European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 17, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes june columns comments Anthony Lewis Reagan has lost control of apartheid controversy Why is including num Bers of in such outraged re Volt against president reagans policy on South Africa administration officials say the whole thing puzzles if they mean Here is a on March 21 police in South shot into a group of Blacks marching to a funeral and killed 20 peo that night Reagan had a press con and Sam Donaldson of Abc news asked him about the event and what appears to be a continuing wave of violence by the White minority govern ment against the Black majority Popula the president in part i think to put it that that they were simply killed and that the violence was coming totally from the Lawand order ignores the fact that there was rioting going on on behalf of others there is an Clement in South Africa that docs not want a peaceful settlement of who wants a violent who wants trouble in the and this is whats going where did Reagan get the idea that there was rioting before the police fired presumably from South african officials who claimed that the Black marchers had thrown stones and gasoline the South african government itself appointed a Donald Kanne to investigate the Kann Meyer reported he found no police officer wrongfully responsible for the but his report was a devastating comment on the the claim of Kanne Meyer was fabricated in an attempt to justify the of 47 Blacks killed and injured at 35 were shot in the Back a disquieting the judge he found that the police had deliberately been equipped with weapons that kill instead of crowd control devices such As tear Gas and rub Ber so Here is what we see in Ronald his decisive instinct was to Side with the doers of official violence and to blame the he was ready to assert As fact what not even the government of South Africa would maintain without an inquiry and what turned out to be a that is the reality underlying the Rea William Buckley the Gan policy toward South and people know they do not want this country to be on the Side of racist governments that oppress the majority of their citizens and shoot unarmed people in the of course the president would say that he opposes apartheid and is urging change on Pretoria he did say so on March but what realists see is a Man whose instincts Are on the Side of the White that certainly is what South african Blacks it is what Pretoria so it believes it can continue its oppressive policies without worrying about serious pressure from the Reagan South Africa record since the site phage massacre has been marked by continuing official in one week in May three Blacks died while in police custody or hours after being one was a Union Andries radio whose colleagues in the Union said police beat him they detained when family members saw him in custody a few hours he was almost co authoritative reports from the Eastern the politically most volatile area of South Africa and the Center of the recent speak of a new twist in official cruel the police Are stationing men at hospitals and arresting any Black person admitted with gunshot the fact of such a wound is considered evidence of riotous be Havior although Kann Meyers report on site phage shows that unprovoked police Vio Lence May wound innocent Large numbers of children have been arrested in the Eastern i am and some As Young As nine or 10 held in cells with adult families were not informed for weeks of their childrens even funerals become a subject for official As again Kanne Meyers report the marchers in site phage were going to a funeral for six Blacks killed by the police earlier in the funeral was scheduled for March a but the night be fore the police ordered it put off till Sun the people decided to go ahead March and the massacre Why did the police order the funeral postponed Dannemeyer said the officer in charge was afraid there would be a disruption of commercial activity if work ers went to the funeral on a let the serfs Bury their dead on their Day the patience of most americans for the official inhumanity and Vio Lence of South Africa has run that is Why Reagan has lost control of the York times minister makes Strong Case for the religious right pastor Richard John Neuhaus is a very Cool he is a very Brilliant and Learned writer and but he int going to let those awful weights keep him out of the Public his the naked Public has had a considerable it in the Reagan position of a year namely that in fact you cannot totally separate religion from politics because re Ligion not Only but inform poli tics at some very critical but of course in siding with one must never quite let it appear As though that is what one were Zap there goes your if it is Liberal intellectuals you want to talk he finds searching and ingenious among them precisely that Public Square is the agora of where we talk to each Exchange crystallize a it is pastor Richards Point that that the Public Square in which we meet to have those conversations simply cant be empty of inherited insights ideas and commandments associated with the divine now pastor Richard has written a piece he what the fundamentalists it appears in commentary Over which Norman Podhoretz has presided for 25 As important a tenure As any in the cultural history of this pastor Richard has devastating to but he makes them with a combination of geniality and icy intellectual tre Chancy that leaves his opponents helpless on the floor but not a bit i would at pastor and to do that takes great what he does is examine the feverish opposition to the which even at the risk of simplification we can think of As Norman Lear Jerry the two embodying what is loosely thought of As the civil rights movement the religious right what pastor Richard explains is that for Many years the Assumption has been that the More educated you the less Likely it is that you will believe in any the High moment of that Reading of american history came when Clarence Darrow routed William Jennings Bryan in a debate on after which Bryan could think of nothing else to do than go off and but a funny thing happened to religion on the Way to pastor Richard Points it not Only didst Lan it has become stronger than Ever the study of Theodore Caplow of the University of Virginia faithful peo absolutely documents that religion is stronger in America today than it was 100 years ago not Only documents but goes on to remark that religious Lead ers in As also their Are far More tolerant of deviant thought among the nonreligious than they were at the time of what is the meaning of this at the very it is very Good news for those who have been apprehensive about the threat of the theocratic action of Amer but int it True that the religious right has made some very loud and de manding noises not quite the Way to put says pastor Richard what has happened is that the religious right in the words of Seymour Martin engaged in an aggressive defense of traditional fighting Back against the aggressive secularism of the supreme court and the internal review the american coalition for traditional values wishes prayer and Bible Reading in Public a prolife amendment or some other instrument for overruling is Legal restrictions on an end to state harassment of Christian resistance to feminist and Gay rights in creased defense and terminating social programs it is Only increase the dependency of the and the author even some of the committed opponents of the religious right might concede that if not of these items Are legitimate is sues for debate in a democratic Richard John Neuhaus does not deny that Here and there the rhetoric is but i do believe that those who compare our situation to that of the Weimar Republic or the religious right to the nazis have fallen victim to polemical heat a wonderful tonic for this disease is a Oliou Ghoul half hour with pastor press Syndicate