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THE SPELMAN SPOTLIGHT
December, 1965
The SPELMAN SPOTLIGHT
Editorial Staff
FRIEDA E. WILLIAMSON, Editor-in-Chief
PATRICIA A. KING, Associate Editor
HENRIETTA TURNQUEST, Business Manager
NEWS EDITOR — Andrea Williams
FEATURE EDITORS—Cheryl Birchette, Melba Davis,
Grenda Greene, Melody McDowell
LITERARY EDITORS—Cynthia Smith, Patricia Col
lins, Maggie Davis
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS —Anna Belle Porter,
Juanita Price
PHOTOGRAPHER CARTOONIST
Janis Mills Margaret Mills
FASHION EDITOR EXCHANGE EDITOR
Carol Webb Carolyn Clark
TYPISTS—Carolyn Reynolds, Marjorie Rich, Marilyn
Wilson
Dr. Richard A. Carroll— Faculty Advisor
CAN WE TOO
ASSUME ROLES?
A quality necessary for a good actor to possess is that of
being able to completely divorce himself from all worlds foreign
to his own—from everything outside the stage. What is super
ficial must become real to him and vice versa. The things of
the real world that occupy his mind in everyday life he must
forget and govern himself as though the predicament into which
the superficial world of the stage places him is the only one of
which he is aware. Moreover, even after he adopts this stage
world he must occasionally react to events in manner different
from the way he would naturally tend to react to the same
events in his real world. This involves his adopting a new
world and totally new personality.
If the actor’s art is to be adequately appreciated, the
audience too must undergo a change. The audience must
accept the stage world and the personalities the actors por
tray. Accepting the personalities becomes more difficult if
the audience is personally acquainted with the actor or has
any other strong emotion toward the actor as he relates to
the real world.
Several of the AMS players beautifully and effectively took
on their roles in their recent presentation of “The Physicists.”
As the audience, our job was to accept these players not
as the students we see on campus everyday, but as the per
sonalities which the stage world made them. How well did we
do our job? Were there instances when we laughed not be
cause of humor or wit in the script, but merely because we
were unable to accept a person whom we knew as a jovial
character assuming a serious role. Did we occasionally out
wardly express sentiments for the appearance of a character
separate from his role in the stage world?
It is now generally known that the AMS players effectively
assumed their roles. But did we effectively assume ours?
*£etten ta t&e £cUt<n
Dear Madam:
A notice carried under the
head “Here and There News”
in your November issue con
tains a slight inaccuracy which
I should like to correct. The
Emory event called Conversa
tion: Vietnam, at which Dr.
Staughton Lynd and others
were speakers, was not spon
sored by the Atlanta Commit
tee to End the War in Viet
nam. It was sponsored by an
ad hoc committee of Emory
students representing various
positions in regard to the war.
The Atlanta Committee mere
ly served as a kind of liaison
which publicized the event on
the AU campuses. The error,
I must admit, was in our
slightly ambiguous publicity.
While I have your ear—if I
still do—I should like to in
form your readers that a group
of students and faculty from
the several institutions at the
Center (who, too, represent
many points of view) is plan
ning a similar event for the
AU campus for a date early in
February. To be called “AU
Speakout on Vietnam,” it, too,
will offer speakers pro and
con the war. At the moment
we are busy searching out
prospective speakers and ways
if financing the Speakout. We
should be delighted to hear
from members of the AU
community who have ideas
about either.
Sincerely yours,
Miriam Washerman
Politics in Rhodesia
On November 12, 1965, Ian Smith, the
leader of the white-supremacy government
of Rhodesia, unilaterally declared the coun
try independent from Great Britain. This in
evitably relegated the 4,500,000 African in
habitants to the status of constitutional
subjugation, placing their fate at the mercy
of 225,000 blood-thirsty and arrogant whites
who still propound the archaic doctrine of
white supremacy—the natural counterpart
being the suppression of the black.
Prior to Smith’s unilateral declaration, he
had attempted to negotiate with Her Majes
ty’s government for Rhodesian independence
under the 1961 constitution which insured
overall control of Rhodesia by the white set
tler element. Ironic as it is, that is, by virtue
of the “majority rule” doctrine, this con
stitution gave only 15 seats out of 65 to the
4Vi million Africans. Ergo, the British gov
ernment refused to negotiate under such in
equitable terms and suggested a review of
the Constitution in order to afford a more
democratic representation of the Africans in
Parliament. Concomitantly, the African na
tionalists were fervently demanding univer
sal adult suffrage via the popular national
istic slogan—“one man, one vote.” This, of
course, if completely executed would have
been tantamount to the complete take-over
of the government by the Africans. Natural
ly, the whole idea was repugnant to Smith
who was heavily laden with the pressures of
his die-hard white supporter who wanted
“independence now, even if we have to fight
for it.”
