SOUTH AFRICA How far has the new upsurge gone ? THE POLITICAL situation has been evolving rapidly in South Africa. New relationships of forces have been established over the last years. The violence of the clashes that occurred between June and October 1985 confirmed that the country has entered a new period. The elements of this change have in fact been accumulating for almost twelve years, beginning with the Natal general strike in 1973 and the 1976 youth uprising in Soweto and in the Transvaal.
It is easier today than in the past to form an opinion on the concrete situation in South Africa, inasmuch as the mass movement has given rise to a variety of activist journals. For its part, the Englishlanguage liberal big press has improved its content somewhat, and has even taken a rather militant tone to defend the point of view of the bourgeois opposition to the regime of Pieter Botha.
are not making it any easier to solve the problem. Some express the fear of a certain ultraleftism that they think they see among the young people linked to the UDF, and which they trace back to the slogan of the African National Congress (ANC) of making the country "ungovernable."
The school boycott has gradually led to clashes with the army. The young people have been making a target out of any vehicle doing the business one way or another of the system and sporadically occupying the roads. They have been savagely repressed. Many have already been killed and a great many wounded. On October 15, the army set up an ambush in Athlone and cold-bloodedly shot down four youths at pointblank range.
The other form of struggle underway is the boycott of white-owned stores. Its success remains uneven, depending on the objective conditions. It has been successful where the white stores are only a few outlets in remote townships, for example in the regions of Pietermaritzburg and East London. But it has been virtuallv nonexistent in the greater virtually nonexistent in the greater part of Capetown.
In order to be fully successful, this form of action would require in fact a very high level of organization, which has not yet been achieved. The action, however, has been sufficient to get merchants associations to begin to express their fears to the government. (5)
Finally, the pressure of the workers and the trade-union movement in the workplaces remains very strong. Many strikes took place over September and October, in particular in the Volkswagen, Mercedes, and Alfa Romeo plants. According to the chair of the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU), some trade-unionists continue to get death threats. Passports have also been regularly refused to unionists who want to go abroad to promote solidarity.
The FOSATU chair pointed out; "When Black workers representatives want to speak for themselves, they are denied passports. This also once again raises the sinister links between
1. The election for these rigged institutions was massively boycotted by those entitled to vote for them. On Botha's constitutional reforms, see International Viewpoint,' No. 46, February 13, 1984.
See Inprecor (IV's Frenchlanguage sister publication), No. 80, June 26, 1980.
3. Cape Herald, October 12, 1985.
In the African townships the situation of disorganization and tension is such that there is often a de facto boycott of the schools but which does not take the form of an organized struggle. Repression has been used against the high-school boycott. Around a hundred anti-apartheid activists have been arrested
5. Sunday Times, October 13, 1985. International Viewpoint 25 November 1985
These developments enable us present political situation. PETER BLUMER
Over the month of October, new elements came to light in the South African situation. The big mobilizations that took place in the winter gave way to more isolated clashes, sometimes of a very specific character. The most striking development was undoubtedly the secondary school boycott in the Cape region.
Since Capetown has been classified as a preferred residential zone for Coloureds, the high-school students' struggle took on the dimensions of a confrontation between the Coloured youth and the Ministry of Education of the House of Representatives for Coloured Affairs. (1) That is, this struggie struck at the heart of apartheid.
The high-school students, like the overwhelming majority of the populauon, grant no legitimacy to this kind of institution, regarding its agents rightly as mere collaborators with the racist government.
The boycott started on July 29, 1985 and is still continuing. This is the first time that a school strike has lasted such a long time. And the support from parents and teachers has been broader than during the mobilizations of 1980, when the Coloured high-school students had "their Soweto." (2)
This kind of struggle, however, 14 to clarify certain features of the is not without its contradictions. Refusal in principle to negotiate with a puppet administration leaves no immediate solution for this boycott, unless the regime backs down totally. Since there is no prospect of that at the moment, the students have been led in fact to modify their demands, focusing their movement on a more and more remote objective.
At the outset, they demanded the lifting of the state of emergency applied in a part of the country. Subsequently, about a dozen demands were raised, mainly concerned with the question of repression in the schools. Then, they put in question the whole system of second-rate education offered to non-whites. Finally, with the prompting notably of young sympathizers of the United Democratic Front, a part of the movement has identified with the slogan "No education without liberation." (3)
The high-school students movement has had difficulty in organizing itself and getting a second wind. The lack of concrete proposals for a continuing organizaiton of youth may even lead to a demoralization of the strikers. (4)
The weakness of teacher unionism, along with the hesitations of the parents in this period of examinations and the political differences that exist
BREAD
WORKERS
DEMAND
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UZI
•READ the government and business. Passports are denied to our representatives to the UN hearing. But representatives of industry can go to the same hearings without difficulty." (6) The liberal view scores some points
The most significant development in recent weeks, however, has been the change underway in a section of the white population. Unquestionably, the fear created by the troubles in July and August has modified the political opinion of a certain number of whites.
