European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 02, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes monday september 2, 1985 columns comments George will changes wih eventual come to South Africa just yes. Just i 25 years ago inc United Stales by an solving a racial prob Lem significantly less difficult than the one afflicting South Africa. The process began with four years of civil War and was followed by n a Colury of intermittent litigation and legislation. All this was needed to open american society to a racial minority that was regionally concentrated. Writing in the Public interest Glenn c. Loury notes that in Little More than a generation we have advanced from a circumstance in which the great majority of americans were indifferent or actively hostile to Blacks quest for full citizenship rights to one in which racial Equality of Opportunity is a value staunchly upheld by the Law and universally embraced in our now what of the prospects for change in South Africa John Buchan in his magnificent Auto biography Pilgrim s Way published in 1940, recalled serving As an aide to lord Milnor in South Africa in the first decade of the a Colury. When read today this passage leaps off the Page. The Hope of breaking Down the racial Barrier Between town and country was always very near to Milner s heart i waited to Sec the dutch share in the Urban industries and mar of British Stock farming beside the Boci s in inc Veldt " South Africa s Blacks were invisible then today they arc omnipresent in the global circuitry of journalism. A crucial fact about South Africa s turmoil is its presence in american living rooms. South Africa is far from being an open society but so Loo is it fur from being As closed As any communist society or Many african despotism. Bishop Tutu holds press conferences he regales White Stu dents with witty and withering ridicule of government policy. South Africa is an opening society. Changes in Laws touching matters As varied and vital As Trade unions interracial sex and marriage can not be dismissed As cosmetic. There Are two certainties about South african change it is coming it will occur behind a fusillade of bluster designed to deny foreign critics the satisfaction of thinking they Are forcing any change. On a planet where narrow creeks can create canyons and even the continents Drift nothing lasts least of All social arrangements. But it is said there Are three lost tribes in today s world the protes Tants in Ulster the israelis in the Middle East and the White especially dutch South african. These three groups Are not going to go Home. They Are Home. As chief Bush Enczi Leader of the zulus says South Africa May avoid the calamity that has befallen so much of postcolonial Afri Ca one Man one vote once because Blacks and Whites arc a Community of africans. The Whites have become indigenous and the interdependence be tween Blacks and Whites does t exist anywhere e a in South Africa s foreign minister says tendentious by there is no Clear Cut majority in South Africa because there is no homogeneous Black majority. There Are he says differences of opinion among Blacks. Well do Tell. Imagine Blacks do not All think alike. Next thing you know they won t All look alike. There certainly is a Clear Cut minority it is White and it too is not homogeneous. By Helcz says the minimal demand is for the g a comment to acknowledge that we arc one people in one the government is closer to doing that than even it May real ire. Us ambassador in Washington says the government is committed to a process of change that should end in a Federal Structure with whiles not in a privileged position in the Central government. Whether or not the people in Pretoria actually feel so committed the crucial Point in president Botha s otherwise Barren speech recently was the offer to negotiate with Blacks. Negotiation presupposes human be on both sides of the table. It is too late for a South african dred Scoli in America that 1857 decision lit the Short fuse to War by declaring a constitutional principle that Blacks could not be Complete citizens and hence inferentially were not completely human. To pass from authoritarianism to popu Lar government without falling into an Archy and More authoritarianism is difficult. King Juan Carlos of Spain deserves the Nobel peace prize for his indispensable role in making Spain the Only euro Pean nation to move from fascism to democracy without being conquered. The problem in Spain a relatively homogeneous nation with a majority in favor of the change was less demanding than South Africa s problem. Foreign critics arc demanding that South Africa s regime dismount from a Tiger. Perhaps the regime is to blame for being on the Tiger. Perhaps the Tiger is Only angry because it has been Ridden so Long so recklessly. Perhaps. But critics should consider this telling a rider of a Tiger thai he deserves to be devoured is no Way to persuade him to dismount. Clearly some of the current campaigning against South Africa is a fad a moral Hula hoop fun for a while. Regarding interest in a foreign crisis even altruism is not fuel for the Long haul. For a foreign crisis to preoccupy a relatively Content society such As ours it must affect a vital interest of a majority on a continuing basis. Injustice in Africa does not. Not even the very vocal spokesmen for Black americans Are audible often about the Tyr Anny of Black despots Over the majority of the 400 million Black africans. The new York times recently carried this melancholy headline Uganda re gains uneasy in South Africa in the last year More than 600 persons have died in political violence some of them Blacks and indians killed by Blacks. Six Hundred has been the average weekly death toll during the last decade of Ugan Dan normalcy. Nevertheless he Manifest and manifold injustices of South Africa s system make economic sanctions a temptation because they can make us feel Good. But should they right mindedness is not right behaviour. If the aim of sanctions is described modestly enough the Success of sanctions is assurer. That is if the aim is to express disapproval sanctions cannot fail. Richard Lugar r inrl., chairman of inc foreign relations committee says sanctions would say How we feel about apartheid. But american opinion already is Clear indeed almost unanimous in disapproving apartheid. President Carter s Grain embargo and olympics Boycott in response to the soviet invasion of Afghanistan were useful not because they could do serious damage to the soviet Union still less because they would alter soviet behaviour but because the measures helped awaken americans from slumbers that Carter among others had induced with talk about inordinate fear of communism. Economic pressure against the soviet Empire should be continuous because it is our mortal enemy and us militarism should be burdened Smuch As possible. But what of South Africa Are sanctions supposed to destabilize it one Rea son there is a Reagan administration is that the preceding administration helped bring Down the Shah and Somoza two exercises in making matters worse. Are sanctions to remain in place until Pretoria changes policies if so which policies Simon Jenkins of the economist writ ing in the Spectator notes that Force not the sanctions settled disputes involving Rhodesia and Argentina. The Arab Oil embargo did not erode . Support for Israel i stimulated conservation and development of alternative Energy Spur Cei which have weakened Arab economies. Thinks to an Oil embargo against South Africa it is nearly self sufficient with the world s Best process for producing Oil from Coal. Thanks to an arms embargo. South Africa which was 60 percent dependent on imported arms 20 years ago today is 90 percent self sufficient and a net arms exporter. Sanctions would raise the costs of apart Heid but As Jenkins says apartheid is not a White tribal Hobby to be dropped from the household budget when things get sanctions he says please peo ple who believe they arc entitled to reorder the world and that the reordering can be done without violence the modern Cru Sader sits at Home ripping up ism Stock. Defeat is someone else s fault and Only the poor get in Southern Africa the 40 million poor would include Many Mil Lions in states which arc and will remain linked economically with South Africa. Before the american civil War some abolitionist considered dissolution of the Union secession by the North preferable to continued association with slave states. This policy would have left the slaves to their Fate but their Fate was not the most important thing to those abolitionists self regard Iii fastidiousness Aboul their own moral Hygiene. Some advocates of sanctions and other measures to isolate South Africa seem most eager to isolate themselves from what a Apt to be a Long tedious morally ambiguous and largely unsatisfying process of constructive pressure through continued engagement. 1c Washington pcs writers group
