A JOB FOR THE ARMY
Stephen Robinson finds little
panic among White South Africans at the state of emergency
Cape Town IF SOUTH Africa is about to go bang, it certainly doesn't feel that way to those of us who live here. White South Africans, it is true, have always been notoriously com- placent about trouble on their own door- step. If apartheid has achieved one thing, it has made it possible for whites to live untouched by the trauma of anarchy in the black townships. Untouched, largely, the whites have remained, apart from the occasional isolated and well publicised incident.
But the announcement that roughly one quarter of South Africa's population had been placed under a state of emergency came as a shock — a stark realisation that the situation in the townships had become very serious indeed. Serious it certainly is, but whether it really is the 'crisis' proc- laimed in the local press is a different matter; and the assumption that Mr P. W. Botha's move amounts to the last kick of a dying mule — as some British commenta- tors and politicians seem to have assumed — would amuse most South Africans.
It is ironic that people are only now using the term 'crisis' at the very time that the government has decided to do some- thing about it. In terms of South African Realpolitik, Mr Botha's announcement was no more than the logical climax to the anarchy that has spread through the townships in the past nine months, during which around 500 people have been killed.
Mingled with the concern that the gov- ernment's existing fearsome means of con- trol have proved inadequate is a wide- spread sense of relief, even delight, that the gloves are finally coming off. For many whites — and not only the die-hard con- servative Afrikaners — daily reports of blacks stoning buildings and buses with impunity are too painful to bear.
Your average white South African, who has sweated through Sharpeville and Sowe- to, could be forgiven for believing he has seen it all before. Home owners in the smarter white suburbs will tell you with pride how they picked up property at knock-down prices as hordes of British subjects took the 'chicken run' in 1977. House prices have been depressed for the past year, it is true, but the economic recession and the swingeing mortgage in- terest rates are largely to blame for that. The Johannesburg stock exchange is at an all-time high, and shows no sign of hitting the floor as it did after Sharpeville. Despite widespread international condemnation of the state of emergency, there has been little overseas selling of South African equities. There are no jostling queues outside the airline offices.
The last state of emergency was declared in 1960 following the Sharpeville shootings and the subsequent banning of the African National Congress. It lasted five months, and was geographically more widespread than the present one: 20,000 members of the citizen force were mobilised. The commissioner of police has said that he has enough manpower to cope this time largely because substantial, though undisclosed, numbers of soldiers have been used in this latest wave of trouble. The manpower and firepower are available, and last Saturday proved that the political will is also there. The sense of security is reinforced by constant teievison exposure of senior police officers explaining how they are going to snuff out the intimidation of law-abiding black citizenry. Almost all the black townships are well away from white residential areas. They can be sealed off, and the Army will happily do the rest. It is a dismal thought. But you can be sure the government won't feel inhibited from acting.
Those who see this as the final chapter in the saga of Africa's last white tribe ignore not only history. South Africa is a very large country indeed, and it is quite possi- ble to live in Johannesburg and turn a blind eye to what is happening up the road in Soweto. It is easy to miss what is going on in Cape Town if you live in Durban. This is white South Africa's great strength, and might — eventually — prove to be its fatal weakness.
Just as the township violence has largely been relegated to inside pages in the local press in the past few months — except when there was a hot story like the Uitenhage shootings — the furore over the stage of emergency will soon be forgotten, assuming the government is able to contain the trouble to the specified areas. The state of emergency will no doubt be terrifying for numerous trade unionists, churchmen, black leaders. Hundreds have already been detained, and many more will follow. But `ongoing crises' make dull copy, and soon the papers will revert to inside page situa- tion reports from the police public rela- tions officers in Pretoria.
Those who predict revolution are quick to say that the white and black communi- ties have never before been so polarised. That may or may not be true, but it would be wrong to assume that blacks have never been so united. The ANC's stated aim is to make the townships ungovernable, and they have achieved this with extraordinary success. Awesome anger is being vented throughout the country; local black gov- ernment has collapsed, yet there appears to be no tightly co-ordinated campaign. Problems of logistics and geography apply equally to any organisation which might seek to orchestrate the violence.
On the other hand white society — business, the press, and mainstream opin- ion — has never been so united. Business- men may agree that old-style apartheid is unworkable, but they're damn sure they dislike the look of disinvestment even more. It is the disinvestment and sanctions bogey which has dominated the front pages of the newspapers over the past few weeks more than the deaths in the townships. The prospect of doing without his IBM person- al computer or his German sports car is far more irksome to the white businessman than the occasional twinge of conscience about the township down the road.
The government has given the undertak- ing that the press will not be restricted in its coverage of the state of emergency, although it says it expects editors to exer- cise `responsibility'. It can bank on that, particularly now the Rand Daily Mail has shut down. Indeed the RDM's successor, Business Day, came out on Monday with the eccentric suggestion that Mr Botha's measures were insufficient, and that the Army should be sent in to 'rub along with black community leaders'. The liberal press has changed beyond recognition since the Sixties and Seventies. And this time around there will be no white spaces in the newspapers bearing the legend `censored'. The new buzz words are order rather than reform, consensus, dialogue.
Yes, South Africans are concerned — the state of emergency has grabbed their attention like no issue since the previous bombshell about the collapse of the All Blacks rugby tour which dominated televi- sion and newspapers only the week before. But they are worried not because they visualise their daughters being raped in the jacuzzi, but because of the trouble, the bad publicity overseas, the ghastly thought of it all. They know full well that if the situation deteriorates further, the raw might of the Army will be unleashed to sort it out. Life will go on. The rest of the world will forget. And aren't the Australian rebel cricketers coming out in November?
Stephen Robinson is a British journalist living and working in Cape Town.
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