The traumatic effect has been essentially on the petty bourgeois and a part of the bourgeoisie, but not on the white wage workers. What is also new is that this evolution is taking place also in certain Afrikaner circles, and not just, as was the case before, only among English speakers. It is important, however, not to exaggerate this phenomenon.
Nonetheless, militant reformism is having a heyday. Often taking a Christian coloration, it refleets fundamentally the fear of confrontation. Many organizations have arisen, such as Women for Peace and Let South Africa Speak, which are campaigning to get South Africans to learn to know each other and talk to each other. They are all advocating rapid and substantial reforms. Apartheid is being seen as a time bomb that has to be defused as quickly as possible.
Such evolution could not have gotten underway if the liberal opposition and the press favorable to it had not already been waging very energetic campaigns on these themes for some time. Every passing day, the big English language papers hammer away at the Botha government, declaring the need to take a new look at the constitution and public life as a whole.
Among many others, the comments in the October 11 Financial Mail were significant in this regard:
"Behind all the jargon and rubbish being put out by the Nationalists these days lies a profound fear. It is that the Afrikaner tribe will lose power. And, following that, there appears to be some kind of apocalyptic vision of the Afrikaners dispersed in their own diaspora, their language scorned, their culture vilified. Anything, it seems is preferable to that: a mickeymouse currency, a controlled economy, disinvestment, debt default, poverty and starvation, mothers and children whipped into sullen submission, military rule, war in far lands." This is how the journalists of high finance are writing these days!
But who are these liberals who are coming out so firmly against apartheid? The main party representing them is
Workers on strike in South Africa (DR) the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), which has long been seen as a formation linked to South African financial circles and to the English-speaking bosses, such as, for example, the Anglo-American Corporation.
Capital is highly concentrated in South Africa. A half dozen groups control the vast and extremely lucrative mining industry, and six companies dominate the financial sector. The Anglo-American Corporation directs the five leading mining companies, and by itself holds a majority or strategic minority share of the stock in the five leading industrial trusts.
In 1976, the Anglo-American Corporation owned 250 companies trading in 22 different countries. Its capital was mingled with that of 73 big foreign banks and industries. (7)
It cannot be claimed, therefore, that the South African liberals represent a marginal current in the capitalist class or that they constitute a "nationalist" faction of the bourgeoisie only weakly linked to imperialism. It is this, perhaps, that gives their political actions, such as entering unilaterally into discussions with the ANC, an even more spectacular effect.
Financial Mail, October 27, 1985. Anglo-American and the Rise of Mourn South Africa,' Duncan Innes, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1984.
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International Viewpoint 25 November 1985
On September 13, a delegation of businesspeople went to Zambia to meet the leadership of the ANC. It was made up of representatives of the Anglo-American Corporation, the Association of Chambers of Commerce (ASSOCOM), the Afrikaanse Handelsinstitut, the South African Foundation, the Barlow Group, and Barclay's Bank.
Other contacts were made more discreetly. Moreover, it was confirmed in the Cape Times of September 9, 1985, that talks had been going on for a year in London between the AN and the South African Foundation. The first official meeting had at least the objective of showing in a spectacular way that the government of Pieter Botha was no longer respected. So, the bosses and the ANC discussed the democratization of South Africa.
With an ingenuousness far too great to be real, Tony Bloom, the boss great to be real, Tony Bloom, the boss of Premier Milling, explained later to the South African public: "I was struck by the absence of traditional Marxist-Leninist jargon and dogma. Even in the discussion on nationalisation of industry, the concepts could quite easily have fitted into a socialist rather than Marxist framework. I found it curious that they used the example of Sweden as an ideal, rather than the USSR or Eastern Bloc states." (8) The liberals meet the ANC
So, there you have a Tony Bloom, who in the recent past has been far from being among the reformist bosses, and all of a sudden he finds in himself a compassion for those that not long ago he considered terrorists to be shot down. Nonetheless, for the time being the bosses do not seem to want to go any further in the negotiations. Cautious and maneuverist by nature, they prefer to let the political apparatus act, even if this sometimes takes on the outlines of premature electoral campaigns. In any case, it was Van Zyl Slabbert, leader of the PFP, who led his party's delegation to Lusaka in Zambia on October 12, 1985, to meet the ANC in its turn. When he came back to South Africa, he announced that in his opinion, despite the differences, negotiated way out of our problem is still possible." (9) The joint communique specified that "both groups share the urgent need to dismantle apartheid and establish a non-racial and democratic South Africa."
