Notebook Hermann Giliomee A LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA n July 1987, a group of Afrikaner dissidents spokesmen, particularly the Minister of Defense, metI in Dakar, Senegal, with officials of the African General Magnus Malan. When the strongest bomb National Congress. Among the Afrikaners attending blast ever in South Africa occurred in Johannesburg were Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert, former leader of a few days after the group's return, Malan declared the parliamentary opposition, Beyers Naude, former "conferees with terrorists owe an explanation to secretary of the South African Council of Churches, those injured in the explosion." the writers André Brink and Breyten Breytenbach, This was deliberately to miss the point. As Peter and the Capetown political scientist, editor of Die Gastrow, a member of the South African group, Suid-Afrikaan, Hermann Giliomee, who wrote the said: "There will always be South Africans deter- following report for Dissent. mined to investigate all possible avenues out of the cycle of death and destruction in an effort to History cast a long shadow over a recent meeting in establish a nonracial democracy." Dakar, the capital of Senegal, between a group of 62 internal South Africans, most of whom were Afrikaners, and a delegation of the African National Congress (ANC), the exiled liberation organization. Compared to the Palestinian Liberation Organiza- For a century now, Afrikaner and African national- tion with its quasi-state organization, the ANC is a ism have developed alongside each other. The first considerably more modest outfit. In 1983 its Afrikaner political organizations were founded in approximate budget was $100 million with a total 1880, just a few years before the African ones membership of 10,000. It trains between 5,000 and appeared. Today both nationalisms vie for political 7,000 guerrillas, and maintains representatives in control in an ever more lethal struggle. world capitals. Estimates of the number of foreign- None of the Afrikaners in Dakar could claim to trained insurgents inside the country range from a represent Afrikanerdom. Many of them write in the figure of thirty according to the South African police Afrikaans press, but none has any real influence in to 400 by independent analysts. the inner Afrikaner circles. Afrikaner racists branded The real power of the ANC is not military. It is the Dakar delegates as volkverraaiers—national rooted in the political support it enjoys in the black traitors—for conferring with the ANC. The govern- townships of South Africa as the oldest and most respected organization fighting white domination. In ment of President P.W. Botha brands the ANC as a 1981 poll, 42 percent of black South Africans in communist-dominated terrorists who wage war on the Witwatersrand area expressed the opinion that peace-loving South Africa. the ANC leaders were "the real leaders of the black By sitting down with the ANC delegation in people in South Africa." Only 17 percent opted for Dakar the group of internal South Africans empha- Chief Buthelezi, the Zulu leader who has fallen out sized that the conflict is rooted in the country's with the ANC. In the same poll Africans in the history, one in which violence and atrocities have KwaZulu and Natal region were asked what would been committed on all sides. Dakar was an effort to happen if insurgents were to come in secretly and break the attempts by Pretoria and the ANC to ask people to work with the ANC. Forty-eight demonize each other. This position elicited a percent said "most or many people" would help the crescendo of condemnation in the pro-government ANC, a figure which went up to just below 60 press. It reached its peak in attacks by government percent among school-going black South Africans. WINTER • 1988 • 21 Notebook Only eight percent said that nobody or almost The Dakar discussions stumbled on assessments of nobody would offer help. the current balance of power. The ANC believed that ANC support has undoubtedly increased since the it is still riding the wave, but some South Africans widespread disturbances that have racked the think that the ANC momentum has been checked for country since September 1984. The ANC and its the time being and new strategies are required. Tell- internal auxiliaries made scores of townships ing comments were made by a member of the South ungovernable by establishing street committees and African group with first-hand knowledge of recent people's courts as the de facto authority, enforcing developments in the Eastern Cape, traditionally a school, consumer, and rent boycotts. In May 1986 strong ANC base, where it established virtual control the government was under concerted international over the townships in the early part of 1986: "I pressure to set Nelson Mandela and other imprisoned strongly doubt," said the delegate, "that your strat- ANC leaders free and unban the