Winter in South Africa: A Diary
Varon, Benno Weiser
capabilities. We did not wish to acknowledge this destructive power. We knew that we were engaged in a game of poker. But we also knew that there was only one way out and that the path we had...
...Matanzima will be outraged and threaten to send all of them back...
...We pass District Six, or what was District Six...
...Motlana is small and slender, in his late fifties, and well known at the Carlton...
...Mr...
...The rest must commute from and to Soweto, Johannesburg's all-black twin city, whose inhabitants number somewhere between one and one-and-a-half million...
...I mention that in the Johannesburg zoo we saw all comfort stations marked " F o r Europeans Only," though the majority of the visitors were black...
...We see the town from every angle, against the backdrop of the Table Mountain which rises vertically a full 3,000 f e e t and from the Mountain sprawling at our feet...
...We check later with a newspaper editor...
...The main attraction is called Cape Point...
...Why this godforsaken island...
...Schroeder is not the first to have voiced such opinions to us, but nobody has put it so bluntly...
...Flew back to Johannesburg and drove from there to Kruger National Park...
...If they are given lots of bread they need less freedom...
...While it is clear that-the-coloreds 'had to go because the whites wanted this central neighborhood for themselves, Schroeder tries to be lenient and says his people now live in spacious and better homes...
...To express support for South Africa implies not only courage, but also a great deal of callousness...
...The will to resist disappeared overnight in Mozambique...
...I believe that a total embargo of the Soviet bloc--grain, technology, capital, everything--would be a most useful measure...
...But there are no union funds, contributions from abroad are forbidden, and workers d o n ' t make enough money to put something aside for strikes...
...How great is its desire that the blacks receive a good education...
...Who would be the p r e s i d e n t of the nation...
...Our guide does not suggest that we enter any of the homes...
...They meet with Prime Minister P.W...
...On the way back we are waylaid by a group of baboons...
...Motlana does not disagree...
...Friends alleged to us that the pro-black leanings of the liberal paper have antagonized many white readers and, more important, advertisers...
...I= faght to Zurich, August 28: I could not write an encyclopedia about South Africa...
...I have to think of the beautiful lady at the Foreign Ministry's guest department...
...Benno IVeiser Varon lived as a newspaperman in Latin America and returned there years later as Ambassador of lsrael...
...Capetowtt, August 15:In this land of diamonds, Capetown is the gem...
...And don't believe we would occupy their houses...
...In the Dominican Republic we gave our crates away and our cook built herself a shack out of them where she proudly lived with her mother and children...
...All the same, nobody here denies that t h e ANC, the African National Congres s which sponsors the terrorist activities i n South Africa, is armed and supported by t h e USSR...
...What happened to Zimbabwe's whites...
...It spends most of i t s energy increasing its front of attack...
...There exist two million coloreds and 200,000 of them are Malaysians...
...We pick up Mr...
...Of these, one--Bophuthatswana--consists of nine disconnected parcels of land and is being kept afloat by Sun City (promptly dubbed Sin City), a white entrepreneur-financed conglomerate of casino-cure-bordellos where white South Africans, who at home would face jail terms for having sex outside t h e i r race, can indulge in their lust for "dark meat...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 17 CapetowH, August 17: Our first interview is based on a misunderstanding...
...Military matters, for instance...
...Real ones," she adds, "no stooges...
...Representative Shirley Chisholm visits the place and is moved to tears...
...Don't expect a firebrand...
...We are the only ones to walk to it, as there isn't even a path...
...It turns out that the Ministry for Education and Training deals only with black education...
...What happens when you cross van der Merve with a baboon...
...It would not disgrace Scarsdale, N.Y., or Short Hills, N.J...
...Thus, I can't travel abroad...
...van Zyl Slabbert, the chief of the opposition, had the other day a controversy with Prime Minister (P.W...
...The owners, or t e n a n t s , obviously take no pride in their homesteads...
