THE PRESS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1982. Brake on change in S.A.

Press, 6 September 1982, Page 20

THE PRESS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1982. Brake on change in S.A.

In the eyes of the rest of the world the South African Government appears to make concessions to ’ non-white South Africans much too slowly, when it makes them at all. Judged by the reception from non-whites in South Africa, concessions generally come too late to reduce frustrations, or to satisfy the increasing demands that all races should have a fairer say in the governing of the whole of South Africa. South Africa's white electorate, certainly the majority of the electorate, sees changes to the country’s complicated social and political arrangements in quite a different light. South Africa remains a political curiosity — a democracy, confined to a minority of the population, resting on a much larger and virtually powerless majority. Perhaps the closest parallel in history is the Athenian democracy of Classical times, built on a much larger population of slaves and foreigners who had no part in the political system. In South Africa today the votes of the white electorate continue to decide the speed and direction of changes that affect the whole population. Without the approval of a majority of white voters, the South African Government cannot act.

The attitudes of South Africa’s white electorate have become crucial to the fate of the constitutional changes proposed by the Government of Mr P. W. Botha. Outsiders, almost without exception, have criticised the changes as offering too little. Yet even Mr Botha’s cautious changes may be rejected by a majority of South African whites who feel that their privileged position is being threatened. Within South Africa, newspapers and political commentators have gone so far as to suggest that the constitutional proposals will bring about a new alignment of white voters. The South African National Party, which has ruled the country with a handsome majority for more than 30 years, may founder if Mr Botha presses ahead. A long spell of government by the Afrikaner-dominated Nationalists, has done little for non-white' South Africans. A period of uncertainty, perhaps of unstable coalition governments, would be unlikely to serve them better. Only a solid majority of white voters in favour of gradual change can hold out any hope of an evolution towards a more just society. Since before the Boer War 80 years ago a Far Right of Afrikaner opinion has always been there, ready to resort to arms to enforce its views. Every South African Government has had to take account of such an attitude — to compromise with this attitude, except when the extremists have been confronted with overwhelming electoral support for another course.

In the General Election last year the National Party lost four seats, although it still held 131 seats in a Parliament of 165 members. Since then the Government has lost another 17 seats as part of its Right wing has defected to the new Conservative Party of Dr Andries Treurnicht. The Progressive Federal Party, the official Opposition based largely on South Africans of English origins, increased its share of Parliamentary seats from 17 to 26 last year. The P.F.P. is liberal or Left-wing only by South African standards. Still, its improved position suggests that some white South Africans would like to see more rapid changes in their society, just as the recent defections from the Government suggest that some South’ Africans want the rate of change slowed down. A by-election last month for the vacant seat of Germiston on the Transvaal Provincial Council was regarded in South Africa as a test of how far the Government was out of step with the sentiment of the white electorate. The indications for the Government, let alone for those who wish to see rapid change in South Africa, were ominous. The Nationalists held the seat, but they polled fewer votes than the combined support for the parties of the far Right. In a General Election, such a swing in voting would cost the Government a third of its seats. If the Conservatives and the smaller and more extreme H.N.P. (which split off from the National Party in 1969) combined electoral forces, the

Government would almost certainly lose its majority in Parliament. The Prime Minister’s proposals look cautious enough. A powerful executive president, who would almost certainly be white, would be installed over a weakened Parliament in which whites, Coloureds and Indians had separate chambers, each responsible for the affairs of its own racial community. Blacks, the majority of South Africa’s population, would continue to have no part in South African politics, but would be regarded at citizens of their tribal homelands and able to exercise political rights there. The whole scheme looks like an attempt to offer a modest share of power to two smaller racial communities, without surrendering fundamental white supremacy. For many South Africans, who have watched with growing alarm developments in Africa’s other multi-racial societies, the proposals still go too far. The hard-line, element of the electorate has. been strengthened in the last few years by Portuguese and Rhodesian immigration from Angola, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. Events in those three countries, and more recently in Kenya, are taken as an indication that; in Africa at least, whites and non-whites cannot live together in equality and harmony. Some South Africans on the Right are reviving support for an extension of the “homelands” scheme to all races in the country, including the whites, whatever the cost to South Africa’s economic development. The swelling of. white intransigence raises profound difficulties for the rest Of the world, and especially for those who still hope to see South Africa evolve towards a more just society without racial war. If other countries in the West encourage Mr Botha to press ahead with his reforms, modest as they are, will this encouragement be given in the hope that indications of approval from abroad may help the South African Government to retain support at home? White South Africans in the last decade have had, for them, the bitter experience of discovering that no matter what changes they make to the organisation of sport, the changes do not satisfy foreign critics. Unrelieved criticism of the proposed constitutional changes might well persuade white South Africans that in politics, too, nothing they can do will be welcomed abroad; therefore they might as well do nothing. Only the racists among the Afrikaner extremists could benefit from such an outcome.

The questions of support for reform inside the country, and of support from the outside world, are not simple, open-and-shut questions. For outsiders who believe that great changes should be made in South Africa the main, tactical problem is how to encourage the change. To condemn a modest change probably means discouraging any change at all. Giving full support may strengthen the reaction from the South African Right.

Some of South Africa’s foreign critics might welcome the hardening of white opinion among electors there. Once all prospect of evolutionary change appears to be lost, the justification for revolutionary violence by non-whites is increased. This prospect has persuaded more thoughtful South African voters to accept ‘ gradual change. Those abroad who still hope for peaceful change will be tempted to support any measure that seems to improve South African conditions, however small the gains. The alternative, a desperate resort to violence by non-white South Africans, would? be unlikely to create a democratic or multi-racial society.

Any discussion of changes in South Africa’s political arrangements tends to imply an acceptance of the system of separate racial development. The latest proposals, while they may benefit some racial groups, would increase the fragmentation of South Africa into a collection of “homelands.” Those inside South Africa, and outside, who believe that South Africa must become a unitary State, in which people of all races will have a fair place, must object to changes that lead further away, from such an outcome.