organization. egy has been effective. Thousands in the Port Eliza- Then the wheel turned. The draconian second beth-Uitenhage area have been put out of work through State of Emergency swept thousands of pro-ANC sanctions and disinvestment without any commensu- activists into detention. Considerable resistance rate gain. The townships are again under rigid control appeared among liberal white Africans against the of the police, aided by vigilantes. The ruling class is brutal methods some activists used to ensure using more effective methods, particularly house compliance with the prolonged rent boycotts. While bonds, to co-opt a stratum of black supporters.. the gruesome "necklace" immolations were used by There is no evidence that you have brought the state all parties, possibly including the security forces, closer to negotiation. The whites you managed to hit most were seen as the work of activists loyal to the were local businessmen with little or no influence ANC. The ANC leadership in exile is ambiguous on over national, or even city, politics." this issue. Some of its executive committee have condemned it; others have depicted it as necessary to intimidate or liquidate collaborators with apartheid. Yet the state did not win conclusively. Most The ANC made a dramatic diplomatic advance in observers believe that once the State of Emergency 1986 and early 1987 when its leader, Oliver Tambo, is lifted, widespread unrest will again occur. A lack met separately with the political heads of the British of confidence has seeped into the business commu- and American foreign ministries. However, the nity, which is holding back on new investments, organization has a long way to go before reaching thus exacerbating the serious unemployment situa- the all-important next level—a meeting with Mrs. tion. Moderate urban black leaders refuse to talk to Thatcher and President Reagan. This year the going the government about a new Constitution while the has been getting tougher for the ANC. With ANC is banned and Mandela and other leaders are in television coverage of the townships heavily re- prison. The ANC cannot challenge the government stricted, international interest in South Africa's but it can effectively veto any Constitutional political drama has dropped. Since the beginning of initiatives with respect to blacks. Even the ultraloyal- 1987 state security forces are said to have become ist Botha mouthpiece, Die Burger, wrote on July 29, less involved in open clashes, with an 80 percent 1987 (after the Dakar conference): "There can be no decline in "incidents" in the first six months of compromise with [ANC violence]. However, at the 1987, compared with the corresponding period in same time it is equally true that there is a serious 1986. London and Washington are toughening their desire for peace. The sparks remain alive that the stand against the ANC. In Whitehall the question is protagonists of violence will come to their senses again being asked whether the ANC resembles the and will take a seat at the conference table." Irish Republican Army rather than the advance guard Debating and consorting for a week with some of of a genuine Africanist movement. the senior ANC leaders yielded both pleasant surprises and disappointments. The major surprise was in Thabo Mbeki, 45, son of the ANC leader A serious backlash has set in among South Govan Mbeki who was in jail for 23 years and was African whites, including sympathizers with the recently set free. In Mbeki the ANC has an heir black nationalist cause. As a Progressive Federal apparent with outstanding skills. In opening state- Party candidate said in Dakar, in 1981 it was still ments at the conference one of Mbeki's codelegates possible for him to get elected while insisting on the took an intransigent line, projecting an inevitable ANC's right to be incorporated in the political showdown between the white government and the process; in 1987 he was defeated by an electorate ANC. He also insisted that the ANC had the right to that believed that a PFP victory would mean a short assume control over all the "democratic" forces route to an ANC (and communist) dictatorship. inside and outside the country. This seemed to 22 • DISSENT Notebook undercut the rationale of the Dakar talks except as an tional cleavage between the young, embittered new ANC exercise in public relations. It also left little recruits who demand instant action, and the older space for liberals who reject apartheid but refuse to generation of exiles who insist on strategic thinking. join a revolutionary movement. Moreover, the There is also a generational cleavage between, on apparent insistence on hegemonic control during the the one hand, people like Mbeki and Pallo Jordan, struggle raised serious doubts about whether the who are in their forties and emphasize an inclusive ANC would introduce a multiparty democracy if it nonracialism, and on the other hand, the generation won power.