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The Opening of the Apartheid Mind: Options for the New South Africa

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The Opening of the Apartheid Mind: Options for the New South Africa Preferred Citation: Adam, Heribert, and Kogila Moodley. The Opening of the Apartheid Mind: Options for the New South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1993 1993. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft958009mm/ The Opening of the Apartheid Mind Options for the New South Africa Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley · Los Angeles · London © 1993 The Regents of the University of California For Kanya and Maya in lieu of letters Preferred Citation: Adam, Heribert, and Kogila Moodley. The Opening of the Apartheid Mind: Options for the New South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1993 1993. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft958009mm/ For Kanya and Maya in lieu of letters Acknowledgments Our reasoning has drawn liberally on the insights of many colleagues. First and foremost, we benefited from numerous conversations with two longtime South African friends, Van Zyl Slabbert and Hermann Giliomee. Slabbert’s political savvy and Giliomee’s sensitivity toward Afrikaner nationalism, as well as our disagreements over the nature of ethnicity, stimulated much of our writing. We had frequent political discussions with Jenny and Alex Boraine, André du Toit, Hamish Dickie-Clark, Pieter and Ingrid Le Roux, Wilmot James, Helen Zille and Johann Maree, Michael Savage, Oscar Dhlomo, Franklin Sonn, Allister Sparks, Solly Benatar, Vincent Mapai, Pierre van den Berghe, Mamphela Ramphele, Theo Hanf, Motti Tamarkin and Tony Williamson. Jeffrey Butler and David Welsh read the manuscript for the publisher and made valuable suggestions, as did our students in Vancouver and Cape Town. All the research associates who collected data in Canada and South Africa during the past four years, as well as the dozens of busy respondents who allowed themselves to be interviewed, deserve thanks. We could not have asked for more thoughtful copyeditors than Pamela Holway and Amy Einsohn in Berkeley. The end product would not be in a presentable state without the meticulous attention of Anita Mahoney, Jan MacLellan in the Dean of Art’s Office at Simon Fraser University, Peng Wong in the Multicultural Liaison Office at the University of British Columbia, and Gila van Rooyen at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town. The Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) continued to support our research. Cape Town, January 1993 Heribert Adam Kogila Moodley Abbreviations and Acronyms AHI Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut ANC African National Congress Assocom Association of Chambers of Commerce AVU Afrikaner Volksunie, a splinter faction of the Conservative Party AWB Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) Azapo Azanian People’s Organisation BCM Black Consciousness Movement BOSS Bureau of State Security, predecessor of NIS CBM Consultative Business Movement CCB Civil Cooperation Bureau, an undercover agency of the SADF Codesa Convention for a Democratic South Africa, a negotiating forum of nineteen parties established in 1991 Contralesa Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa Cosatu Congress of South African Trade Unions CP Conservative Party DET Department of Education and Training DMI Department of Military Intelligence DP Democratic Party EPG Eminent Persons’ Group FCI Federated Chamber of Industries FLS Frontline States, the eleven states of Southern Africa that are members of SADC Fosatu Federation of South African Trade Unions, predecessor of Cosatu HNP Herstigte Nasionale Party, an extreme right-wing splinter party led by Jaap Marais Idasa Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa IDT Independent Development Trust IFP Inkatha Freedom Party JSE Johannesburg Stock Exchange KZP KwaZulu Police LRA Labour Relations Act MDM Mass Democratic Movement MK Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC MNR Mozambique National Resistance, also known as Renamo MPLA Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, led by José Eduardo dos Santos Nactu National Council of Trade Unions Nafcoc National African Federated Chambers of Commerce Nats Members of the National Party NECC National Education Crisis Committee NIS National Intelligence Service NMC National Manpower Commission NP National Party NSMS National Security Management System NUM National Union of Mine Workers Numsa National Union of Metal Workers OAU Organization of African Unity OFS Orange Free State PAC Pan Africanist Congress PFP Progressive Federal Party, predecessor of the Democratic Party PWV Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vaal Triangle Renamo Resistência Nacional Mocambicano, a South Africa-supported rebel movement against the ruling Frelimo party; also known as MNR