The active members of NUSAS belong to this grouping. A very few of them may indeed be Communists, as Vorster says, because NUSAS is open to all students The great majority of NUSAS members, however, certainly are not Communists. Many leaders of the student union are anti-communist. Vorster is doing the Communists a favor by crediting them with the ideals NUSAS upholds.

In his Presidential address to this summer's NUSAS congress, Jonty Driver, summarized the bitter dilemma and strong idealism of the NUSAS leadership.

"I do not say that we should not be afraid. I do not pretend that I am not afraid--nor that you are not afraid," Driver said. It is not easy to lose a passport nor to be confined to a place, however the Minister of Injustice chooses to define it, nor to be deported, nor to be imprisoned, and I for one, am afraid of all these..."

"But whatever our fear, we must not capitulate," Driver concluded. "We must not bow to these agents of silence who rule us."

Despite the brave words and actions, NUSAS can, however, do little to prevent the Grecian tragedy of South Africa from playing to the final act. For the most part, the principled stand of NUSAS, while demanded by the conscience and idealism of its members, can only be symbolic.

Editorial note: In South African usage the word African refers to Negroes; the word Afrikaner refers to the white descendants of the Dutch settlers and the Boers. There are about 10 million Africans In South Africa out of a total population of 16 million. The Afrikaners, who speak the Afrikaans language, compose about 60 per cent of the white population of 3,100,000.