Anti-Semitic activities of the Grey Shirts of South Africa are meeting with strong opposition from non-Jewish people throughout the country. The Sunday Express of Johannesburg, in an editorial entitled “Stop This Nonsense,” urges the South African government once and forever to prohibit the Grey Shirts’ propaganda. The editorial says:
Mr. Manie Maritz, who has had a chequered political career, is now busily engaged in launching another “shirt” organization. This time it is to be the “black” shirts. We already have the “Grey” shirts. The main reason for the existence of both these bodies is the baiting of the Jews. The Grey Shirts are a considerable nuisance, and in many districts have shown that they are a menace to the public peace. The government say they are keeping an eye on the situation, but that seems as far as they will go. The Jewish citizens of this country are entitled by our Constitution to be allowed to carry on their functions as citizens in a restful and peaceful manner.
This is not happening. Both at public meetings and in their scurrilous newspapers, the Grey Shirts are allowed to make unwarrantable attacks on the Jewish South Africans. They are disturbing the peace of the country. If the government have the power to take drastic measures in the case of the Communists, as they have done in the past, then they can also do the same with regard to the Grey Shirts. The cabinet have trifled with this question too long, and it is now time they put their foot down and stopped this aping of Nazism in the Union. We have enough home-made race hatreds, without importing new ones from the continent of Europe.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
