Arguing with South Africa

How to judge South Africa, and what to do about it, represents an exceptionally painful dilemma for the U.S. TIME Managing Editor Henry Grunwald just completed a two-week tour of the country. His impressions:

Americans should talk to South Africa not about morality, but about reality.

Most Americans would call South Africa's treatment of blacks immoral, but we are in a poor position to preach on this: our own progress in race relations has been too slow and too uncertain. The message we should convey to South Africans is that, right or wrong, their system of apartheid cannot endure. A society based on white supremacy and the absolute separation of the races can survive no more than other institutions that were overtaken by changing worlds, including feudalism, divine-right monarchy, colonialism and laissez-faire capitalism. The most frightening thing about South Africa is not just the system's inhumanity, but its air of illusion, of remoteness from the world and from reality.

To be in South Africa is to argue constantly on behalf of that world, that reality. In one's mind or out loud, one argues with whites ("Why don't you see?"), with blacks ("How do you take it?"), with oneself ("How would you feel if you lived here?").

In these arguments, it must first of all be conceded that justice is rarely simple, and that white South Africans do have a case. The case goes something like this:

White South Africans are not colonial rulers.

There is a large white nation here (more than 4 million whites, as against 270,000 in Rhodesia and 300,000 in preindependence Angola). Besides, white men established the first permanent settlement at the Cape long before blacks arrived in large numbers. True.

Blacks in South Africa are economically better off than most blacks in the newly independent countries. A great deal has been done for black education and welfare in South Africa. True.

If the black majority (21 million) took over, the government would not be democratic. Look at what has happened so far in black Africa, which is generally misruled and where scarcely a democracy in the Western sense survives. Probably true.

We are judged by a double standard: you make excuses for repression, cruelty and (reverse) racism in black African states, but you condemn them here. Often true.

Our blacks are not like your blacks. They are much closer to their primitive tribal origins. Tribal animosities and differences between black Africans--differences of language and culture--are profound. Given these differences, a unitary state would be torn by tribal hostilities. Possibly true.

The idea of "homelands" (quasi-independent territories for the blacks more or less based on tribal areas) is not as absurd as you usually make it out to be, because millions of black Africans do have deep attachments to the tribal areas where they were born and raised. True.

These arguments must be taken seriously. But they are not the end of the debate, only the beginning.

The fact that the whites settled first in some empty parts of an overwhelmingly black continent is the kind of historic legalism that proves little in the real universe. It establishes their right to be in Africa (which virtually all blacks acknowledge), but not their right to exploit and humiliate the nonwhites. The fact that South Africa's blacks are better off than blacks in most of the continent's independent countries hardly proves very much either. Considering that South Africa is not a colony, and is to a large extent a modern industrial country, they should be better off. Comparisons should be made not with the rest of Africa, but with what the blacks' lot could be in South Africa. For all the progress achieved, the gap between blacks and whites remains staggering. Three-fourths of the total national income goes to whites, although they constitute only 17% of the population. White per capita income averages $240 a month, v. only $15 for blacks. Salaries for experienced black workers now average $220 a month, v. $500 to $1,750 for whites. Only the most progressive employers provide the kind of training that enables blacks to rise to skilled jobs, such as computer programmer or bank teller, that are not reserved for whites.

As for the double standard, South Africa almost demands to be judged according to higher criteria by the very assets it proclaims--a long history of parliamentary government, stable institutions, a thriving economy. Other African countries were ill prepared for independence; they are young and fragile, yet in South Africa's polemics they are expected to perform as if they were longestablished, industrial democracies. The white man, while complaining about the black man's lack of talent for democracy, largely denied him the training for democracy.

As for the tribal differences among blacks, they will probably last for generations, but must they be encouraged deliberately, and must an entire social and political system be built on them? Among blacks in the mines and factories, the differences are beginning to give way slowly to the same clothes, the same language --and the same anger.

As for the homelands, whatever sense they might make in theory is vitiated by the fact that they include only a fraction of the traditional tribal lands and are not viable economically. That is why the Zulu leader, Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, far from a radical, calls the scheme a form of theft that would lead to the Balkanization of South Africa. Above all, the homelands are untenable because they represent an ingenious device to deny blacks an effective vote.

