On the eve of the white
SOUTH AFRICA
Lastly, this crisis in the ruling party will have consequences for the crediinstitutional projects that Botha has been proposing for some years to his electors, and also to the various non-white political groupthe (Asian) Workers' Party is currently experiencing a deep crisis, inasmuch as some of its members are beginning to have doubts about the future prospects of their shameful collaboration with
THE SOUTH AFRICAN president, P.W. Botha, decided to call general lections two years early for the white parliament. To be held in Ma!
hese elections are evidently only for the white electorate. Such the rule of apartheid, which denies the non-white majority of the population the right to vote. PETER BLUMER
Coloureds and Asians in South Africa now have their own chambers, while Africans still have no right to "national" representation. Coloured and Asian representatives sit in the white parliament buildings in Cape Town, but separately. (1) Moreover, the President's Council, composed of members of the three chambers nominated by the president, is a consultative body for Botha.
This is therefore a parliamentary facade. While class inequality in general makes the representative bour. geois democracy a formal democracy, racial segregation. and the omnipotence of the police apparatus make it a farce. The Black mass movement will never be able to change this society its parliamentary institutions. The policy of pressure within the system has always been doomed to failure, and this regularly radicalized all the Black movements throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
Yet it would be wrong to think that the May 1987 elections are unimportant. They will have a certain significance in measuring the crisis and the doubts currently affecting the white community, the party in government Botha decided on early spite of this crisis. He wants to evaluate the relationship of forces inside the white community. He also wants to win time to prepare some constitutional measures.
For three years the South African government has shown itself incapable of defining medium-term policies. By its indecisiveness, it has exhausted the patience of a part of its electorate. The National Party (NP), in power since 1948, has entered into a period of serious difficulties. It would be incorrect to think that this is just a temporary crisis, owing to some political errors commited by Botha 6 and his team. On the contrary, it is a large-scale crisis which reflects the cracks developing inside South African society today.
Botha is not only looking to gain time in the contlict against the racist society and with the Black mass move-
He has also to find a solution to the crisis that is rending the white community, between liberals and nationalists, between reformers and conservatives. These divisions have now reached into the government's cabinet itself, and there are now dissidents inside the National Party, although still on a modest scale, who are nicknamed the "New Nats" -new nationalists. The Nationalists' worst crisis in history
Without doubt, this is the most serious crisis that the party has ever gone through. Having had a split some years ago with the most right wing elements who Botha's projects for "reform" it is the more reformist wing who are making themselves heard. However, it must be stressed that many of these people are recent converts to reform. They are still far from being compara ble to the bourgeois liberals of the Progressive Federal Party (PFP). But whatever their basic political position, they represent an additional element in the crisis of bourgeois rule in the the moment, no one is expecting election surprises. Various polls give between 49 and 58 per cent to the National Party. (2) But there are quite a lot of unknown factors in relation to the urban
So, for some months there have been spectacular happenings in the ranks of the NP. The most well-known is the resignation of the British am. bassador, Denis Worall, who reproaches the government for being unable to offer the country a new historical vision of the future. He announced his intention to stand as an indepen. dent candidate with financial backing from businessmen. (3) Although he is formally in favour of democratization in South Africa, he never theless estimates "that there are many grounds for viewing with extreme scepticism the prospects of an all-embracing consociational democracy [for a democracy inclusive of all the various communities] inSouth Africa."
Worall was, in fact, the chair of Botha's constitutional committee, and, as such, in 1982 he defended the principle of excluding Africans from the electoral reform. So it's possible to appreciate the limits of his "radicalization"! Moreover, he was say about the mass movement: "] accept that the involvement of the African National Congress (ANC) -and other groups - is essential for the resolution of our problems. But that can only happen when there is a process into which they can merge".
There are other influential dissiWynand Malan, a member of parliament, resigned to protest against Botha's defence of the Group Areas Act. (4) He also came out for dis cussions with the ANC. Another,
Many things were not planned, notably that they would have the right to eat in the same canteen as their white counterparts. Various protests and confusions ensued.
At the same time the extreme right could not succeed in making a common front. The negotiations between the Conservative Party and the Herstige National Party failed despite the intervention of the neo-nazi group, Eugene TerreBlanche's Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.