...In a very moving newspaper piece, Bishop Desmond Tutu, the one whom we did not manage to see, while commenting on the events in Nyanga, avoids s t r i d e n c y , anger, and reproach, but voices regret at the governm e n t ' s lack of Ubuntu, a black term for I I compassion...
...Recently its e d i t o r - i n - c h i e f was dismissed...
...A moderate indeed, I think...
...Only a small number of black domestics, waiters, etc., who work late hours, can receive permission to sleep in town...
...A few days later I discuss these figures with friends in Johannesburg...
...There can be no doubt...
...Our last day in Johannesburg brought about an almost incredible innovation (which seems to have remained South A f r i c a ' s b e s t - k e p t secret): For the f i r s t time blacks were allowed to sit side by side with whites on Johannesburg's public busses...
...The ingredients are familiar: sky, mountains, meadows, houses...
...This fiction reads as follows: South Africa consists of the black homelands [which are states or states-in-the-making] and the rest is the home of the whites...
...Q0990~BQOOb0QO~ia0QOD0~D~Q0~0D00000QOQ~0Do~t0~0O00~0Dm0t~Q~Q0Q~D~ooiQQQOOOQoD~06~oQ~QQQoQt~DowQ0~Q00000~Q6o06DB600Qi000~atQQ OQ000Q0~Q0 Benno Weiser Varon WINTER IN SOUTH AFRICA: A DIARY On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia...
...The idea is to show that one has to go through one ton of stone to produce seven grams of gold, i.e., a bit under four tons to produce an ounce which, until some ten years ago, fetched a mere $32...
...Some families take in boarders and accommodate 'illegals.' " I say to myself: a ghetto, yes...
...When do you expect to return to Poland...
...Whatever the case, it obviously is less sinful to be colored than to be black...
...The government artificially denied us bread...
...ffohan,esburg, August 24: We have spent a week sightseeing...
...Of course, you can help things along by increasing the capacity of Western broadcasts to break through Soviet jamming...
...Our guide points out the home of Dr...
...celebrates its fifty-first year Wagne Hummer & Eo...
...It's a landscape of lovelessness...
...They were losing their desire to participate...
...What has changed i n these ten years ?" "Things have grown w o r s e , " he answers...
...In recent months, however, it was impossible to hold such meetings for lack of a quorum...
...But not everyone is aware of how high the stakes are...
...Motlana has all the right credentials, too...
...Studying the timetables aboard the plane, I discover that on my return flight the stretch from Johannesburg to Zurich will take 15 hours...
...People simply w e r e n ' t i n t e r e s t e d . They were spending more and more time in queues...
...Rousseau, Director General of the Ministry...
...In April 1981, the Herstigte Nasionale Party, at the extreme right of Botha's National Party, scored heavily...
...One sees more this way...
...Soweto, August 12: During the daytime Johannesburg is a biracial city...
...Our compartment sleeps six, but we have it all to ourselves...
...South Africa is generally inexpensive for the f o r e i g n e r . ) The train is segregated...
...It was a case of despair, not anger...
...But even then they are not allowed to bring their families along...
...Pretoria, August I0, An attractive young woman in the Foreign M i n i s t r y ' s g u e s t department promises to set up some meetings with government, opposition, and black leaders...
...H a i t i ' s , and even J a - maica's, blacks struck me as poorer and more downtrodden...
...The bearded teacher is a black veteran and his method resembles that of Dartmouth's legendary language teacher, John Racias...
...I shrug...
...Apartheid is a recipe for permanent conflict," Botha had declared, and "change is the only alternative to revolution...
...I can't help finding a touch of van der Merve in the minister's sense of timing-one of Koornhof's two portfolios is "Coord i n a t i o n . " He will l a t e r claim t h a t the "whole situation stemmed from his "kindheartedness...
...Botha...
