“The primary objective of the present study is to examine the political future of a particular component of the present South African political order, viz the homelands. To facilitate the discussion, the study has been subdivided into four main sections. The first briefly outlines the development of the legislative framework for the homelands policy. The second focuses on the objectives of the homelands policy, as expounded by Dr. H.F. Verwoerd in particular. From its inception, the policy has been the source of political controversy, and the objections which parliamentary opponents of the policy raised in those early days, will be noted. Attention will furthermore be given to the perceptions which other critics hold of the official policy objectives. All these factors illustrate the contours of the ongoing dialectic over the homelands policy. A number of salient features of the present situation of the homelands – such as political, economic and demographic realities – are considered in the third section. In the final section, a series of scenarios, based on a continuum, will be sketched. These range from the one ‘extreme’ of final dismemberment of the South African state as it existed in 1961 (at the time of South Africa becoming a republic) or, for that matter, in 1910 (when the Union of South Africa was formed), to, the other ‘extreme’ in which independent or former homelands would be reintegrated into a unitary South African state. The present objective of homeland independence will be merely one among the several scenarios.”