3. These backers an important have operatierest, mo moreover, in the ba" operation further on in the article. The
Group Areas Act is the law on racially segregated living areas that Botha has always considered as indis. pensable, along with the law on segregated schooling. There exist, however, many proposals to reform this system, but the government until now has rejected the terms. International Viewpoint 4 May 1987
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elections
MA WU women demonstrating in Durban, shortly before a police attack in which one was killed (DR)
Albert Nothnagel, said that it was a myth to think that the crisis could be solved without the ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela.
In the Cape region, the NP's crisis is very severe, notably focused around Esther Lategan, an ex academic who today owns a chain of stores. At the Stellenbosch university, near the Cape, there are also a number of professors known for their support for the NP who have mades a big splash about splitting with the party.
Denis Worall, Wynand Malan and Esther Lategan published a manifesto in which they explain that: "Black politics must be freed so that it may become properly organized... Action against politicians and political organidespite its pretentious goal of infusing "a new spirit into our country"
Just as indicative of the crisis of "Afrikaner" values is the fact that the Broederbond itself wracked by the reform dilemma. This often likened to a sort Afrikaner masonic lodge, founded in 1918, and all through its history was the symbol of "Christian
Very influential in the social, economic and ideological
Afrikaner Broederbond provided a large number of political the National Party governments loomed the shadow of this movement.
International Viewpoint 4 May 1987
In 1968, at the 50th anniversary of the Broederbond, one of its leaders explained its role: "Since the Afrikaner Broederbond got into its stride, it has given the country its governments. It has given the country every Nationalist prime minister since 1948. It has given us the Republic, even though indirectly. It has given us two state presidents. What would have happened to the Afrikaner volk [people] if the Broederbond had ceased to exist? Our nation depends on the Broederbond." (5) Doubt penetrates Afrikaner bastion
But doubt is now gripping this brotherhood. In an internal document there now appears what would have been an unthinkable heresy a short while ago. "Neither a black head of state nor a government in which blacks predominate are in themselves a threat to Afrikaner survival, but according to this document this only applies if that broader system of government should be structured to prevent the domination of one racial group." (6)
Still more spectacular is the fact that the Broederbond agreed meet ANC representatives last year in New York. And its current president, Pieter J. de Lange, explained that his movement could serve as a "contact agency" for a multiracial dialogue. While these positions have had little effect they can only further aggravate the disarray inside the white
International Viewpoint has often carried articles explaining the reasons for the current crisis in South Africa. growths of the Black masses' revolutionary movement and the crisis of the mode of capitalist accumulation under apartheid. This is why, at all levels of the white population, there is a profound which may take a more frustrated or more sophisticated form depending on the social milieu concerned.
Evidently, most of the whites do not understand the objective reasons for what is happening at the moment. But in a vague way some of them realise the risks inherent in maintainsystem. Hatred of transforms itself into fear a revolution or civil need for a compromise is invoked
5. See 'The Staper Striders naIvor Wilkings and Hans Strydom, than Ball, Johannesburg, 1978. According to the authors, the Broederbond had 12,000 members in 1977.
6. Johannesburg 'Weekly Mail', February 6, 1987.
such a "catastrophe". But, unfortunately for them, whether the choice is to go for reform or to stick to the status quo - and this is what explains Botha's hesitations - threat of a social expulsion remains the same.
For many decades Afrikaner morale with South Africa "communist But today these friends of yesteryear are extolling reform and denouncing the Afrikaners' way of looking
A recent book describes clearly anisms of apartheid's crisis: policies now had no real consistency. At the end of 1985 he had come very to releasing Mandela under pressure from Western governments and bankers; six months later he switched 180 degrees, slammed the more ruthless Emergency. With such inconsistent, demands prompted by international
The liberal current, beginning with
Progressive Federal this situation. of being traditionally based porters of democratization have today the impression that they have a serious card to play. Their hope is to substantially increase the number of seats that they hold in parliament and then, in alliance with the "New Nats" to be able to provoke a real crisis in the regime. A pact has been made with another "liberal" formation, the New Republic Party (NRP), which voted in 1983 with the nationalists during the constitutional referendum.