It is not certain that Slabbert has unanimous support in his party, as indicated by the different shadings
Employers condemn apartheid ON SEPTEMBER 27, 1985, ninety of the biggest names in the world of business and high finance belonging to the English-speaking bourgeoisie in South Africa signed a document calling for the end of apartheid. Their statement said, notably: "We believe that the reform process should be accelerated by: — Abolishing statutory race discrimination wherever it exists. — Negotiating with acknowledged Black leaders about power sharing. - Granting full South African citizenship to all people ... We believe that there is a better way for South Africa, and we support equal opportunity, respect for individual, freedom of enterprise and freedom of movement."
Their spokesperson, Raymond Ackerman, was to specify that their action was designed to show both inside and outside of the country that the private sector wanted to promote change. He explained that they were equally opposed to poverty and unemployment and to a boycott of South Africa and disinvestment. He added "We are not asking for one man one vote — we are urging the government to negotiate shared power." (Cape Times, September 28, 1985.)
The Afrikaner private sector has not signed this document. Bishop Tutu and the chief of Kwa Zulu, Buthelezi, have supported it. Notable among the signatories are the bosses of Nedbank, Toyota, Barclays Bank, Anglo American (including H.F. Oppenheimer), of IBM, Rank Xerox, Caitex, Kodak, BMW, Control Data, Coca Cola, the Argus press group, Colgate, Vokswagen, General Motors, etc.
Motors, elc. in the successive declarations of PFP leaders. But the Slabbert operation is important at least because it represents an open division in the ruling class.
The writer of the editorial in the October 17 issue of Johannesburg's Business Day explained in this regard that "the old assumption that the nationalists are unbeatable in the white election no longer holds ... Instead, there is a reasonable prospect that the next election will split the whites three ways and that the moment of opportunity long foreseen by Slabbert will become a reality."
Hardly had the PFP delegation returned from Lusaka than the press announced in big headlines that Afrikaner students at the University of Stellenbosch in the northern Cape had also decided to send a delegation to Lusaka to meet the youth organization of the ANC.
That was a bitter blow for the scions of the HerrenVolk, who saw some of their offspring get the urge to discuss with Black representatives of a movement they consider "terrorist" and, what is more, "Communist." At last, the government decided to stop them from leaving the country and confiscated their passports -quite a pointless exercise, given the depth of the political debates running through the ruling class.
On October 23, it was the turn of the Methodist Church of South Africa to launch an attack against military service and to declare its support for discussions with the ANC, proclaiming; "The Gospel teaches us to love our enemies. How can you love your enemy if you don't even want to talk to him?"
The differences that have emerged publicly between the ANC and the liberals flowing from both meetings have borne essentially on what institutional form should be given to a future dismantling of apartheid. The PFP has advocated calling a broad National Convention that, among other forces, would include the government and the ANC.
The ANC has declared its opposition to such an initiative. A joint communique of October 12, 1985, explained that both parties differ on the principle of a National Convention, specifying that "The ANC does not consider that there has come into being a conducive climate to reach a negotiated resolution of the crisis." (10)
The AN's information secretary a bit later was to specify that despite its rejection of this proposal his organization believed that "everybody, every organization, must participate in the democratic process which will bring apartheid to an end." He was also to stipulate that "the ANC recognises that the PFP represents a very impor tant and significant constituency in society." (11)
The old idea of a National Convention suited the ANC in the 1950s. For a long time, it has been a point of contention in the South African political movement. Can basic democracy be negotiated between the oppressed and the oppressors? How can you negotiate anything besides calling free elections without conditions on the basis of universal suffrage to set up some sort of constituent assembly? Such were the terms of the debate.
The old line of the ANC on this question in the 1950s was in line with its idea of a democratization of the
Weekend Post,' Port Elizabeth, October 19, 1985.
'Cape Times,' October 14, 1985.
10. Idem.
11. Cape Times, October 15, 1985. International Viewpoint 25 November 1985
apartheid regime from above. In the 1958 "white" elections, for example, the ANC appealed to these voters with the slogan "Get the Nationalists out!" This meant in effect being for a white government of the United Party, the ancestor of the PFP, against the National Party.
The abrupt change in the political situation has thus put back on the agenda the question of what forms the democratization of the system might take. It is easy to understand why the liberals are favorable to a National Convention. It would enable them to put on stage all the political and ethnic forces created by racial segregation. This operation would thus make it possible for them to rely on the collaborationist political parties, the "governments" of the Bantustans, and manifold representatives of all the "races" and "ethnie groups" defined by the regime in order to arrive at a draft constitution that would be more than likely to be very federal and leave in place certain mechanisms of uneven development among the "races." The PFP leader, Slabbert, has already explained that it is necessary to establish a form of universal suffrage, but not according to the principle of "one person, one vote," in particular because he remains a partisan of a sort of veto for the whites on certain questions. This simple fact shows that the ruling class cannot really contemplate the elimination of all racial classifications in South African society. (12) The AN has, thus, come out against a National Convention. It is still difficult to assess the exact reasons for its position. It may very well consider that the relationship of forces is inadequate, and that its own organized forces in the country are too limited to face such a challenge.
