Three Perspectives on the Future of South Africa* HERIBERT ADAM

Three on the Future of Perspectives South Africa* HERIBERT ADAM Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada I NNOVATIVE RHETORIC continuously mystifies the South African conflict. Assessments range from an impending "race war" for socialist libera- tion from colonial exploitation to an evolving "plural democracy" in "separate freedoms" for blacks and whites alike. The ritualistic condemnation of the world's only legal racial dictatorship is countered by references to far greater injustices and brutality elsewhere, usually exempt from moralistic outrage. The promise of the South African government to discard unnecessary discriminations based on color is dismissed by Pretoria's opponents as a mere cosmetic applied to areas that do not affect white power and privilege. Despite the emotions of a long and bitter conflict with high stakes, scrupulous realism is required of the academic observer. Wishful thinking is no substitute for empirical analysis; mere moral condemnation only soothes a pure conviction with self-gratification. Regardless of personal preferences, it is essential to discern what is likely to occur, rather than what should happen. Applied to white South Africa, these methodological considerations lead to four neglected or rarely spelt out assumptions: first, an unjust regime is not necessarily a faltering one. The certain collapse of white-controlled Rhodesia and the impending independence of Namibia do not inevitably doom white dominance in the industrial heartland. Second, South Africa represents one of many dictatorial regimes in the world. The repression practiced by dictator- ships among South Africa's foremost opponents strengthens anti-African resilience. Without the anticipation of a socio-political improvement after a change of political power, fewer people are ready to help replace a white dictatorship with a potential black one. Third, unlike that in Zimbabwe and Namibia, the political-legal issue in sovereign South Africa is not one of decolonization but of deracialization. As in Israel, a mutually acceptable modus vivendi between two diverse ethnic groups, not the extinction or deporta- tion of a ruling population, constitutes the goal of all non-extreme politics. Fourth, in this endeavor the South African conflict is part of a global network of competing superpower interests. With the recent internationalization of regional antagonisms, the contentious issue in South Africa increasingly changes from one of internal race politics to one of superpower hegemony. Behind the facade of unanimous abhorrence of racism, z three political * This analysis was finished at the beginning of 1977. 123 solutions to Southern Africa's antagonisms can be distinguished: revolutionary, liberal/reformist, and ethnic exclusivism under a new political devolution. A fourth alternative, the continuation of the status quo, perhaps with some minor modifications, is not only unlikely but could hardly be considered a lasting solution to the accumulated tensions. Revolutionary Perspective The position advocated by most South African political exiles and implicit in most Third World resolutions on Southern Africa derives ostensibly from the failure of all peaceful attempts to abolish Apartheid. Due to a combination of race prejudice and the benefits from membership in a castelike oligarchy, white intransigence has blocked all modes of evolutionary accommodation. If, as it has been argued, any redistribution of power and wealth would have to be made at the expense of whites, then one should recall that no ruling group in history has voluntarily surrendered its power because of outsiders' pleas and moral condemnation. Since in their view any concessions would only "whet the appetite" for more, the ruling whites, given their numerical minority of 4.5 million (17 percent) among 21 million nonwhites, behave logically in their interest by refusing to share power in a process that they perceive as ultimately reversing domination. Allocation of status on the basis of merit rather than skin color would particularly threaten the white working class, on whose behalf the color bar was initially established in the 1920s. But Apartheid, so the revolutionary socialists argue, benefits the owners of capital no less: Africans excluded from collective bargaining constitute a relatively cheap, intimidated, and dependent labor force. The social costs of labor (education, housing, health and old-age care) are held down by the control of migrant labor and the existence of impoverished rural reservations (Bantustans, or "homelands"), where the nonproductive (women, children, elderly) can be dumped without their be- coming a burden on a developed modern sector. According to a voluminous neo-Marxist literature (Volpe 1972, 1976; Johnstone 1970, 1976; Legassick 1974a, 1974b; Trapido 1971), Apartheid is compatible with capitalist expansion, contrary to Weber's (and Marx's) prediction that industrial capitalism would become increasingly rational and non-ascriptive. In the revolutionary perspective, because of the unique sym- biosis between Apartheid and South African capitalism, the abolition of one inevitably means the downfall of the other. Were it not for the collaboration between Western capital and its profitable South African outpost, it is argued (First et al. 1972), the regime would have been weaker and would have had to give in much more to Africans' demands. Therefore, economic sanctions and boycotts are seen as decisive weapons in ending Apartheid. Even an economic crisis, it is said, would hurt whites much more than blacks, who have little to lose. Since "a somewhat better paid black labor force may be even more reluctant than it is now to risk what it has" (Karis 1975: 232), many implicitly .

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