South Africa's Gaullist option

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Is South Africa too democratic? It may seem a perverse question to ask of a country where fewer than one adult in five is enfranchised. Especially so when the government has just initiated a new round of repression, beginning with the arrests in Soweto the weekend before last. And yet it 'is that very question which lies behind re-

cent political and constitutional developments there. For although South Africa is distinguished by its policy of racial exclusion, it has another tinique distinguishing feature. It is not only a tribal oligarchy unlike any other, it is — disturb- ing thought for democrats, for Hellenists, maybe also for Afrikaner nationalists — the only living example of a Periclean democracy. A minority, the political na- tion, leads a full democratic life, supported economically by a majority of helots. Not many can vote. Those who can, do and do so tenaciously. It is precisely this which has led to the political paralysis dogging the country.

This is the impasse from which Mr Botha, the prime minister, is trying to escape. When he came to office in 1978 in the wake of the 'Info' scandal and the in- voluntary resignation of Mr John Vorster he seemed to offer a hope of change which spoke to people outside the confines of the ruling National Party. He told Americans that apartheid was dead, he told South Africans that they must adapt or die. The events of the next three years apparently belied these hopes. None of the radical changes which Mr Botha had offered, or at least hinted at, was to be seen in practice. In 1980 there were more upheavals at home on the part of urban blacks, and also of the mestizo 'Coloureds', not as violent as Soweto in 1976, but serious all the same. The tip-and-run war on the border of Namibia threatened to drag on for ever. In- cursions into Angola did little for the military reputation of the South African ar- my. The price of gold, all-important under- pin to South Africa's economic strength, rocketed upwards, then peaked at around $850 an ounce in 1980, and then slumped. Today it is below $300, the lowest since August 1979 and down more than $100 since the beginning of the year. Last year, it is true, Mr Botha recovered the situation on several fronts. But while South Africa re- mains the most powerful country on the continent, both in economic and in military terms, its rulers have had a series of nasty shocks.

The government has been under pressure from two central power groups, both per- turbed by their increasing vulnerability. The

'That's not very interesting — you can do better than that.'

military are not happy with the way the Namibian conflict is going. Not that there is the remotest danger of a South African defeat; but as events elsewhere have shown, a lengthy guerrilla contest can have a debilitating effect on even great military powers. Even when (or if) South Africa ac- cepts a Namibian settlement, and (also if) learns to keep her army at home, there will be more guerrilla fighting closer at hand. The head of the African National Congress, Mr Oliver Tambo, promised as much in Zimbabwe last Monday. The army leaders have repeatedly said in private, and have occasionally hinted in public, that they can only guard the borders with a comparative- ly peaceful home front. That means carrots as well as sticks for the black masses, the sort of concessions which until now have been denied by a truculent white electorate.

Business, equally, is dissatisfied with the political stalemate. It is possible to attribute self-interested motives to multi-millionaire progressives in South Africa, such as Mr Harry Oppenheimer; possible also to smile at the argument that 'capitalism is colour- blind' and will undermine apartheid at the last. There is an equally plausible Marxist argument that economic necessities have preconditioned the racial structure of South Africa. A calmer view would be to see some truth in both: at one stage of its development South African capitalism — which meant mining — needed semi-servile black labour. Now it needs black con- sumers, and skilled black workers — whose advance is impeded not by business but by white trade unions, Like our own unions they exercise considerable political as well as industrial strength. At all events, the op- position Progressive Federal Party and its rich supporters have good practical as well as principled reasons for wanting reform.

The reforms which Mr Botha now pro- poses consist chiefly in incorporating two of the ethnic groups, 'Asians' — which means mostly Indians — and 'Coloureds', into the constitution by means of a tripartite parlia- ment; and strengthening the executive with a president on the American or French model. The first of these measures has been condemned by the opposition inside, and by the anti-apartheid movement outside. South Africa as a ploy. It ignores, of course, the black majority. The theory of neo-apartheid, or whatever name must be given to the ruling ideology, is that blacks, all of them, belong to homelands, or Ban- tustans — or latterly 'independent coun- tries' in the eyes of Pretoria if of no one else. As each homeland becomes 'indepen- dent' blacks take on its citizenship as ap- propriate: Xhosas becomes Transkeians or Ciskeians, Tswanas become Bophuthat- swanans. Thus, in theory, only Asians and 'Coloureds' present a further problem. For all the obloquy it has inspired, it should be recognised that the new plan is a direct reversal of classical apartheid as it has been developed since the Nationalists came to power in 1948. Before that there were two kinds of franchise in South Africa. The Cape had kept, under Union, its .traditional franchise which was non- racial in theory and indeed to some extent

in practice. 'Coloureds' had voted on the common register in the Cape; until the 1930s even a handful of blacks had done so. But the Nationalist triumph meant the triumph also of the old Dutch republics and their contrary principle of `no equality in church or state'. And the first great battle of the Nationalist era was to disenfranchise the 'Coloureds'. It is they who have always been the flaw in the logic of apartheid — that is, making an effort of imagination and accepting for the sake of argument Dr Ver- wocrd's theories. The 'Coloureds', are after all no more or less than brown Afrikaners, speaking the same language as the ruling tribe. They all have some white blood (as indeed all true — 'white' — Afrikaners have some 'Coloured' blood).