The PFP's optimism rests on the idea that part of the Afrikaner elecis now favourable real structural reforms. Paul Malherbe, a member of the PFP, wrote in the International Herald Tribune last Jan-
"Yet now the climate is right as never before for a change of government. A poll in mid-1985 found that 63 per cent of whites do not believe apartheid will last another 10 years. And in a survey published last month in a South African weekly, 42 per cent of white voters indicated that they favoured a non-racial constitutional alternative along the lines advocated by the PFP, while only 27 percent preferred the present government s policy of 'power-
'ethnically based' constitution." As a result of these 8 calculations, the PFP envisages in not presenting its own candidate if a "New Nat" is standing.
All this will not be without problems. The PFP itself is far from being homogeneous. It is currently having debates on which constitutional path to advocate, between a federalism giving some rights to particular "min-
"non-racialism" Evidently, behind all the question of the ANC and relations with it. On this, also, there are quesmarks on to the extent of relations and discussions with the clandesMoves by the bosses
South Africa is experiencing a slight economic upturn. mining groups made very big profits in 1986, which is not without its balance. But this observation must be considerably qualified by noting the persistance of structural problems: strong inflation, absence of political investment confidence and ie external debt. It is true that so bad for the economy that even the least optimistic thought there would be an improvement in Denis Worrall (DR)
All this is not unrelated to the big political debate mentioned previously. For the bulk of large South African capital, the problem is not only to find a solution to the growth of the mass movement. but at the same time to solve the problems of South African capitalism. deregulation extolled by the employers has a
"liberal-democratic" tone, because it calls for eliminating bureaucratic ponderousness, economic compartmentalization and the financial cost of apartheid.
Tony Norton, executive president of the Johannesburg stock exchange, recently explained: "We are optimistic. We are building across the road to develop and expand because we believe a post-apartheid society is going to be significantly wealthier and more productive than the one we have now." (9)
The political changes going on the National Party are not unrelated to the growing authority of the employers in the large-scale manoeuvres underway. Both nationally and in relations with the important means for action. (10)
The departures of foreign companies are favouring greater monopolization of the economy, reinforcing a bit more the institutional weight of some big conglomerates. Recently it has been noted that companies such as Sanlam have encouraged foreign firms to quit because that provides an opportunity to buy them at a the British bank Barclays decided to pull out of South Africa at the end of 1986, some parts of Barclays-SA were bought up by the South African giant, the Anglo-American Corporation. AAC now controls 60.1 per cent of the total shares on the Johannesburg stock exchange. The four "giants" - AAC, Sanlam, SA Mutual and Rembrandt -now control 83.1 per cent of shares. In 1986, 70 new companies were quoted on the stock exchange, representing a growth of 21.6 per cent in capitalization, but the four "giants" already controlled 43 percent of this.
It is understandable in these conditions that some ministers were worried over the growth of monopolies, since they also represent a strong political lobby. It is really a very curious situation because the state itself has a monopoly position Gold, Anthony and spoun 'Black and
Hodder Stoughton, London, 1987.
Van Rensburg, a local PFP member, resigned, denouncing the equivocal attitude of the party towards the ANC/Communist Party alliance. According to him, the PFP gives the impression that it has decided that "the ANP will win".
'Weekly Mail', January 30, 1987.
10. A detailed account of the meeting in September 1985 between the ANC's leadership and representatives of the most important employers was a timely confirmation of that. In the London 'Observer' of January 18, 1987, Anthony Sampson explained in detail the relaxed atmosphere of the meeting and how Gavin Relly, the leader of the Anglo-American Corporation, declared that "it was one of the nicest days I've ever spent". The press has also become a propaganda outlet for the liberal employers' current.
International Viewpoint 4 May 1987
in certain sectors: it represents 24.6 per cent of the global assets of. 137 of the largest companies in the country.
monopolization the economy generates constant inflapressure. Inflation was 18.6 per cent in 1986, and it is expected to be lower this year. Apartheid excludes the majority of Blacks from mass consumption. On the other hand, unemployment is expanding.
why inflation only narrows the inter- SANG nal market still further, much to the regret of industrialists example, car sales were at their lowest level for ten years, but prices rose by 35 percent during the year. What is left of the car industry is working at 13 per cent of its capacity.