...Though-election rules which discriminate against smaller parties kept the Herstigte (Reconstituted) Nationalists from winning any seats in Parliament, in Transvaal,the richest and most populous province, the party won one-third of the ballots cast by Afrikaners...
...The kind of people the Lord has given South Africa, i.e., those who benefit from its minerals, may get low grades in humanitarianism, but one c a n ' t help admiring their achievements...
...It weighs seven grams...
...The fear apparently prevails that once you start to compromise, the whole fabric may unravel...
...It's a great city...
...Whereupon Dr...
...There would even be no need for elections...
...From their point of view I can conclude that survival is worth any price...
...But South Africa made the tragic mistake of codifying this obsolescence and giving it a name: apartheid...
...He had told the squatters two years earlier that they had to get out...
...The angel stood by with a notebook and asked: "To whom, oh Lord, will you give Tin...
...Do you agree with this assessment...
...Milewski: The government's military action had been in the works for a long time...
...After all, a few thousand British officers and officials ruled over 600 million Indians in India...
...He grew up as a prince...
...It has to follow the Atlantic coastline and stop over in Madrid...
...He asks, "Is the Afrikaner or white identity so fragile that it needs to be protected by such inhumane methods...
...Our friends were right...
...Instead he asks: "But have the whites been killed...
...Only slave labor could allow for some profit...
...I am wary of using easy-coming epithets...
...175 West Jackson Boulevard _9 Chicago, Illinois 60604 Members New York, American and Midwest Stock Exchanges Telephone: (312) 431-1700 (800) 621-4477 Ralph J. Lemley, Partner I THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 19...
...Having weighed the risks of change, some within the white government have obviously decided in favor of the s t a t u s quo...
...In the foreground, on a little table, a tiny needle of gold is displayed...
...This meeting place was his choice...
...This is not the famous Blue Express, a five.star hotel on wheels booked months in advance...
...The name Ibrahim corresponds to his mother's Muslim and Malayan ancestry, Schroeder to his father's Hanoverian origins...
...If I owned this overwhelming landscape, I think, I would hold on to it against all comers, tooth and nail...
...In the months after August 1980, there were huge numbers of union volunteers...
...Did he tell you," they ask, "about the disproportion between the sums spent per capita on black education and on that of the whites...
...While reading the morning paper, I am reminded of both jokes...
...We speak about apartheid...
...Yet from a safe distance I can only echo Bishop Tutu: Would a bit of Ubuntu endanger survival...
...Botha said that white domination is not negotiable...
...As the young lady leads us out of the palatial Union Building, she says: " I f , a f t e r meeting whomever you will meet, and seeing whatever you may see, you leave South Africa in a state of utter confusion, then you may consider your visit a full success...
...For the last 15 years Nelson Mandela has been held prisoner on Robben Island, South Africa's Alcatraz...
...At a press conference, the congressional delegatio, attacks the government...
...But the valley is unusually wide and open, some of the planted quadrangles are of a green so bright as I d o n ' t remember ever having seen in a field, the houses are of an immaculate white...
...Johannesburg, August 12: Lunch with Dr...
...The white man's right to rule over and exploit the colored man was taken for granted...
...A knowledge of 200 words is sufficient...
...Visit to the wiselafuls: As we abandon the national highway and approach Stellenbosch, the landscape becomes unspeakably beautiful...
...This was twenty years ago...
...Born in Malawi and the son of a missionary, he has been active all his professional life in the education of blacks, which until 1955 was in the hands of the missionaries...
...But since "we tried to reach him via the Foreig n Ministry, he declined...
...What do you think about this exchange ?" Mr...
...We want to take in a bit of journalism...
...Another discovery during the visit to the mines: South Africa is not only bilingual, Afrikaans and English, but also has the different tribal languages of its blacks...
...Neither," he says, "do the English-speaking whites who vote for the opposition...
...If you cut off all trade, the Soviet system will fall apart on its own...
...What does this mean...