In the Bahamas, at the end of the Commonwealth conference that debated the question of South Africa, a representative of the ANC said that his movement was not ready to accept negotiatons and call a halt to the armed struggle as long as the ANC remained banned, Nelson Mandela and the other political prisoners were not granted amnesty, apartheid was not dismantled, and the state of siege was not lifted. (13) In reality, this long list of demands makes it possible to get a bit better idea of the content of the negotiations between the liberals and the ANC. It might appear somewhat surprising that South African big capital has engaged in such public negotiations with those whom it has always considered more or less as dangerous revolutionaries. The mass movement, to be sure, has shown its impatience in the recent months, but no one believes that a revolutionary situation has already opened up in South Africa. The mass movement is very far from being solidly organized, and for this reason it has no immediate perspectives for a real revolutionary offensive. The ruling class has reason enough to be worried about the future, but here and now it has not been driven to negotiate for the sake of survival. These discussions, therefore, have another sort of objective. Negotiations on what is to follow Botha
The PFP and a part of the bosses want to prepare the way for a postBotha solution that could take the form of some sort of governmental coalition combining reformist elements of the National Party and members of the PFP, for example. Whatever the governmental option, any such prospective regime would need a valid and responsible interlocutor capable of achieving sufficient credibility to represent and control the mass movement of the oppressed. This conception is not a recent one in the minds of certain liberal leaders. And, therefore, one should not underestimate the role of the negotiations in progress. There is obviously not going to be any cold dismantling of apartheid. But it is now conceivable that in the event of a governmental crisis or the formation of a new ruling coalition that the ANC may be authorized in one or another form to function legally and that its exiled leadership may be able to return to South Africa.
The immediate effect of such a turn about would be to make it possible for the ANC to increase its strength considerably. It could then
Protest by migrant workers (DR) organize its following and become a mass party. Whatever real organized strength the ANC has today, such a development would be seen by the mass movement as a victory.
Moreover, in such conditions, a new South African government might be capable of establishing a cool dialogue with the ANC on constitutional changes without having to fear confusion and the threat of an uncontrolled rise of the mass movement.
It is obviously impossible to foresee whether this tactic of the liberals has a chance of being carried through. In any case, the ANC has no reason not to try to take advantage of the offer. Its meetings with the PFP have made it possible to isolate the Botha government. And the appeal that the ANC is making now for some sort of legalisation echoes the proposals of the white liberal opposition.
According to the Argus of October 23, a representative of the ANC informally told the Commonwealth general secretary that his organization was ready to suspend the armed struggle if Botha agreed to negotiate with the Black leaders.
Thus, in the coming period, very important changes in South African public life may be expected. But the reaction of the mass movement cannot be predicted.
The dismantling of apartheid is, thus, today the central theme in all political debates. The very powerful
12. Cf. Van Zyl Slabbert and David Welsh. Strategies for Sharing Power. David Philipp, Cape Town, 1981: "Universal franchise must be distinguished from 'majority rule' .. The logic of this conclusion is that a democratic political system in South Africa must involve a minority veto in the legislation progress ... the main purpose of the minority veto is to fomo negotiation and consensus between parties. (Pp. 152-153)
13. 'Cape Times,' October 22, 1985.
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International Viewpoint 25 November 1985
Association of Chambers of Commerce (ASSOCOM), meeting in Capetown, assailed the government's timidity in making reforms and called for the repeal of the law of preferred residence zones (the Group Areas Act), the law restricting freedom of movement (Influx Control), and all discriminatory laws. According to one of the ASSOCOM leaders, "Reform must not be aimed at improving discriminatory laws - it must remove them. No longer can we tinker with apartheid - we must dismantle it A democratic and non racial South Africa.
But what sort of regime could accomplish such a task? Apparently the bosses think that a PFP government could. That is going off a bit half-cocked. What sort of thing, moreover, would a democratic and nonracial South Africa be? It would be a country where no law, no regulation and no economic mechanism was explicitly or implicitly based on racial or ethnic distinctions, a country where the workers could get hired for any job without discrimination and regardless of the color of their skin. Everyone, men and women alike, would have the right to acquire the same skills and, having done that, to get the same wages.
Youth would have to have access to the same sort of education without inequalities in income imposing a form of segregation. Everyone would have to be able to live in or acquire a house in any part of the country. This would mean that the prices for land and urban plots could no longer be wildly unequal and permit de facto discrimination.
