Making It Official

Absently fingering the scars on his face left by an assassin's bullets, silver-haired Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd overrode opposition shouts of protest as his Afrikaner steamroller rumbled relentlessly on toward its cherished goal of a republic. When the new era began on May 31, there would be no bill of rights in the constitution, no provision for a share in government for the nation's 12 million nonwhites. "We have made our concessions," he cried to the angry English-speaking deputies across the floor. The concessions: a small Union Jack would remain at the center of South Africa's new republican flag, and English would still have equal language rights with Afrikaans. Moreover, Verwoerd promised that South Africa would remain in Britain's Commonwealth family, unless the other members made things intolerable by debating his race policy at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting in London next month. "Hoor! Hoor!" cried his Afrikaner followers as they raised their hands to push through the republic law by an overwhelming 95-51.

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