THE furore over the England cricket team in the West Indies has brought apartheid in South Africa back into the news. The British sporting authorities and the government argue that things are improving for blacks in South Africa. CHARLIE VAN GELDEREN reviews a new pamphlet which disproves that myth.
The white nationalist regime of Pieter Botha claims that it is trying to humanise the obnoxious racist system known as Apartheid.
South Africa's leading capitalist, Harry Oppenheimer, who is head of Anglo-American, urges the government to speed up the process otherwise matters may be taken out of the hands of the ruling class. The workers of South Africa will solve matters their own way
This is no idle threat. On 16 February the Afrikaans-language newspaper Die Vaderland reported a survey finding that the majority of blacks in Soweto favoured revolution as the best and surest means of improving their lot.
Judy Seidman's valuable pamphlet Facelift Apartheid gives a comprehensive review of the 'concessions' which the g[ov]ernment has made [t]owards its alleged goal of 'achieving e[q]uality for all people before the law and equal chances and opportunities', to quote Piet Koornhof, the Minister of Co-operation and Development.
Soweto
The first moves were made by the Vorster government when it set up community councils for black urban residential areas. The enthusiasm for these in the black community is indicated by the elections in Soweto in 1978, when only 5 per cent of the 200,000 registered voters went to the polls.
The survey reported in Die Vaderland showed that the chairperson of the Soweto Council, David Thebali, enjoyed the support of only 2 per cent of the township residents.
Botha even hinted a couple of years ago that he was prepared to revise that section of the Immorality act which forbids miscegenation and mixed marriages. That was in 1979, since when he has made a hasty retreat under pressure from his rank-and-file and the Dutch Reformed Church.
The crowning edifice of this 'liberalised apartheid' was to be the new constitution, designed to give the 'coloured' and Asiatic communities (but not the blacks) a share in the governm[en]t. It left real power in the hands of the white assembly which alone can pass legislation, while the State President retains residual powers of veto.
The pamphlet shows the reality of the 'concessions': 'The creation of a privileged stratum of Africans ... has an unavoidable corollary — the rest of the African population must be even more firmly controlled.'
Bulldozed
Influx control has been tightened; pass arrests have increased; shanty towns like Modderdam, near Cape Town, and Unibell have been bulldozed. The government's threat to wipe Crossroads off the map has only been held up by international pressure.
Detentions, bannings, political trials continue unabated; restrictions on press reporting have increased; black papers have been banned; black journalists have had banning orders placed on them.
The author quotes Rear-Admiral Edwards, of the South African defence force: 'Time is running out — time has run out. I don't think we have five years to play with.' 'This pessimistic statement,' she writes, 'was made two years after Soweto.'
For the black workers in southern Africa, for revolutionary internationalists everywhere, it is a reason for optimism. The apartheid regime is beginning to show the first doubts in its capacity to govern, one of the basic precepts for a revolutionary situation.
What is now required is for the working class of South Africa to equip itself politically and militarily to assail this last stronghold of imperialism in Southern Africa. And it is for us to break Britain's connections with apartheid.
'Facelift Apartheid — South Africa after Soweto' by Judy Seidman. International Defence & Aid for Southern Africa, price £1.20.