Prime Minister John Vorster expresses this view with unshakable conviction. Showing an intransigence that recalls Golda Meir without the humor, he insists that his policy is right and the rest of the world is wrong. "What do you want us to do?" and "We will not commit suicide" are phrases that keep echoing Golda. Blacks will have the vote in their homelands, he insists, but not in white South Africa. "The blacks came here to get jobs, which they need. That is enough. We don't also have to give them political rights. They understand this when they accept the jobs. They will never be part of our Parliament." In other words, the blacks in the "white homeland" are "residents" from other countries, much like the guest workers in Western Europe (a comparison frequently made).

That notion might be tenable if all black Africans were indeed guest workers who came for a few years. Many are, but well over half of all blacks in industrial areas were born there. South Africa's black labor force is indispensable to the survival of the country's industrialized economy--and to the whites' very good life.

To tell these workers that they are foreigners, living in black gulags, and can express their political voice only in distant homelands is sheer fantasy.

Indeed, fantasy abounds. Official South Africa has an extraordinary belief in the Word, in the notion that if something is said, it is done. Thus the government seriously asserts that there is no discrimination based on color, but only separate development, a necessary chance for all groups to safeguard their identities. Race discrimination, of course, is minutely written into the statute books--an outgrowth of the Afrikaners' urge to codify. A prominent member of a South African foundation declares with an almost palpable wink: "We could strip apartheid legislation from the books and yet nothing need change. We could accomplish all the same things by local regulations or custom."

Amid the evasions, rationalizations and semantic games, some very real change is occurring, even though many white Africans still oppose even the small concessions the government has made. "Change" itself, like "progress," is a dirty word, regarded as a code term for subversion. The euphemism to be used is "movement." Two years ago, a leading Afrikaans writer, Leon Rousseau, was savaged by fellow Afrikaners when he called for "penance" and a "national admission of guilt." Yet this spring the Afrikaner Writers Guild adopted a resolution declaring itself against "a dispensation in which the majority of our population is denied humanitarian and basic rights." In a new interracial group called Women for Peace, Afrikaners have started a continuing dialogue with blacks, discussing their problems and busing in children from the black townships to play with their own. Another group of women, most of them white, called the Black Sash, has demonstrated against "unjust" laws for many years and runs advice offices to help Africans who run afoul of the pass laws (the regulations that require blacks to carry identity papers at all times and restrict their movements). Most South African businessmen are convinced that blacks must be brought along farther and faster in the economy. There have been some changes in "petty apartheid." Whites boast that "international" hotels have been opened to blacks, and that blacks now participate in white sports, which has great symbolic meaning. All this would have been impressive ten or 15 years ago, but in today's world it is far too little and too late.

In the dreaded area of "power sharing," too, a minority has recognized that change must come. But even the most progressive whites do not look for one-man, one-vote reform, under which the whites would obviously be outvoted. They are more or less desperately searching for other devices. One of the most frequently heard catch phrases has to do with moving away from the "Westminster system" of parliamentary representation toward some form of presidential or federal system. One notion is to qualify black suffrage on the basis of education or property. Another is to have the several "communities"--whites, blacks, coloreds (people of mixed blood)--choose representative bodies to run their local affairs. They would come together in a sort of federal body, but not on the basis of proportional representation, in order to protect the whites from being outvoted. Who would preside over this body, and how it could equitably handle national matters such as taxation, is not clear. Vorster professes to be skeptical of all such schemes. With characteristic bluntness he says: "Any alternative to the Westminster model is for whites, not for blacks. You either have the vote or you don't have it. There is no in-between stage."

And what about the blacks in all this? Although the arguments are about them, they are sometimes almost overlooked as people. Blacks in South Africa have two different incarnations. First there are the blacks on the streets, in the shops, in the factories. Locked into their own form of narrow white tribalism, whites deal with the blacks, pay them, talk of them in cliches, but do not really see them. Then there are "the blacks" as a large, looming abstraction, a vast uncertain threat. It casts an inevitable shadow over the heart breakingly lovely landscape, over everything that is done, every political act, every economic plan, every white hope. In the mind of the white South African, there is usually very little connection between the two incarnations: the houseboy, the factory worker, the shop assistant are so familiar and often so placid that one can scarcely link them with that other, menacing force. Partly that is because black life is hidden and to a great extent silent. And yet slowly, slowly, the two black images are converging. To the whites' shocked disbelief, this happened during the bloody Soweto riots a year ago, when ordinary blacks suddenly turned into embodiments of rage.

