Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 22, 1992 TAG: 9203220276
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANTHONY LEWIS THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Medium
The theory was shattered as to Communism by the Gorbachev years and the fall of the Soviet Union. Now something just as dramatic has happened in South Africa: The whites who had absolute power in that society have voted to give it up.
This was not a mere decision to let a minority have civil rights, as in the American South more than 25 years ago. It was a decision to let the overwhelming majority, 80 percent of the population, have rights. The result must be power for that majority.
How did it happen? Why would a privileged minority - very likely the most privileged in the world - take such a step?
The broad answer is that politics worked: politics both local and international. The "armed struggle" by black resistance groups never made a dent in the power structure. Political pressure and political leadership persuaded whites that their own best interests lay in peaceful transition to a democratic South Africa.
Economic sanctions were much debated. But no one can really doubt, now, that they were effective in making businessmen and more and more white individuals in South Africa see that apartheid had no prosperity in its future.
Sanctions also produced a sense of isolation that bore heavily on many South Africans. So did the international sports boycott, which greatly troubled a sport-loving people.
There was a moral element. Along with international disapproval came increasing religious condemnation of apartheid, finally by the Afrikaners' own Dutch Reformed Church.
All those factors worked over time. But there is no saying when they would have changed the racial system if it had not been for the political daring and courage of F.W. de Klerk. In 2 1/2 years as president he has transformed the country, opening it up to free political debate for the first time and negotiating with the black leadership.
De Klerk's boldest stroke was the calling of a referendum among whites on whether to continue on his path of change. He risked all. With violence rising in the country, and with the economy in a prolonged recession, many observers thought the white public would be frightened of change and would at best give de Klerk a narrow victory.
But the conservative opposition offered no real alternative to the voters, no vision of a workable system of white power. It offered only fantasies of a separate white state or a return to apartheid and legal tyranny over the black majority.
Faced with that choice, most whites understood that non-racial democracy, though a gamble, gave them more hope than a return to racism and isolation. They had a realistic chance, at least, of keeping much of their good life. That was the calculation that led the British upper classes to enlarge the franchise in the 19th century, trading some political power for continued economic privilege.
The 69 percent "yes" vote for de Klerk should open the way to early agreement in the negotiations on an interim government of all races. The parties already have agreed on much: votes for all adults, a judicially enforceable bill of rights and an elected body of some kind to write a new constitution.
It would be fatuous to predict an easy transition for de Klerk and his essential negotiating partner, Nelson Mandela. There are still enormous obstacles to a peaceful, functioning democracy in South Africa.
The huge gap between blacks and whites - in income, property, education - would stagger any social system. The expectations of younger blacks for quick economic benefits are dangerously high.
And then there is the violence. Growing evidence suggests that much of it has been inspired by Gatsha Buthelezi, the Zulu leader, to force concessions to him. But there is also evidence that elements in the state security forces have engaged in random violence against blacks, to obstruct change. A big question is whether de Klerk can and will stop that.
But the change to a new South Africa cannot now be stopped.
by CNB