Public services and social benefits would have to be equivalent for all. The poor in the countryside and a part of the unemployed in the cities would have to be able to acquire land and live by cultivating it.
The present Bantustans would have to be dismantled and their puppet administrations, as well as their repressive forces, would have to be abolished. There would have to be universal suffrage on the basis of the principle of "one person, one vote." A constituent assembly would have to be called.
There would have to be full freedom of association and expression, as well as a radical reform of education. Along with this, Namibia, which is still occupied by Pretoria, would have to be given its independence, and there would have to be a halt to the aggressive military operations against Angola.
Are these gentlemen of the ASSOCOM, the PFP, and the Anglo-
American Corporation ready to take on all that? Obviously not. The social nature of apartheid prevents them. It is the form that capitalist domination has taken in this country. The changes in South African capitalism over a quarter of a century - among other things its monopolistic concentration - have no doubt profoundly altered its needs.
But the apartheid system does not date from 1948, when the National Party came to power. The entire system is rooted in a centry of colonial domination, racial segregation, and the use of semi-enslaved labor. Such a society has very little means for self-reform.
The establishment of a genuinely democratic and nonracial South Africa could come about as the result of the action of another social class and as the product of another kind of state. That is, only the proletariat, in the broad sense of the term, can accomplish this task in all its manifold dimensions by establishing its own state power.
For the same reason, in the last analysis, the liberals will have to make a compromise with the other faction of the ruling class, which remains faithful to the principles of segregation. Whatever may be the content of a political deal between the liberals and representatives of the movement of the oppressed, big capital will have to determine its overall policy on the basis of the general interests of the capitalist system in South Africa.
The crucial compromise will not, therefore, ever be made between the PFP and the ANC but between the PFP and the National Party. This is why the present posturing of the bourgeois opposition in favor of a non-racial South Africa is largely demagogy. Another indication of this are the parallel negotiations that the opposition is carrying on with Buthelezi, the leader of the Zulu Inkatha.
Slabbert, who is quite active these days, has in fact also organized a sort of min-National Convention, including for example, Gatsha Buthelezi, chief of the Kwa Zulu and of the Inkatha party. This meeting, which was held in September, has been denounced by all components of the anti-apartheid mass movement. The ANC did not fail to note later, in the discussions in Lusaka in October, that it considers Buthelezi as a mere agent of the regime.
According to Slabbert, this convention was to bring together in a second phase the UDF, the churches, representatives of commerce and industry, and the youth movements, in addition to the PFP and Inkatha. (15)
It is interesting to note in this regard the contradictions among the bosses. The Kwa Zulu bantustan is made up of several separate enclaves in the heart of Natal, some of them extending to the outskirts of Durban. Neither the Zulu profiteers of Inkatha nor the Natal bosses are ready to give up the perspective of real regional integration, and they oppose the encumbrances of the segregated economic system.
In 1983, the Buthelezi commission, which included a number of white liberals, even presented a program for integration. In part, the same persons turned up to the National Convention organized by Slabbert, to which ympathy. (16) sent a whis. Bishop Desmond Tutu sent a message of sympathy. (16)
Thanks to the support of the central government, Buthelezi has gained a considerable power over a large part of the Zulu population. His party, Inkatha, need not envy the other single parties of Black Africa. The schools under its jurisdiction carry on a continual indoctrination of the youth. Groups of Inkatha activists regularly intimidate the population.
The people know beforehand that in order to get an administrative job they have to join the Inkatha. No UDF activists or unionists can be sure of their safety today in Natal, and Buthelezi turns his anger on any progressive movement.
Racial clashes with the Indian community in August were in fact engineered by Buthelezi as a diversion. His militia, the Impis, are known to have links with the Pretoria regime's political police.
This instance shows quite clearly the context of the great national accord that the white opposition is seeking. It, of course, has no great desire to maintain a sort of pseudo banana republic at its side, but it has to play this card also to try to carry through the bold maneuver that it is undertaking on all fronts. A very deep economic crisis
The existence of Inkatha is now a grave problem for the mass movement. According to a recent poll, Buthelezi has the approval of 34% of the Zulu population, as against 19% for the ANC, 8% for Bishop Tutu, and 10% for the UDF. This support is even stronger in the rural areas of Kwa Zulu. (17)
Buthelezi has just made a trip in Europe, visiting in particular Switzerland, in order to meet his
14. Business Day,' October 18, 1985.
'Cape Times, August 26, 1985.
16. Financial Mail, September 27, 1985.
17. Weekly Mail,' October 11, 1985. International Viewpoint 25 November 1985
bankers; and a short while ago he said "I have myself come to the conclusion that despite its faults the free enterprise capitalist system is the best economic system which man has ever devised." (18) In reality, Buthelezi, Slabbert, and the others are now very worried about the crisis of the capitalist system.