Although formal black leadership is constantly harassed and suppressed, there are innumerable blacks who think, talk and, indirectly, lead. Mostly they are bitter and angry. Their bitterness is directed not only at the government but at the liberals, who are seen as more hypocritical than the Afrikaner. When Diamond Tycoon Harry Oppenheimer and other leading, well-meaning white businessmen set up the Urban Foundation to help improve the quality of life of black Africans, the reaction of many black spokesmen was that this would simply ameliorate apartheid rather than change anything basic. Says one black African editor: "Oppenheimer wakes up one morning after a good dream and gives a million dollars. We don't want charity." The black hope for a peaceful solution has drastically diminished, but it has not disappeared. Says another black journalist: "There is not going to be a Congo here. Most black people would gladly move ahead and forget the past."

Yet the young high school students who have virtually taken over the black protest movement, and who were the leaders of the Soweto riots, sound very different (see story page 28). They have a new feeling of power, and they are disillusioned with their parents' efforts to bring about peaceful change and gradual concessions from the government. Most of the young are convinced that this approach has failed. There is much rhetoric about having nothing to live for, but something to die for.

All this is moving and impressive, but there is also something slightly pathetic about seeing groups of 19-and 20-year-olds, sketchily educated, with some passionate but rather naive ideas about history and politics, cast as the leaders of a black revolution. Ultimately the question is just how serious black resistance can be, how much difference it can make. As long ago as the mid-'40s, there were predictions of an imminent eruption in South Africa. There were many individual outbursts, but Armageddon never came. Black South Africans (and indeed whites as well) are subject to a formidable, determined, often brutal, well-armed police state. Apart from being put in jail for a variety of reasons, people may be "banned"--restricted to a certain location, prohibited from attending meetings (including church) or going to school. Such intimidation works. So far, there have been few signs of urban guerrilla action or terrorism. There have been some individual work stoppages, and it is generally assumed that a one-week strike of the black work force around Johannesburg could shatter or at least severely damage the South African economy. No such strike has happened, because black workers are afraid of reprisals and because they cannot afford a strike, living as they do mostly just above poverty. The government may well keep the lid on for many more years or even decades. As one white editor says, "Soweto riots could just become an annual event." And yet the present situation--a continuing white sense of living under siege, a continuing black fever of resentment--cannot go on indefinitely without serious damage to the country. Fear would spread like slow poison (and, among other things, would deter investment from abroad). Sooner or later, the jailed always deform the jailers.

The government is convinced, or pretends to be, that black resistance is stirred up by Communists. Undoubtedly there is some Communist agitation and organization, although it is impossible to say how much or how systematic. Without question, the government --which all too quickly labels many kinds of criticism or opposition as Communist--vastly exaggerates the situation. There is a lot of Marxist or quasi-Marxist talk, but basically the blacks know little of Communism--except that it appears to be on their side. Official South Africa believes that it is making a brave stand against Communist encroachment. In fact, the South African regime is a formidable ally of Communism.

As in so many other places, the suppression of legitimate, moderate opposition leads to radicalization. Marxism in the black African countries, plus obvious Soviet attempts at penetration, is a very legitimate worry for South Africa--and the U.S. Some sort of socialist, one-party government is inevitable for many black African countries at this stage, but that does not mean Soviet control or even influence. Far from it. As Moscow has discovered, Africa's mercurial nations make difficult ground for political colonization. They are fiercely divided among themselves. The one thing that unites them is opposition to the racist regimes of southern Africa, and the chief force that attracts them to Moscow is the promise of support in that conflict.

