BLAZES is divided into four parts.
The first part deals with South Africa where the author was the deputy to the High Commissioner from 1958 to 1962. The country's troubled race relations were already under scrutiny in the United Nations and pressure was mounting at home and abroad for reform. All this was resented and resisted by the governing minority of the population represented by the National Party which was supported by most of the Afrikaans-speaking majority of the South African white population. Black African resistance led to the major protests of March 1960 which were...