South Africa has entered a very grave recession. Even before the effects of the political crisis escalated, the downturn had already had a profound impact on the country. Gold is the barometer of the South African economy and the country's leading export. After undergoing a boom in 1979-80, the price of gold has now plumeted. Because of the overvaluation of the US dollar, gold has, moreover, ceased to be a refuge for capital, and it has lost something of its role to speculation.
In 1982, South Africa appealed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A net upturn occurred in 1983, but then the South African economy went into a nose dive. The national currency, the Rand, which was worth 1.09 US dollars in 1982 is now worth less than 0.4 US dollars.
According to the Financial Mail in October 80% of South African imports were considered essential, and they were largely billed in dollars. Despite a largely positive trade balance, the balance of payments is in deep trouble, and the country has found itself obliged to stop payment on its debt until December.
The inflationary effects of the fall of the Rand are considerable. The prices of imported goods, mainly machines, technology, and semi-manufactures, have also doubled. In May of this year, factories were operating at 84% of capacity in a country where some industries used to work around the clock. Unemployment has risen to 35% of the Black population (55% in East London), and it is beginning to hit some layers of white wage workers. The effects of apartheid in restricting the internal market are therefore becoming accentuated.
The Financial Mail of September 27 did not hesitate to call the automotive industry in a headline "an industry in agony." Over the last 18 months, this industry has lost 33,000 jobs. Ford has closed two of its factories in Uitenhagen. While the market for whites is 450 vehicles for every thousand inhabitants, for Blacks it is forty vehicles for every thousand people.
The decline in buying power is, thus, going to deepen still more this contradiction arising from the narrowness of the internal market, which is the result of apartheid. The government's new economic policy, which is designed to achieve a small up-
International Viewpoint 25 November 1985 turn in order to attract capital again, is going to keep inflation at its present rate of 16% a year, or even increase it.
It is very interesting to consider the possible links between the present state of the economy and the attitude of the liberal opposition. In 1983, on the eve of the referendum on the constitutional changes, the relations between Pieter Botha and the bosses were at their warmest. The economy was then going through a good period, buoyed up by major wage increases in the public services and by an alleviation of tax burdens.
In this period, the opposition was less vehement about apartheid, and the PFP called for voting "yes" in Botha's referendum. For their part, the multinationals retained their optimism. In 1982, a good number of them increased their operations in South Africa.
The West German firms Hoechst (chemicals) and Siemens (electronics), for example, poured in enough capital to double West German direct investments by comparison with 1981. In the same period, joint ventures between foreign and South African firms multiplied. (19)
Things have changed considerably since then, and the political situation has aggravated the capitalist retrenchment that started at the end of 1984. According to Business Week of June 30, 1985, over the first six months of this year, private sector investment has declined by 4.8 billion Rands. The country's foreign debt is estimated at over 22 billion dollars, while the short term debt is 14 billion dollars. (20)
The time, thus, has come for the opposition and the bosses to link the democratization of the country to problems of expanding the market, establishing industrial and commercial zones without racial or geographic discrimination.
The army on the streets (DR)
For example, the Port Elizabeth Chamber of Commerce has adopted a motion in which it calls for reforms, negotiations with the Black leaders, and for an opportunity for the private sector to play the role of mediator. After praising the virtues of a market without racial constraints, the Chamber of Commerce leader, Denis Creighton, explained: "We in business have had a favourable experience of working together equally and accordingly have developed certain skills in dealing with people fairly." (21)
A section of the imperialists share this conception of how to solve simuItaneously the economic and the political crisis. A representative of the US State Department, refering to the recent creation of the US Corporate Council on South Africa, said recently; *The free market approach, after all, is the natural adversary of apartheid or any system that restricts the free movement of labour and political life. The business community realises this." (22)
The Council brings together the principal US companies, including those operating in South Africa and working for reforms in that country. In it you find notably General Motors, IBM, Colgate, Mobil, Caltex, and the like.
such conditions, the Botha government is in fact not in a very favorable position at the present time.
According to Botha, the situation was going to improve thanks to the constitutional changes made in 1984 and the setting up of the presidential council including Coloureds and Indians. This was a non-starter. In
18. Weekly Mail,' October 11, 1985.
'South African Review, Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1983, P. 162.
20. Financial Mail, September 27, 1985; and Argus, October 23, 1985.
21. Weekend Post,' October 19, 1985.
22. "The Argus,' October 22, 1985. ne Argus, October 22, 1985.
19
The Black ghettoes of the apartheid system (DR)
fact, the mass boycott of the elections to the Coloured and Indian chambers was the start of the present mass remobilization.
