan formed in 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck arrived at the Cape… for which the defeat of our republics in 1902 was a necessary step”.

Many English-speaking whites, who had regarded Britain as their spiritual home, felt disillusionment and a sense of loss with apartheid South Africa exiting the Commonwealth. The British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) welcomed the move, since as the Boycott Movement, it ran the intensified boycott of South African goods in March 1960, and in 1961 it ran a campaign for British pressure to exclude South Africa from the Commonwealth. According to the AAM, “This is not only a great defeat for Verwoerd, but a corresponding victory for the opponents of apartheid-and for the non-white peoples of South Africa who called for his exclusion”.

Generally, black South Africans, who included the so-called Coloureds and Indians, and were all denied a vote in the referendum, were not against the establishment of a republic, as such, but saw the new constitution as a direct rejection of the principle of one person, one vote, as expressed in the Freedom Charter, drafted and adopted by the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies in the Congress Alliance. Despite its opposition to the monarchy and the Commonwealth, the ANC sought to mobilise white and black opposition to the republic, seeing it as an attempt by Verwoerd to consolidate white racists’ grip on power.

According to the Editorial of the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) official mouthpiece, The African Communist, “the Republic many have an emotive significance for White chauvinists whose minds are still chained to the 18th century. For the majority of South Africans, however, the Republic is a prison-house of peoples and ideas which must be destroyed before the country can progress to a future in which all will be able to share both citizenship and wealth on a basis of fully equality” (The African Communist, No. 45, Second Quarter 1971).

On 25 March 1961, in response to the Whites-only referendum, the ANC held an All-In African Congress in Pietermaritzburg, which was attended by 1398 delegates from all over the country. It passed a resolution declaring that “no Constitution or form of Government decided without the participation of the African people who form an absolute majority of the population can enjoy moral validity or merit support either within South Africa or beyond its borders”. It called for a National Convention, and the organising of a three-day strike and mass demonstrations on the eve of what Nelson Mandela described as “THE UNWANTED REPUBLIC”.

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
Anti-Apartheid Movement, “South African Out of the Commonwealth – What Now”, The British Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1961.
R.G. Menzies, “South Africa’s Withdrawal from Commonwealth”, Statement by the Australian Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. R.G. Menzies, Canberra, 25 May 1961.
S. A. De Smith, “The Commonwealth and South Africa”, University of Malaya Law Review, Vol. 3 No. 2, December 1961.
Valma Rae Hawkes, South Africa’s Withdrawal from The Commonwealth: A Response to Multi Racialism?”, Thesis: Master of Arts Degree in Political Science – The University of Tasmania, February 1968.
Editorial Notes, “10 Years of Republic – Nothing to Celebrate”, The African Communist, No. 45, Second Quarter 1971.
Brian Bunting, “Britain, South Africa and the Commonwealth”, Labour Monthly, April 1971.
Sue Onslow, “The Commonwealth and Southern African Decolonization 1949 – 1994”, The International History Review, Vol. 46 No. 6, 2024.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!