...An average house, he says, offers no more space than his office, and the office is by no means of heroic proportions...
...We attend a fascinating class of Fonacalo for mine-freshmen...
...I had asked to meet with the Minister of Education and Training, F. Hartzenberg, a leader of the verkrampte and the staunchest hardener within the National Party...
...Emigration continues, in spite of the fact that you are not allowed to take money out of the country...
...There was a time," Mrs...
...Thus I note down, without trying to make comparisons, that in South Africa the trains run on time...
...Motlana so naive...
...There is a separate Ministry of Education dealing with whites...
...Q: In one of his last public statements Solidarity leader Karol Modzelewski asserted that the membership was losinR faith in the union and its leadership...
...He was banned (i.e., not allowed to live in the Johannesburg area...
...Apartheid places white South Africa, including its very understandable territorial imperative, in the dock...
...And Iron...
...We were here for a few days in 1971," I say...
...The things which we are allowed to discuss, such as race r e l a t i o n s , we discuss with absolute freedom...
...He evidently likes to be seen here...
...After all, it was our rank-and-file who had to stand in line for food...
...It is generally known that the Soviet system is not economically self-sufficient...
...By a quirk of nature . . . [it] control[s] the greater portion of the world's most strategic minerals . . . . [It] is by far the world's most important source of manganese, with 78 percent of global reserves and 93 percent of Free World resources...
...Helen Suzman, however, whom we meet immediately after Rousseau, concedes: "Yes there is progress in certain fields, as for instance education...
...He considers it collaboration with a sham...
...It gives out passports which, of course, nobody honors...
...The beautiful parks, t h e i r benches and lawns, belong to the blacks only--they seemingly have no other place to relax...
...Since tips must be accordingly high, the waiters are all white...
...You get a retarded baboon...
...Milewski: I believe, without exaggeration, that developments will enable me to return to Poland within one to two years...
...Everyone came to general meetings...
...But she now confesses to near hopelessness--precisely because the enlightened pronouncements of Prime Minister Botha, who had started out so well, had come to naught...
...Only a few houses reveal any effort at gardening...
...This sense of despair was reflected in the decline in union participation...
...If you cut off all trade, this system will collapse...
...To maintain the fiction of South African democracy...
...The streets are populated mostly by blacks...
...It would be Mandela...
...We have been warned that they can be dangerous when not faced from the car...
...I ask: " I f you were white, wouldn't you try to postpone that victory as long as possible...
...At the same time, an American fact-finding team of Democratic congressmen is visiting South Africa...
...The Cape of Good Hope is a bit to the west...
...Don't worry," says the woman, "they know where to find their toilets...
...Unaware of our loss, I can be nonchalant...
...The Rand Daily Mail is, like the other newspapers o f its chain, conspicuously critical of the government...
...After descending in yellow rubber suits and with miner's helmets in a high-speed elevator into this gold mine, we are t r e a t e d by the management to an elegant lunch and led to the building where the gold is melted into bars...
...Yet we notice an almost total absence of landscaping...
...Without the blacks, gold mining before the 1970s would have been a deficit operation...
...Because Prime Minister P.W...
...As we say good-bye, he says: "Give my regards to Boston...
...There is hardly anyone from my university class left in the country...
...Motlana with whom we are scheduled to have lunch today...
...It did everything possible to show that the union was powerless, that its decrees would not be realized...
...Unnecessary and irritating discriminatory laws had to be dropped...
...The houses that stood there have been razed...
...We still would live in the Sowetos...
...But ten years ago, I still was a citizen of South Africa...
...Why has there been no change...
...No, I am not at all confused...
...We originally aimed at Bishop Desmond Tutu whose byline we have lread in the English-language press...
...This fiction of a state has not only a Presid~m, but also a Foreign Ministry andman Embassy in Pretoria...
...Aren't you laying yourself open to the charge of favoritism ?" 14 THE" AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 The Lord smiled and said: "Wait until you see what kind of people I'll give Bolivia...