The tricameral system has been a total failure, and the houses did not even function. On August 15, Botha made a great to-do over a scheme of reforms. His speech, entitled "The Crossing of the Rubicon," was empty. The mountain brought forth a mouse.
At the congress of the Cape branch of the National Party, Botha tried to take a supplementary step, announcing that he was committed to "the principle of a united South Africa, one citizenship and a universal franchise, but within the structures chosen by South Africans." The opposition rejected this, saying that this project still did not break with "separate development."
For its part, the Financial Mail of October 4, 1985, considered that "there can be little doubt now that Botha does not have new constitutional structures in mind."
If the government apparatus is divided on this question, it is no less at odds as regards foreign policy in the region. The Mozambican army has recently gotten hold of documents of the Mozambican National Resistance (RNM) that show that the South African army, taking advantage of the hesitations and differences in their country's government, are still conducting their own policy of supporting the guerrilla movement that aims to destabilize the Samora Machel regime.
The opposition has had a field day explaining that it has every right to diseuss with the ANC, which is denounced as terrorist, when the government is openly supporting Joras Savimbi's UNITA and the RNM. South Africa has been virtually at war for ten years on the Angolan, Mozambican, 20 and Namibian fronts. The two-year military service obliges youth to take risks. Several thousand of them are trying to get out of the draft.
Botha has made some gestures, such as repealing the laws forbidding marriage and sexual relations among different races. Henceforth whites, Indians, and Coloureds can intermarry, but the system is so absurd that he then had to repeal the rules governing retail shops and the sale of beverages (the Liquor Act), because, as the Financial Mail of October 11, 1985, noted, if that were not done, it would have led to "prohibiting legally married couples from even having a drink together, let alone staying in the same room without special permission in any hotel."
Racist dogmatism makes the situation rather bizarre. In fact, Botha just noted that there is no has question of repealing the law that assigns residential areas to different races (the Group Areas Act). So, everyone is wondering now where the new "mixed" couples can live. The government has no answer. But for a long time now, very fortunately, the racist bureaucracy has had a hard time keeping track of everything.
Botha, on the other hand, has said that he does not want to give up the provision that regulates movements of labor in accordance with racial or ethnic criteria (Influx Control) and that the schools should continue to be segregated.
In view of such resistance from the Afrikaner regime, the editorial writer of the Weekend Post ventured a prediction, "In the months ahead the time scale does not permit us to talk in years) a crisis coalition government might well be the one viable vehicle to manage the country in its painful transition to full democracy." (23)
All of this has not kept Botha, however, from telling the wall street Journal "I think that at a certain stage some months ago some international interests thought this was going to be another Iran ... That's not going to happen."
Other elements may come into play, moreover, in an assessment of the situation, in particular US-Soviet relations. The South African press has played up the fact that Ronald Reagan proposed to the UN a resolution of the conflicts underway in southern Africa, Asia, and Central America. The Argus of October 25, 1985, noted, for example: "Outlining a threepoint plan for each region, he [Reagan] mentioned, he called for negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union."
On the same theme, the Cape Times of October 25, 1985, evoked Margaret Thatcher's policy in the following terms: "In short, the Frontline states under the leadership of President Kenneth Kaunda have agreed to deliver the minority white government to the negotiating table. Quite clearly Mrs Thatcher would not have done this without consulting President Botha ..." The state of the mass movement
We are still far from such an eventuality. But Botha, nonetheless, sometimes talks a new and not undaring language, as for example when he said: "I want to say emphatically, that if the AN wants to talk to us, it must lay down. its weapons and end its terrorism, stop loading cards with bombs ..." So, talking with the ANC is now something that the regime might consider in the future.
23. Weekend Post, October 19, 1985. International Viewpoint 25 November 1985
Leaving aside the unions, which are advancing toward the formation of a single confederation, the rest of the mass movement has not reached the point where it can work in a systematically united way. It remains very dispersed, very little organized, and its uneven and fragmented develoopment at times follows the lines of separation dictated by apartheid.
In the absence of a real weight of the organized working class, every layer and every sector that may enter into struggle seeks to assert itself on its own. At the moment, the best example of this is the high-school students in the Cape, and such a course does not fail to involve risks of leading to desperation.
The UDF unquestionably has an enormous following in the African townships. Its influence is a good deal weaker in the Coloured and Indian areas. But it has attracted to its ranks some white democrats, in particular students. If you follow the movements around partial demands and the community associations, it appears that the UDF has not gotten very far in organizing its activist base.
While the religous leaders have been particularly discreet lately, the ANC has taken the UDF firmly in hand. For the time being, it seems that liberals and the American lobby no longer see in a personality like Bishop Desmond Tutu a leader who can really gain the ear of the masses.
In June, the AN announced that it was stepping up its armed struggle, out for the moment it has ceased all its operations. A section of the progressive movement, on the other hand, accuses it of bringing ultraleftist pressures to bear in the UDF, pressures that are unrealistic in the present relationship of forces.
