Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 28, 1994 TAG: 9404280197
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DONALD N. RALLIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Voting will not be a new experience for me. Ever since my 18th birthday, unlike many of my fellow countrymen, I have possessed all of the qualifications previously necessary to participate in South African elections. I am sane. I am not a convicted felon. I am one of the 15 percent of South Africans who has a white skin.
Whites have ruled South Africa since they first came to the Cape in 1652. Within days of arriving, the leader of the settlers wrote in his diary that the local black population was ``dull, stupid, and odorous,'' ``black stinking dogs,'' and people ``living without conscience.'' Attitudes like these, though usually couched in more refined terms, were to underlie white rule in the country for most of the next 31/2 centuries. It is no wonder racism has been the single most divisive and destructive force in South African history.
No group has done more to make racism part of South African society than the National Party. Elected in 1948, the NP devised the policy of apartheid. Under this policy blacks and whites could not share buses, trains or schools. They could not intermarry, live in the same neighborhoods, or even have cocktails together.
Apartheid also segregated government. Whites elected the government of the urban, industrial and wealthy agricultural regions of the country. Blacks voted for the rules of minuscule and desperately poor ethnically defined ``homelands.'' Blacks were allowed into ``white'' South Africa only, as the government put it, ``to minister to the needs of the white man.''
At the forefront of opposition to apartheid was an old and respected political party, the African National Congress. Founded in 1912, the ANC had lobbied for its cause with what now seems an almost quaint gentility. They wrote letters, sent petitions and requested meetings with government leaders. When it became clear in the '50s that this approach was doomed to failure, the ANC stepped up its opposition to include strikes, boycotts and peaceful protests against the newly elected apartheid government.
This proved too much for the government, which in 1960 outlawed the ANC and several other anti-apartheid groups. It became illegal for anyone to declare support for the ANC, to quote any of its publications, publish pictures of its leaders, or do anything to further its aims.
Against this background, the ANC reluctantly decided to end 50 years of peaceful protest, and to mount a campaign of limited violence against government targets. This decision led to the arrest of the leader of the ANC's military wing, Nelson Mandela, and his imprisonment for life on charges of treason.
Despite vicious persecution from the white government and criticism from black radicals, the ANC clung resolutely to non-racialism in principle and in practice. The group's membership reflected the diversity of the country's population. Today the top leadership includes Zulus, Xhosas, Indians, mixed race and white South Africans.
This multi-racial organization faces its first electoral test this week. It's main opponent is the party that now calls itself the ``New'' National Party. Led by President F.W. de Klerk, the National Party vehemently disavows its apartheid past and pledges to end racism and discrimination.
As much as I respect the Nationalists' courage, I cannot ignore the suffering and misery they have inflicted on my country. I cannot forget the plight of the 3.5 million black South Africans forcibly evicted from their land to make way for white farmers. I cannot forget the millions of blacks imprisoned for the crime of wanting to find jobs or live with their families in ``white'' cities. I cannot forget that it was apartheid that forced me to leave my country and family as a draft resister.
But above all, I am not saint enough to forget or forgive the lives lost to apartheid: the hundreds who perished in apartheid prisons, thousands who died of malnutrition and disease in the homelands and squatter camps, or the millions who lost their lives as the NP fomented discord in Angola, Mozambique and Namibia because those countries dared oppose apartheid.
Racism is the scourge of South Africa's history, and non-racialism and democracy are its best hope for the future. Only one major party has shown that it is committed to non-racialism and real democracy. I will vote for that party with pride when I put my mark next to the names of the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela.
Donald N. Rallis, a white South African who left his homeland in 1982, is assistant professor of geography at Mary Washington College.
by CNB