...I ask...
...Yet Dr...
...No, he says, though we have been driven over paved roads, while there are others that a r e n ' t . What we were not shown is the smallness of the...
...I converse with a fellow passenger in the corridor...
...This year it is 359 million...
...Why this f u r t i v e n e s s ? Are the Afrikaners afraid to appear soft...
...Mistaking our interest in him for interest in education, the Foreign Office's guest department has arranged for an interview with his secondin-command, J.G...
...Rousseau looks at me like a wounded deer...
...Motlana is her doctor, and a daughter of the Mandelas lived for a time in Motlana's home...
...How do you define a n Afrikaner homosexual...
...When the government of South Africa decided to take over black education, he too was taken over...
...Now the police have come and burned 16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 down these shelters, in the midst of a wet and freezing winter--2,000 dwellers are a f f e c t e d . White women from the Black Sash movement have been bringing food to the suddenly homeless and others have taken some of the youngest into their homes...
...Three of the ten homelands have accepted independence...
...Ours, after all, is a vacation trip and a family visit...
...The homelands for the black majority have been established on just 14 percent of the nation's land...
...A man who'd rather discuss girls than rugby...
...One could," Pogrund admits...
...Since it literally stands on gold, here and there tall dumps of sand and stones are visible, leftovers from the mining process...
...I can't help thinking of it when I hear predictions like Dr...
...The blacks travel in the last car...
...The town is clean...
...The uncertainty in this estimate is caused by the "illegals" who live here without permission...
...Botha who later claims t h e i r behavior was " d i s - respectful...
...Instead we see rows and rows of small but neat houses, some olderi some new, and even some v e r i t a b l e villas...
...The restaurant-car serves a very decent five-course meal for the equivalent of four dollars...
...The p r e s e n t gold bonanza came as a windfall...
...I am an official, not a politician...
...Not everyone in the West believes this...
...As I size them up, they vote Progressive, but they thank God for the National Party...
...Doesn't this physician know something about human nature...
...But we also knew that there was only one way out and that the path we had to take meant walking on ice...
...South Africa has also 81 percent of global reserves of chrome, 75 percent of platinum, 51 percent of gold, 49 percent of vanadium, 35 percent of fluorospar, plus substantial [!] resources of diamonds, uranium, vermiculite, phosphate, zinc, titanium, antimony and lead...
...But then I pick up the in-flight magazine, the Vlieende Springbok, and read: The Republic of South Africa . . . is almost as large in area as the entire European Economic Community...
...Do you consider yourself a radical or a moderate...
...Do they consider themselves transients only...
...Any other airline makes it in 12...
...To Bolivia and Indonesia...
...One cannot walk all the way to it, j u s t view it from a hill...
...2: IVhat in your view can the IVest do to exert pressure on the Jaruzelski rep, ime ? Milewski: I believe that the West should block off the e n t i r e system and not only Poland...
...The number of union activists was steadily diminishing...
...Legends also grow old...
...Schroeder is the Cape leader of the Freedom Party of South Africa, the smaller of the two colored parties...
...He explains: "If you are neither black nor white, you are a colored...
...It tried to frustrate us, and in doing so it radicalized the membership below...
...One is tempted to dismiss this as a boast, but then one hears that Mozambique-Marxist Mozambique--allows and encourages 100,000 of its citizens to work in South Africa's mines and then taxes their earnings when they return...
...South Africa is a geological freak...
...The government is too strong, too overwhelming, too determined...
...And what about blacks...
...Ibrahim Schroeder and drive toward Mitchell's Plain, a haLf-hour's ride from Capetown...
...No blacks...
...If l were a South African white, how much weight would I attribute to his opinions...
...His slenderness derives from his profession and discipline...
...Johannesburg is a magnificent town, clean and spacious, its traffic well organized...