The National Forum (NF) is rather dormant, reflecting the present crisis of the Azanian People's Organizaiton (AZAPO), its main component. The latter, which has rejected any united front and which failed to support the Transvaal general strike in November 1984 out of sectarianism, is also paying the price for the fact that it is neither a party nor a broad movement, and does not have the means to operate. The crisis that AZAPO is going through now is the latest expression of the crisis of the Black Consciousness Movement.
Finally, mainly in the Cape, there are other sorts of groupings, such as the Cape Action League or the New Unity Movement. (24) But very many associations operate without links to any broader grouping. Thousands of people are ready to work. They are waiting for a real organizational framework and the offer of a concrete political perspective. A large part of this group vanguard is unorganized.
Edward Kennedy's trip to South Africa, which was denounced and boycotted by the National Forum and some other organizations, slightly shook the UDE's base in some places, where it was also tempted to denounce this operation. In certain townships around Port Elizabeth, East London, and Durban, there is still tension between the UDF, on the one hand, and AZAPO or FOSATU on the other. (25) Several people have already been killed in clashes.
However, the most important event in the weeks ahead will certainly be the founding of a united national confederation of unions in Durban on November 30. This will be an event of the greatest importance in the history of the workers and oppressed of South Africa. The new organization will start out with about 500,000 members. Its weight will give impetus to trade-union organization in new sectors and to trade-union unity in others.
When independent trade-unionism is beginning among the teachers in the Cape and Port Elizabeth, the automobile workers union NAWU, which is linked to the FOSATU, is undertaking fusion discussions with two organizations that have left the collaborationist confederation, the TUSCA. (26)
If the positive effects of unity continue to operate, the confederation could have a million members a year from now. For the first time, the South African Black workers will have a means of expressing themselves as a class and be able to act in a centralized way. The operation underway, however, remains very fragile.
The two main founding organizations will be FOSATU and the miners union (NUM). A lot of things will depend on the future relations between the leaders of these two organizations. The unions have now to solve the problem of how to intervene in the townships. They have had very little presence in these areas, except for some places in the Transvaal and the eastern Cape, where in the absence of the UDF or other forces the FOSATU has been able to play the predominant role.
The unions are also going to have to clarify their relationship to the ANC. It is in fact difficult for the unions to let the bosses discuss with the ANC and pay no attention to this question. The trade-union unification underway has confirmed the numerical and organizational weakness of unions such as the SAAWU and the GAWU, which are members of the UDF and close to the ANC.
However, the new confederation will, in a way, involve a coalition of very different political positions, regardless of how representative some of them may be. At the outset, this broad confederation will not be able to avoid some general debates over strategic questions facing the workers movement.
The unions, like the rest of the mass movement, are particularly concerned about the weakness of internnational workers solidarity. The big strike at SARMCOL (BTR) in Pietermaritzburg, an enterprise in which British capital is involved got only timid and inadequate support in Great Britain, even though no strike in South Africa has ever been so important.
The metalworkers union affiliated to the FOSATU, the MAWU, launched the struggle in response to the layoff of 1,000 workers. It lead to a general strike throughout the region on July 18 in support of the SARMCOL strikers, which was a total success.
This was the first time that such a strike was held in solidarity with the struggle in a single factory. Even the traders and craft workers closed their small shops. A union had shown that it could unite the entire population around a workers struggle. So, it is regrettable that this fight got so little real support in Britain.
The South African press is well aware of the need to keep quiet about such confrontations. It obviously has other concerns, and in these times it is not at all happy about having to point up the contradictions that arise from the struggles of the Black working class against employers, who are proclaiming in every direction their support for "democracy."
metalworker trade-unionist remarked in this connection "the media in South Africa seemed to be scared to report this. Despite the extensive coverage of the hearings [at the UN in a report on working conditions at SARMCOL, Bata, Tidwell, and Transvaal Alloys] and press statements from MAWU, there was very little reporting of the union delegates' presence or evidence. Nor was there reporting of remarkable commitments of employers' representatives. It seems that is not only the SABC [state TV] which is 'protecting' the public." (27)
Beyond the present situation, the struggle of the oppressed in South Africa needs great determination and great diversity in action from the solidarity movements. •
24. People's Express, September and October 1985. The New Unity Movement was formed at a conference held in the Cape in April 1985. (Cf. 'Azania Frontline,' bulletin of the Committee for the Liberation of Azania, London, No. 11, September 1985.)
25. 'Evening Post,' May 2-25, 1985.
26. 'Cape Times,' September 27, 1985.
27. Financial Mail,' October 11, 1985.
21
International Viewpoint 25 November 1985
SOUTH AFRICA