My Mother — Page 107
Fulfilment of Dream (B) 107 I had performed the ‘Umrah and also visited Medinah in 1958. In the spring of 1967, I had the great good fortune of being able to perform the Pilgrimage to the House of Allah and of visiting Medinah once more as guest of His Majesty King Faisal. Anwar Ahmad and his wife, Ameenah Begum, accompanied me and ministered to my comfort throughout. May Allah reward them richly for all their care of me through the years. Later in the same year, I was invited to visit South Africa. In the Cape Town, another veritable end of the earth, I met the mem- bers of the small Ahmadiyyah Community. I visited the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Capitals of the Union and its big towns. I called on Dr. Vorster, the Prime Minister and later President of the Union. I saw much and talked to many people. I sat with the Supreme Court and listened to arguments in an appeal. South Africa is confronted with a complicated, poignant human problem, for which there is no easy solution. Some pro- gress is being made, but it is slow, fumbling, halting, and half- hearted. Since the Central Government has taken over housing and education there has been improvement in respect of both, but it must be realised that the better the non-white is housed and the greater the facilities for education that are provided for him, the keener will be his consciousness of the discrimination to which he is subjected and the fiercer will be his reaction to it. In other words, the fitter he becomes for the discharge of his civic obli- gations, the more galling to his spirit are the privations that are imposed upon him. Therefore, the white must prepare himself for advancing rapidly towards the goal of non-discrimination. The malady is one of the spirit, the remedy must seek to heal the spirit. The irony is that the Boer, who in his own way is deeply religious,