SABC South African Broadcasting Corporation Sabta South African Black Taxi Association Saccola South African Consultative Committee on Labour Affairs Sacob South African Chamber of Business SACP South African Communist Party SADCC Southern African Development Coordination Conference; renamed SADC (Southern African Development Community) in 1992 under terms of the Windhoek Treaty SADF South African Defence Force SAIRR South African Institute of Race Relations Samcor South African Motor Corporation SANCO South African National Civic Organisation SAP South African Police SBDC Small Business Development Corporation SSC State Security Council Swapo South West African People’s Organisation, the ruling nationalist movement in Namibia TBCV Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, and Venda, the nominally independent homelands UDF United Democratic Front UF Urban Foundation Unita Uniâo Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, the U.S.- and South Africa-supported movement led by Jonas Savimbi Uwusa United Workers’ Union of South Africa Methodological Approaches and Political Values The most repugnant form of lying is to tell, all of it, whilst hiding the soul of facts. Reluctant reconciliation is taking shape in South Africa. The ambivalent alliance between the two major contenders for power, the National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC), results from a balance of forces where neither side can defeat the other. It is their mutual weakness, rather than their equal strength, that makes both longtime adversaries embrace negotiations for power-sharing. Like a forced marriage, the working arrangement lacks love but nonetheless is consummated because any alternative course would lead to a worse fate for both sides. The emergence of multiracial domination has surprised those observers who viewed the battle over apartheid as a clear moral issue, the defeat of the last colonizers by a widely acclaimed movement of national liberation. During the 1970s and 1980s the international debate on South Africa was preoccupied with the obvious immorality of legalized racism. The apartheid state was invariably treated as a monolithic racist entity, and internal strategic developments were overlooked or reduced to simple dichotomies between oppressors and victims. This either-or reasoning ignored local contexts and obscured the ambiguities, contradictions, and irrationalities of life under apartheid. Undoubtedly, the grotesque Verwoerdian social engineering was brutal; but it also contained a certain paternalistic benevolence that oiled the system and helps explain why apartheid lasted so long. Incontrovertibly, the system of racially defined privileges designated oppressors and victims, but if we are to understand South African politics, victimology needs to be balanced by accounts of how the seemingly powerless survived, gave meaning to their lives, and acted upon their particular historical circumstances. Developments in South Africa have also been widely misunderstood owing to the tendency to apply false colonial analogies or popular stereotypes of violent tribalism. Later, the personality cult surrounding Nelson Mandela and the accolades accorded to F. W. de Klerk have further romanticized a conflictual relationship, personalizing it into a literal matter of black versus white, and thereby obscuring the social conditions and constraints under which these leaders act, the passions and interests that drive their interacting constituencies. Criticizing the ANC became taboo among anti- apartheid activists. But it is precisely because the ANC and Nelson Mandela are key players in South Africa’s future that they cannot be treated as above criticism or scrutiny. Sympathy for the essential legitimacy of the ANC’s claims, and respect for Mandela’s moral stature, statesmanship, and pragmatic wisdom do not require progressives to endorse at face value everything the ANC says about itself. Critical solidarity, not cheerleading, is required. To contribute to a more nuanced understanding of South Africa, this study probes the various competing forces in the ongoing transition. How did the miracle happen that allowed for multiparty negotiations? What are the sources of the continuing violence, which threatens these historic negotiations? What are the prospects for the success or failure of democracy in a society characterized by such extremes of affluence and poverty? How can the legacies of apartheid be overcome without creating new injustices? Can postapartheid South Africa, the most industrialized society in a war- ravaged continent, serve as the engine of growth for all of Southern Africa? What are the options for international assistance in the postapartheid era? In a referendum held on March 17, 1992, a surprising 68.7 percent of South Africa’s whites supported a negotiated abolition of their minority rule. The same cabinet ministers and Afrikaner
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