It is in this context that the "business world" is getting more involved in political activity. It is behind the "New Nats". It is also behind "multioperation in the Natal ('Indaba"), which aims at economically integrating the KwaZulu Bantustan bourgeoisie, and white industry and commerce. Those involved plan to establish new institutions bringing together representatives of the different communities. The personality of Chief Buthelezi, the leader of the KwaZulu, is not unimportant in this affair. He is one of the cards that imperialism, and a section of the South African liberals, hope to be able to play one day to get a negotiated settlement. The Pretoria government has rejected this project, but the local employers have announced their willingness to finance a local referendum in order to demonstrate its credibility.
In many interviews, the employers private enterprise, a line which brings to mind the concerns of US diplomacy.
The National Party's crisis is not unrelated to the course of the various governments, beginning with the United States. The West's grand plan is in fact to bring off a settlement that definitively put a stop to the radicalization of the mass movement and break the present unified momentum. To do that, it has to combine two things: establishing a consensus between the liberals and a section of on the one side, and on the other finding moderates who are able to speak for the Black population.
This project is still very complicated in South Africa's conditions. First of all, there is the fact that a section of the liberals seems hardly conscious of the dangers of an explosion due to a rapid process of reforms. In the present circumstances,
International Viewpoint 4 May 1987
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workers' demands in the factories would compromise the whole project. Additionally, there is the fact that the "New Nats" are in too much of a minority at the moment. It would be necessary for a substantial section of the party to swing over to opposition. Speculation about the ANC
Then comes the problem of the Black movement. Until now, the cards down to Chief Buthelezi and possibly Bishop Desmond Tutu. (12) vance towards a negotiated settlement there has to be a realignment inside the ANC. But in the union movement, and in some parts of the UDF, we have seen rather a radicalization of the current in the last year. (13) Although it is difficult to know what is being discussed in the ANC's exile leadership at the moment, all the indications are that in the present imperialist project of ANC" remains very
In the United States, the Consultative Committee on South Africa resubmitted a report to George Shultz on February 10 that proposed negotiations between the ment and representative leaders of the Black majority, with a view to establishing a non-racial, democratic regime. The US government persists, however, in its scepticism about the effectiveness of this, since for the
Black ANC members at funeral (DR) moment it does not believe there will be a turnaround by the ANC.
But according to the Weekly Mail on March 20, a US state department document estimates that "serious communists) surface within the ANC" if relations between the ANC and the western powers could be improved
The US government's hesitations and doubts are not unrelated to the various reactions of the multinationals
Some have announced that they intend to stay and that in doing so they are better able to put pressure on the govern. ment. (15) But others preferred to either selling their holdings or negotiating a sub-contracting ment. US investment exceeded 2.8 1.3s thousand million in 1986; 40 US companies left thes country in 1985, and 48 in 1986. (16)
All this obviously impels the various lobbies to speed up the search
11. "Nationalisation, socialisation and the freedom charter", by Robert Davies, 'South African Labour Bulletin', January 1987
12. Desmond Tutus is absorbed in the democratic opposition movement. He is a member of the United Democratic Front (UDF). But he took a certain number of initiatives and made some declarations which momentarily discredited him, notably among the youth. Unquestionably, he remains ready to make a deal with the United States.
13. reference to those who claim allegiance the Freedom Charter, the ANC's programme.
14. Article by Pipa Green reporting from the US.
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UNBAN UDF SRYS UNBAN
acknowledgement in the chancelleries of the central role played by the ANC has a very precise significance: this solution is to come about through a swing to the right by the ANC. The time has ended when the ANC was portrayed as simply a small terrorist group. George Shultz received Oliver Tambo in Washington a few months after the British government met ANC representatives officially for the first time. But what chance of does Western diplomacy have in this
The ANC has won a considerable social base in recent years. It now reaches into all the more disadvantaged social layers up Black employers and the democratic white milieu. Imperialism knows that this strength could perhaps be a means for influencing the political course of the ANC, obliging it to reconcile the contradictory demands of these diverse layers. Imperialism wants to force the ANC to choose a moderate path, or to retreat into a long-term radical strategy, all the more difficult solution in the South African context.