Certainly the U.S. should not allow itself to be pushed, by the threat of Communist advances, into a policy toward South Africa that is against its self-interest. But all the past reasons for the U.S. support of South Africa--trade, raw materials, strategic position --fade in comparison with the great symbolic issue. 'South Africa has made itself into a kind of international acid test of decency on race. This is not to say that South Africa must be opposed unconditionally on all issues. But the U.S. cannot support the present government unless its policies change. This indeed is a matter of American self-interest. As a member of South Africa's Institute on Race Relations puts it, "If America can demonstrate that liberal, capitalist democracy has an answer to racial discrimination, and an answer sufficiently powerful to move white South Africa, then the scenario for Africa's whole future could be different."

If the South African government refuses to change, should the U.S. back economic sanctions? Most blacks think so. They are bitter over U.S. trade with South Africa (including arms sales). They are familiar with the argument that by doing business with South Africa the U.S. retains some leverage, but most fail to see the results of that leverage. Yet sanctions probably would not work, given South Africa's own vast resources and other willing suppliers. Such measures would probably hurt America's European allies, who are heavy trading partners of South Africa, more than they would hurt their target. Sanctions must not be ruled out, but other forms of persuasion and pressure must be tried first. That will not be easy. The U.S. does not really have many ways of applying such pressure; while it would not help South Africa in a guerrilla war with black nationalists, it could scarcely help the other side either.

What should America hope and work for? The quick abolition of apartheid and far more rapid economic advancement for blacks. It should not, for the present, demand one man, one vote. To do so, as Vice President Walter Mondale seemed to, means in effect writing off any hope of a peaceful settlement. One man, one vote only antagonizes virtually all white South Africans, convinces them that the U.S. is neither serious nor reasonable and that they might as well go down fighting. For the near term, some form of qualified black suffrage should be the goal. Even most black spokesmen in South Africa plead only for a form of "sharing in the decision-making process." Would this satisfy the black nationalists elsewhere in Africa? Surely not, but that should not deter us. Serious change--a serious political role for blacks combined with genuine retreat from apartheid and genuine steps toward economic equality --would make a tremendous difference.

Africa raises haunting questions of history and conscience. As a Westerner in Africa, one finds it hard to avoid the familiar but stunning fact that no advanced civilization, no written language ever existed south of the Sahara. One contemplates the mysterious ruins of Zimbabwe, from which black nationalists have taken the new name for Rhodesia, and which are pointed to with pride as a remnant of a great African past. No one is sure who built this temple city, probably in the last half of the 15th century, but one is struck by the fact that, for all its grandeur, it was erected stone by stone, without mortar, with the most primitive technology, at a time when the Pyramids were ancient, when the Acropolis was old, when Chartres was no longer new. It is no use denying that in Africa one often feels a sense of Western cultural superiority, and this contributes to the white South African attitude.

Anthropologists used to explain Africa's lack of development as a result of climate; more recently it has been argued that African culture was not backward, only different from the West's. In any event, one must remember that in a sense Africa is our common past (through fossil finds of increasing antiquity, man's evolutionary origins have been traced to East Africa). Besides, there are intimations in Africa's remnants of unspoiled nature, of secure tribal life, that we have lost something in what we regard as our gains. But the greatest of these gains is indeed crucial: Western technology is an unprecedented equalizing force, largely erasing the differences of tradition, culture, race that white South Africans have enshrined as religion.

It is understandable that the South Africans' sense of reality is different from ours. They are caught in a tragedy of history, not entirely of their own making. If 4 million white Americans were living in a country with 21 million blacks (or 21 million American Indians, as South Africans often gleefully suggest), how would they act? Wouldn't they also fear that any significant political concession would, in Vorster's word, "swamp" them? Wouldn't they try to hold on to what they built (with black labor, of course)? And yet the longer real change is delayed, the harder it will be to achieve any sort of moderate settlement or work out a partnership between black and white. Right now that may still be possible--just barely. The situations are different, but Rhodesia's Ian Smith could have had a much better deal, with a moderate black regime, ten years ago than he can possibly have now. If the South African government refuses to change, it will assure an interminable series of explosions, terror, guerrilla war, the radicalization of the blacks.

It is difficult to ask the South Africans to risk so much. Yet if they fail to move, they risk still more. Even if they manage to delay the inevitable for a generation or more, they will simply transfer the burden to their offspring. They may buy time for themselves, but they will doom their own children to the terrible battle with the children of Soweto.

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