POLITICS
Mrs Thatcher's honesty, Sir Geoffrey's problem
BRUCE ANDERSON
Black Africa has become a theatre of barbarism and exported political sen- timentality. Throughout the continent, `governments' are robbing, oppressing, in- carcerating, flogging, torturing, and murdering their subjects — but no one in the West gives a damn. A patch of fog on the Ml makes a bigger news story.
So we can dismiss the idea that all the attention now being paid to the sufferings of South African blacks has anything to do with morality — such a selective morality is no morality at all. The emotional intensity that South Africa arouses owes far more to aggression than to pity: most of its strength of feeling derives not from love of the blacks, but from hatred of the whites.
The argument for sanctions against South Africa rests on two contradictory propositions, neither of which is true. The first is that the government's reform pro- cess is a sham, and that the South African whites are cynical monsters. The second is that if economic sanctions were applied, they would somehow turn into paper monsters.
But the truth is that most of those who advocate sanctions are as little interested in logic as they are in history. They are no more willing to think through the consequ- ences of sanctions than they are to address the problems of implementing democracy in South Africa. They are not concerned to do good, only to feel good — moral free-lunchers, who use other countries' complex and intractable problems as poli- tical soft porn to fuel their own fantasies.
The terrible irony of all this is that the South African government is in trouble because it is trying to reform the country's institutions and share power with the blacks — the old, inevitable story of the de Tocqueville dictum, that the most danger- ous moment for a previously repressive government comes when it embarks on reform. If, instead, Mr Botha had opted for repression, Mr Heath wouldn't be urging Mrs Thatcher to implement mea- sures which he never even considered when he was Prime Minister, long before the reform process had begun. Tories for Fundamental Change in South Africa — a group infested by the kind of backbencher who not only oils his hair, but his voice and his face as well — would not have escaped from the Peter Simple column, for there would have been no opportunity for its members to smarm all over the news programmes. And Sir Geoffrey Howe would have been spared the need to go on his travels.
As it is, Sir Geoffrey has had to spend much of the last year in preparing a damage-limitation exercise. He and the Foreign Office are fully persuaded by the case against sanctions — and even more fully aware that for Britain to argue that case would risk diplomatic isolation. So they sought a policy which would achieve a number of objectives — all apparently irreconcilable. First, they recognised the need to implement a minimum package of economic measures which would placate the Commonwealth while doing little dam- age to the British and South African economies. These measures would be de- scribed as 'sanctions' in Lusaka and 'sig- nals' at the 1922 Committee. Second, they wanted to retain our influence with and leverage over President Botha, and to persuade him that Britain might have a role as an honest broker. Third, boldest of all, they hoped that these measures might defuse the whole issue, so that it would cease to dominate the agenda at Common- wealth and other conferences.
Like many diplomatic endeavours, this was open to the objection that it presup- posed a world in which everyone was as subtle and sophisticated as the Foreign Office mandarins. In this case, that criti- cism had special force. It was entirely predictable that one of the key players would resolutely refuse to display either subtlety or sophistication.
The British Prime Minister has a thor- oughly undiplomatic temperament. She knew that sanctions were a nonsense why couldn't everyone else see reason? In the briefing meetings, Sir Geoffrey would patiently ride out the storms as he ex- plained to her the need to make a gesture to the foreigners. But in the plenary sessions, as soon as the objection was raised that the measures which the UK was offering did not go far enough, she would break out — the whole thing was rubbish anyway.
Sir Geoffrey, however, is formidably effective at getting his own way with the Prime Minister. She flings the crockery at him: he just blinks, resumes his suede-shoe delivery, and wears her down. But in this case, reluctant acquiescence is not enough.
Ferdinand Mount is on holiday. Her inconvenient honesty has been most unhelpful — indeed, it has virtually sabot- aged Sir Geoffrey's efforts. Mrs Thatcher's well-advertised dislike of the whole policy has made it doubly clear that anything proposed by London will be half-hearted. So unless Mr Botha rescues Sir Geoffrey by releasing Nelson Mandela, there is major trouble ahead for the Common- wealth: This is causing great anxiety in some sections of the Tory Party, who fear the electoral consequences of a break up. Certainly, there could be great embarrass- ments ahead, especially with the Palace. On Commonwealth matters, the Queen is, as it were, outside her Prime Minister's jurisidiction: Commonwealth leaders en- joy independent access to her, and can tender advice that is in direct conflict with the advice she receives from No. 10. There are no precedents to show how this prob- lem should be resolved, so it could yet create a political and indeed constitutional crisis. But if so, it may be a crisis fought out in the upper reaches of the Establishment, with little or no popular resonance.
The Commonwealth is best defined as the British Empire converted into a sub- sidiary of Lonrho, and then rewritten as an Observer leader. As such, it has never implanted itself in the affections of the British public. If the public now discovers that the Commonwealth means sharing our Queen with those who certainly don't deserve her, indifference may quickly be- come hostility.
But the strongest argument against the Commonwealth is an altruistic one. One can see why these African dictators so enjoy international junketings, where they are treated as equals by politicians from proper countries. Any relief from the problems of feeding their own peoples must be welcome. But many of these problems were created by those very politi- cians. Since independence, most African countries have been in the throes of urban kleptocracy and rural socialism, which is why they have squandered not only aid receipts, but their populations' energies. Nothing should be allowed to distract African politicians from the task of putting that right. If they want to feel that they are jolly good fellows, let them do so by winning their peoples' gratitude — not by using the Commonwealth as a Third World playpen.
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