...May I ask, to what degree does your government share your enthusiasm...
...A very reasonable man...
...Paradoxically, Jaruzelski's crackdown has revived resistance and anger...
...He replies: "It's not fair that you ask me this question...
...Only as we approach the Cape does the landscape become beautiful...
...Its mayor is considered an Uncle Tom...
...dollar...
...I also heard a more subtle one...
...But the Afrikaners' will to resist has not been dented...
...This fiction may one day phase out the term apartheid...
...Out he trai~ to Capetoum, August 14: We travel by rail instead of flying...
...This does not imply, however, that l have any faith that moderation can ultimately lead us to victory...
...Six persons may sleep in one little room and 12 people in a house...
...But he is not at all grateful for this privilege...
...Schroeder fondly recalls growing up here, though the houses were overcrowded and without hygienic facilities...
...Suzman's has always been an uphill fight...
...One need not be a political scientist to understand why in a two-power world America cannot do without South Africa's minerals and what a boon it would be for the Soviet Union to shut out the United States from the main source of t h e s e minerals...
...The whites have their democracy and parliament...
...Without platinum, manganese, chrome, and vanadium, all those billions Caspar Weinberger has asked for and received may be of no avail...
...On the other hand, the black strength is divided and the armed opposition inept...
...But we don't plan to write any encyclopedias...
...They are economically unviable, partly because of the poor quality of their soil, and the lure to look for work elsewhere is well-nigh irresistible...
...I mention that Mrs...
...Helen Suzman is the legendary woman who for many years single-handedly represented the anti-apartheid position in Parliament...
...Thinking that the highest civil servant would reflect the political views of the Minister, I start by saying: "Dr...
...The trip takes 28 hours...
...We stand on the rocky hill above it and see the Indian Ocean to the east, the Atlantic to the west...
...The restaurant crew is mixed...
...We drove along the Garden Route, South Africa's Ctte d'Azur, from Capetown to Port Elizabeth...
...Thoughts drift through my mind which I d o n ' t dare to verbalize even in f r o n t of my wife...
...I answer: "As far as I know, one-quarter of them have emigrated in-the short time of its existence...
...Or is it just our imagination...
...Well, I think, Moses lived more than comfortably...
...Some things are maddening and some just mad...
...No firebrand...
...To Germany, France, America, and Bolivia...
...a slum, no...
...But I am not confused, e i t h e r . And precisely because I am not confused, I know that I have no solutions to offer...
...The implication is that the latter are much brighter...
...Only a mosque remains standing...
...Unfortunately, the military's biweekly flight for foreign correspondents to the "operational zone" in South West Africa (nobody calls it Namibia here) is booked full...
...They had lost hope in the possibility for change, in the possibility that the authorities would take steps to break the economic deadlock...
...No doubt, the Lenins will follow...
...The hotel is first class...
...We c a n ' t afford them...
...He retreated when the National Party caucus rewarded his enlightened statements by supporting his hardliner rival, A.P...
...Van der Merve is as frequent an Afrikaner name as Smith in English...
...Q: Is there any merit to the view that Solidarity became an arena for a struggle between "moderates" and "radicals...
...Suzman says, "when I could nor imagine that there could still be people to the right of the government...
...This is the same Koornhof who some time ago declared in Washington that "apartheid is dead...
...Of course, it seems impossible to say this aloud...
...Still, I am impressed by the unmitigated anti-government slant of the reporting and editorials...
...Stillfouteiu, August 8: The Lord who gave South Africa its gold and diamonds also gave it the toilers to extract them from the earth...
...The government benefitted greatly and the black miner somewhat, although he remains underpaid...
...Ntatho Motlana at the Carlton...
...What is needed is a far-sighted policy...
...Johauuesburg, August 7: Had to think today of a South American joke: When the Lord created the earth, he dictated to an archangel the distribution of minerals...