Smith had long envisaged the inconceiv
able nature of a negotiated independence
under the 1961 constitution. Hence, he was
fully cognizant that the only feasible avenue
to independence was a unilateral declaration
of independence, popularly known in Rho
desia as U.D.I. Similarly, the white settler-
element in Rhodesia had been scheming to
take over complete control of Rhodesia
since the advent of the British in this rich
South African country. The profusion of
natural resources and the prevalence of ge
ographic beauty is unquestionable. The rich
mineral deposits and the rich Rhodesian
soil naturally attracted British settlers and
“they coveted it.” Gradually, but systemati
cally, they beguiled the poor and uneducated
African chiefs who in turn relinquished their
land and commission. Consequently, the
white settler population tremendously spi
raled upward with the successful exploitation
of the Africans. The next step which was
integral to the brilliantly planned scheme of
the British, entailed the institution of a
white controlled government. Invariably,
numerous inhuman atrocities ensued—there
was forced labor, “taxation without repre
sentation” and minority rule against the will
of the majority. Hence, it is obvious that
many elements inimical to democratic prin
ciples had engulfed Rhodesia and thus rele
gated it to a totalitarian state.
In 1923, Rhodesia became a self-govern
ing colony with a representative type of
government. Such a government, theoretical
ly, functions under the supposition that the
Africans would naturally be represented.
This, however, was not the case. In fact,
though void of legality, Rhodesia was quite
independent of Great Britain by virtue of its
freedom to legislate and execute its own
laws. The doctrine of white supremacy was
therefore in vogue and the African had no
rights whatsoever.
Parallel to the growth and institution of
. . . Juanita Price |
1
white supremacy in Rhodesia has been the
emergence of intense resentment and dis
content by the African populace. Conse
quently, the whites have been forced to
tighten their control over the African by a
multiplicity of laws against any form of
African political organization. Many African
political parties have been banned, African
leaders have been intimidated, arrested and
subdued in an effort to render them inactive.
Yet, the African has determinately continued
his protests, and agitation for that which is
rightfully his.
Realizing the perilous nature of this wide
spread African resentment, the whites coun
terattacked the problem by tightening the
laws against the African, thus stripping him
of the right of peaceful congregation, to put
it mildly. Likewise, the drive for indepen
dence was spiraled forward with even greater
dynamism. Thus, on November 12, 1965,
after declaring a state-of-emergency of Rho
desia and disseminating his strong and ruth
less army and police force over the major
towns and potential trouble spots, Smith
proclaimed the unilateral independence of
Rhodesia. The immediate but mild response
of the British government carried an obvious
tone of disappointment toward the Smith
regime, declaring the seizure of indepen
dence an act of treason. According to con
stitutional stipulation, treason is punishable
by death, yet Great Britain has refused to
use force in maintaining law and order in
Rhodesia. To the contrary, Britain has pro
posed the imposition of economic sanctions
as the only logical or feasible means of con
trolling Rhodesian white supremacy govern
ment. Britain has based its failure to use
force in Rhodesia on the premise that it
would be an inconceivable act of atrocity to
brutalize and kill the 225,000 white Rho
desians who are offshoots of Great Britain.
What a farce! The validity of such an argu
ment is quite questionable in light of his
torical evidence. As the American colonists
who were directly akin to Britain propelled
forward the idea of independence, the British
became somewhat oblivious of their close
kinship to the Americans and precipitated
a bloody war that lasted for over seven years.
History has borne out the fact that eco
nomic sanctions will never work. It did not
work with Mussolini’s Italy, Castro’s Cuba
and it has not worked effectively in South
Africa. Besides, it is my contention that
Britain is not sincere in its obstensible at
tempt to impose crippling economic sanc
tions. Such a move on the part of the British
government would invariably cripple its own
economy. Britain cannot afford this at such
a critical moment when it is burdened with
a tremendous international debt and when
the British sterling has become considerably
diminutive in value. Great Britain has stu
pendous investments in Rhodesia and if the
Rhodesian economy becomes paralyzed, it
is inferentially conceivable that the economy
of Britain would become even more im
paired.
I fail to understand how some of the
major proponents of the so-called democratic
principles have remained quiescent in rela
tions to the Rhodesian crisis. Billions of dol
lars have been allocated, millions of lives lost
and many more are being lost in the alleged
wars to perpetuate the rule of the majority.
Surely the same issue is at stake today in
Rhodesia, yet no decisive move has been
realized in order to circumvent the atrocities
and undemocratic propensities of the white
supremacy regime of Ian Smith.