All this talk about the hope of a break between the nationalist current and the ANC and the Communist on this hypothesis. hope and reality there is a large gap: a great number of factors are acting adversely to the hopes of imperialism. But against this what seems to stand out is the ANC's desire to utilise to the full opportunities for isolating the Botha and to take full advantage of National Party's crisis. Tambo's trip to the US had this as function, and he sets his explicitly on the business United Democratic which today very largely reflects the ANC's tactical choices, has taken a position on the coming elections. It has made a clear choice to take the side of one camp against another inside the white electorate. Its appeal addresses itself directly to "New Nats", to the PFP liberals and the name of the UDF, the Murphy Morobe calls the electors "to contribute to racism and minority domination". At the same time, Blacks, who obviously will not be participate in the voting, are asked to build a campaign denouncing the elections". In relation to the future and to the democratic regroupments which may appear, those genuinely apartheid, black and white, will be 10 welcomed into these organizations as fellow South Africans committed to the liberation of our people" break with outdated political loyalties must come ... The majority of South Africans say to you: pressurise the National Party and its MPs into addressing the real problems of this country; demand that the government abandons its present course; demand that it faces up to political reality and addresses the legitimate demands of the maiority" The UDF's appeals to employers
The UDF asks the employers to "do more than advertise social programmes and talk loosely of reform
• It is insufficient to talk to the ANC one month and stand silent while the State of Emergency is declared another month". Finally, Morobe questions the PFP liberals on their consitutional project: Majority rule, or not?
This obviously is going to revive the debate over the orientation of the UDF, and consequently, of the ANC. Are they not going for an implicit front, bringing together a section of the liberals, employers and the UDE? Are they not heading for negotiations? These are the problems that current most critical of the ANC will not fai
However, the question is more complicated than it would appear.
position of the UDF, broadly, is not wrong in itself. To play on the crisis of the ruling party -power for 39 years - and to aggravate the differentiations inside the ruling class can be an entirely necessary objective for anyone who poses the question of power. There remain, however, many other problems just as
The first is knowing where the real strategic line of march of the movement now lies. Is it the perspectivesof a governmental crisis in the mediumterm, allowing the regime to be transformed, the ANC to be legalized or something else of that sort? Is it the line prevailing in the ANC's journal, Sechaba, which is still committed to the idea of a sustained insurrectional situation and a revolutionary uprising? It is obviously preferable to have more iron in the fire. But the forecasts about what will happen in two or three years consequences in the way in which the mass movement will be mobilized and
The second problem is relations with the employers. The union move. ment, for its part, does not want to them. Here, it is hardly a question of
La pedagogic language for businessmen. The recent strike at the
Bazaars stores illustrated well the impossibility of demands and the interests of the large liberal employers. (17)
Trade unionists do not have the same concerns as Morobe appealed to your employers, fellow workers and friends on the real election Tell them of your support future. Tell them of apartheid repres sion and the reign of townships and homelands"
This is no longer an appeal to the liberal employers, but the proposal of a task for Black workers. At the same time the COSATU unions are reaffirming more and more their choice for socialism and their break with capitalism. Now a number 'of liberals are asking which line will prevail in the mass movement in a few months time. (18)
Will the tactical necessity to deepen the regime's crisis prevail over more radical objectives? No one can really answer this question today, because too many factors enter into the equation. COSATU has consolidated itself as a force that cannot be bypassed, and the positions it takes are pulling the whole mass movement towards the left. Its congress, planned for July this year, will no doubt reveal the state of its political convictions, its longterm objectives and the level of unity of the different currents within its leadership. (19) Nothing therefore indicates that we are on the eve of a great turn, of a third possible path for the mass movement.
the case with Shell, who publish some inserts in the press "Shell supports the free press" a report of Viewpoint he strike, 13 'Anti-apartheid mineworkers The recent congress of held under the slogan of "socialism
The preamble to the resolutions the 'Weekly Mail' said: "While the standard UDF position is boycott of 'apartheid institutions' as reflected in its opposition to the tri.
Ub seems to be sage to its white supporters'
These are mainly various currents International Viewpoint 4 May 1987
EL SALVADOR
General Blandon, chief of staff of the armed forces, severely criticized this suspension: "The possibilities for inquiries against presumed guerrillas will be affected. Those