Proof of Scientology's Racism in South Africa

by Chris Owen

[Links added and URLs updated. -k]

In the course of my research into Scientology's fight against psychiatry, I came across a number of interesting items which for the first time prove conclusively that Scientology pursued a policy of racial discrimination within its South African organisation. I thought I'd share them, as a sort of appendix to my "Scientology's Fight for Apartheid" article, which can be found at http://solitarytrees.net/cowen/misc/aparth.htm (I'll probably rewrite that article slightly to take account of the new material I've found, but it won't happen for a while yet.)

The first clue was a couple of photographs published in issue 19 of Understanding, the magazine of the South African Hubbard Association of Scientology International (HASI SA). The photos, dating from 1959, showed the staff of the Jo'burg org celebrating the second anniversary of its founding. The two pictures were rigidly segregated: one showed a large group of solely white people, identified as "the staff and students", drinking champagne in a room decorated with party streamers and balloons. The other showed a small group of black people identified as "the African Staff" sitting around a small table in a back alley; the caption makes it clear that they were not allowed to have their party in working time (like the whites) but in their lunch hour.

The next clue came from Understanding issue 13, in a photospread showing the staff of the Jo'burg org. Without exception, the black staff held the most menial jobs — cleaner, guard, typist etc. — and the white staff held all the teaching or administrative posts.

A third clue came from a Hubbard Communications Office Bulletin of 30 July 1960, which included a piece from Norma Webb, HCO Secretary World Wide, on why HASI SA was proving so succesful. It made it clear that Scientology was only being disseminated to whites —

"How do they manage this [success], well there are several reasons … Remember that they have only got 2 million white people living there, and they can do it!"

Then came two conclusive pieces of evidence, both written by a South African Scientologist and published in mainstream — note, NOT just South African — Scientology magazines, consequently enjoying the approval of L. Ron Hubbard (who acted as editor-in-chief of international magazines). The Scientologist in question was U. Keith Gerry, who was definitely a favoured associate of Hubbard: in 1955 he had collaborated with Hubbard to produce an anthology of Hubbardian thought entitled The Key to Tomorrow. In a late 1950s issue of Ability magazine he wrote an article entitled "How It Is Going In South Africa". This makes abundantly clear what Scientology's approach was in South Africa. Remember, this was approved by L. Ron Hubbard himself: he was happy to endorse a racist and discriminatory approach despite his claimed commitment to equality:

"… There is also a master plan of Albert Low's to which we are all contributing. Albert's plan is to get Scientology known throughout the white population of South Africa within another four years; to have it established in that period in the schools; in the Universities; in industry; in the Mines; and in the Government and government departments and services…

In case it all sounds too easy and too dull to attract more people to the field it would be just as well to give a few of the problems which we are up against. The first is not the native problem. It is the Afrikaans-English problem. It can be expressed in many ways, none of which will give a full picture. Perhaps it could be summed up by saying that the English feel guilty at having been conquerors and the Afrikaans people are resentful at having been conquered, and from this has arisen all the factors present today. Before South Africa can be a happy country this division will have to be reconciled.

After this comes the native problem and Scientology offers the only route to its solution. False sentiment, ignorance, utterances from pulpit and editorial desk by people who should know better, continually impede progress. When we can get the white people properly straightened out this problem will be nine-tenths solved, evolution and mass processing will do the rest.

For anyone who wishes to see action, South Africa is going to be an intensely interesting country in the next few years. We are not trying to patch up an old order but we are going to create a new one in a land with vast natural resources, with an active people who still retain that streak of courage and enthusiasm which led the voortrekkers into the unknown, with a vast number of natives who would be happy working with their hands for understanding employers, with an ideal climate and with the geographical position which can lead the whole of Africa to a happy and united future."

It's pretty clear which side Gerry was on — amidst the welter of racial stereotypes, the condemnation of the critics of apartheid and the characterisation of the "natives" as obedient manual workers stand out. But what was the Scientological justification for this benighted view, given that the philosophy was supposed to support equality, and why was racism only overt in the South African HASI and not elsewhere?

The key is in the third paragraph quoted above — the word "evolution", near the end. In Certainty magazine vol. 1 issue 14 (Feb. 1955), Gerry explains the South African "native problem" from a Scientological viewpoint. The underlying reason is simple: the blacks are simply further down the evolutionary ladder than the whites:

"There is no room for sentiment in the native problem. It is manifest as a conflict of the white reactive mind and the black reactive mind …

Those who have dwelt for many years in a stable society may come to feel that evolution is something that happened in the past and that it isn't happening any more. This frame of mind leads to the belief that the differences, or the unbalanced states, which cause evolutionary changes to take place, no longer exist. This leads to the belief that the white man and the black man are equal. They are not. To insist that they are is to try to perpetuate a lie and any Scientologist knows what that will lead to. Ask any honest South African if he feels that he is the same as a native and he will deny it. Ask any native if he feels the same as a white man and he, too, will deny it. This is no discussion as to whether the native ought to be the same, whether he has the same potentials, whether he is better or worse, happier or unhappier, or whether he could become like the white man if this, that, or the other. This is the matter of the cold-blooded fact that there is a very big difference between the white and the black man. The native problem can never be 'solved' until that fact is accepted, for that very difference *is* the problem. In the technical language of Scientology it is those who try to "not-is" that consideration or those who try to educate natives as white men in order to "not-is" it, who make the problem persist. To see that a difference exists goes a long way to blowing the problem, in fact it goes more than a long way, it solves the problem.

The solution of the problem does not end the evolutionary contest. If the problem were to disappear immediately the process of evolution would go ahead quite smoothly. While the problem persists it is likely that evolution will follow a bloody trail of force. The end product will be the same. The forces of evolution are far stronger than any individual who would try to deny they exist.

There are in South Africa less than three million Europeans, or whites, and perhaps about twelve million natives. Both these populations are increasing rapidly. Until both races can see the truth about the problem it will remain… As the fear dissolves, so it will be possible for Scientology to reach the natives. There may be a few new things to learn here, but if native auditors can be trained in numbers and a mass group-auditing technique can be evolved for illiterate people the results might be surprising to all. The next few years will be an exciting time in South Africa for any one who wants to see action."

Again, this view would have been endorsed by Hubbard — not just by allowing the article to be published, but in subsequent public and private statements expressing his support for racial discrimination and for apartheid policies such as forced resettlement. But from where did Gerry get the idea that South African "natives" were somehow un-evolved? Perhaps unsurprisingly it was Hubbard who set a lead in this regard. The following statement comes from his original 1950 book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health — written long before he ever visited South Africa — and amazingly, can still be found in the latest editions:

"Primitive societies, being subject to much mauling by the elements, have many more occasions for injury than civilized societies. Further, such primitive societies are alive with false data. Further, their practice of medicine and mental healing is on a very aberrative level by itself. The number of engrams in a Zulu would be astonishing. Moved out of his restimulative area and taught English he would escape the penalty of much of his reactive data; but in his native habitat the Zulu is only outside the bars of a madhouse because there are no madhouses provided by his tribe. It is a safe estimate, and one based on better experience than is generally available to those who have conclusions on 'modern man' by studying primitive races, that primitives are far more aberrated than civilized peoples. Their savageness, their unprogressiveness, their incidence of illness: all stem from their reactive patterns, not from their inherent personalities… The contagion of aberration, being much greater in a primitive tribe, and the falsity of the supersitious data in the engrams of such a tribe both lead to a conclusion which, observed on the scene, is carried out by actuality."

[Hubbard, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (1988 ed.), book 2, chapter 8, p. 183 - 'The Contagion of Aberration']

The circle is closed.