The proposed change has proved too much for the keepers of the Verwoerdian faith. For a long time Dr Andries Treur- nicht, leader of the Transvaal Nationalists, and of the verkrampte (last-ditch) Na- tionalists, has been threatening Mr Botha's leadership, but he was always the poor cat i' the adage of Nationalist politics. Now events have forced his hand. He and his followers have been driven out of the party, and will presumably form a new bloc with other ultra-white supremacists.

For the moment Mr Botha has kept con- trol of party and government; but for how much longer? It is that question which haunts him, and tempts him towards another course.

?The proposal for an executive presidency has inevitably rekindled talk of a Gaul- list solution to the stalemate. As the South African parliament met in Capetown in January the Nouvel Observateur in Paris was floating such a scheme — though it has been no more than a commonplace of political discussion in South Africa for years now. After some form of coup, a strong man would bypass parliament and Parties. The strong man would deal with his Nationalist supporters as de Gaulle dealt with the French Right (if not as he dealt with the pieds noirs) and open the way for an imposed settlement.

It is true that parliament has given up its reason for being, except to validate the government's executive decisions. It still provides some forum of debate and of free expression. From its small corner of the house the opposition can criticise the government and expose abuses of police Power in a way which the press is not free to copy. But over the years the ever-larger Nationalist majority surrendered even the modest power exercised by other represen- tative assemblies. There is even less chance of a Bill being amended in an important sense than there is in the House of Com- mons with a large Tory or Labour majority. A succession of laws passed by parliament has handed almost all power to the ex- ecutive. The government can and sometimes does rule by decree. And parliamentarians, as an inevitable result of a generation of rule by one party, have not improved in quality. At a dinner party in Capetown recently an Afrikaner lady, wife of a judge, ended a sentence sitting there like a row of baboons'. By this arresting phrase she was, it turned out, referring to the Nationalist backbenchers. Maybe even some members of the govern- ment would agree.

The temptations of this 'Gaullist solu- tion' for the prime minister are obvious enough. It is less plausible to cast Mr Botha as a de Gaulle, even within the bizarre con- text of white South African politics. The division within the Nationalists between 'verligte' and 'verkramPte' is misleading, especially if presented as corresponding to the spectrum of left and right, terms which don't usefully apply in South Africa. Mr Botha is not a radical (as de Gaulle in a sense was), a reformer, or even a centrist, just an apparatchik, a man of business.

Of course, talk of 'reform' may all be fancy, unreal daydreaming before the cataclysm. In moments of gloom it is possi- ble to believe that the only realists in South Africa are the verkrampte Nationalists and the ANC Communist Party axis. It is cer- tainly easy to see the country passing from the quasi-Stalinism which is the present dispensation to the fully-fledged thing. In the peculiar circumstances of South Africa a liberal solution, if not impossible, cannot seriously be thought imminent.

Certainly, the least likely outcome is the one which bien-pensant opinion hopes for, a multi-racial, multi-party democracy. So much is clear to those inside the country, though they may sometimes pretend other- wise. The truth is that no one in South Africa really wants democracy as we understand it. The Nationalists want con- tinued white supremacy in a more or less

obvious form. As for the Progressives, a cynic would say that they too want con-

tinued white supremacy, but it would be

fairer to take them at face value. Not long ago their policy was for a limited franchise,

non-racial of course in theory, but in prac- tice including a rather modest section of the black majority. Now Prog policy is for an

adult franchise but within a highly

fragmented, confederal system: `no to one man one vote in a unitary state' was their

cautious slogan in last year's election.

White communists and black nationalists, of course, favour democracy in theory but they presumably have in mind the somewhat specialised forms of universal suffrage found in Russia and Tanzania.

Given this lack of enthusiasm for democracy and given the dead-end into which white politics has run, it is understan- dable that politicians, businessmen and generals are taken with the idea of an autocratic government (presumably to be composed of generals, businessmen and professional politicians). If no one has the vote, then no section of the community can complain that it is especially deprived of it. South Africa could become just another African country. There are other signs of this already. One is the recent hint that the

government will further trammel the press. Another is a plan for all South Africans to carry an identity card — or pass — after which the hated 'clompas' will no longer be a symbol of purely black servitude.

This is a speculative picture, and a bleak one, but not necessarily all bleakness. No one in South Africa wants democracy, and it is hard to blame them. There is scarcely a country in Africa which has democracy, in much less problematic circumstances — politically and ethnically, if not economically — than South Africa. One could even argue that there is scarcely a country with 'black majority rule' — that cant phrase — in any sense other than no longer having colonial rule. Look at the 50 member-states of the Organisation for African Unity. You don't need the fingers of two hands to count those among them which have the rudiments of free expres- sion, the rule of law, or representative government. In what useful sense of the word does the majority (of whatever col- our) rule in the other countries?

It cannot be emphasised too strongly that what is wrong with South Africa is not the absence of black majority rule but the presence of systematic racial discrimina- tion. Anything which evades that should be welcomed. A universal democracy on the European model is doubtless a fine ideal for South Africa but not a very practical one. For a long time to come South Africans, all of them, are going to have to make the best of a bad job.