...What has happened at Nyanga comes under the heading of "influx control," the government's strenuous attempt to curb the number of blacks moving into the cities...
...There is some introductory chitchat...
...the blacks are invited to have their own ministries, legislation, and so on...
...Never mind "separate development," but where do the blacks fulfill their needs...
...He replies by recalling his student days: At James'ies, as we called Jamesson Hall at Capetown University, we used to debate the imminent revolution...
...But it turns out that we are the ones who seem dangerous to them...
...it disintegrated somewhat slower in Rhodesia...
...The course lasts only a week...
...She says: "Don't compare our blacks with those of America...
...Mr...
...a f t e r the Soweto riots of 1976 he was elected chairman of the Committee of Ten which speaks for Soweto...
...This was once a colored neighborhood...
...No...
...Friends point out that though he ranks high in the echelons of his newspaper his byline appears less frequently than before...
...So why was the recipe maintained...
...How can a country resist so much hostility...
...It is, after all, not only a question of white supremacy...
...Unless you are an Indian," I say...
...A white official drives us through parts of Soweto...
...The males monitor our movements and follow us, in an evident e f f o r t to p r o t e c t the babies that cling to their mothers...
...Whites, coloreds, and Indians...
...South Africa claims that only five African states have a living standard comparable to that of its own blacks...
...One rand is worth just slightly more than one U.S...
...Because South African Airlines cannot fly over African airspace...
...That's not too bad, I think...
...that IValesa, a "moderate," had lost control of the union to the "radicals," who provoked the government into declaring a state of war...
...We travel through the corn-belt a f t e r harvest...
...f ,Johauuesburg, August 15: Last night, I heard my first South African racial joke...
...Botha missed his appointment with destiny...
...There are innumerable van der Merve jokes...
...In South Africa, the black is still "the carrier of water and the hewer of stones...
...Meanwhile, in Nyanga East near Capetown, the Minister of Cooperation and Development, Koornhof, has ordered the leveling of a camp of black s q u a t t e r s . Previously the squatters had lived in barracks at Langa, Capetown's oldest black township, been evicted from there, and erected some pitiful contraptions out of branches, plastic sheets, and carton boxes...
...Is Dr...
...Suzman has spoken hopefully about the potential for black t r a d e unions to act as a Solidarity-like force...
...Wherever there stands no building, the earth is naked, the grass turned yellow, the shrubs are wilted...
...The blacks who work within South Africa's white economy are then the equivalent of Europe's Fremdarbeiter, aliens who need permission to stay in white South Africa...
...Later I learn that had we been on the plane we might have witnessed South Africa's strike into Angola...
...Which others...
...Some none-Afrikaner whites, mostly professionals, have emigrated...
...If THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 15 there is squalor, it does not descend to ,the street...
...Precisely because this is the age of the Third World, I have tried to see matters through the eyes of South Africa's whites...
...To Peru and Bolivia...
...It is clear that Poles, like all people, want bread and freedom...
...He does not find this objectionable...
...There are others which are taboo...
...Milewski: The membership was frustrated and was beginning to believe that there was no way out of our crisis...
...But there is method to the madness...
...South Africa's policy had to be based upon theChristian principles of love and brotherhood and not on the "politics of hate...
...The veld, or plateau, is largely unfertile...
...As to the methods to get there, I am a moderate...
...Before leaving we visit with Benjamin Pogrund, a senior editor of the Rand Daily Mail, who some time ago spent a year in Boston where he worked for the Boston Globe...
...that even Solidarity, "our Solidarity," couldn't do anything about it...
...I have lived in black or nearblack countries...
...It is one to t e n . " Mrs...
...So is the dining room...
...Slabbert's...
...He had said what for a Nationalist leader was once unthinkable: Whites had "to adapt or to perish," had to abandon "selfishness and materialism...
...In the meantime a t r a i t o r called Mangope has accepted independence for Bophuthatswana, the so-called 'homeland' to which I ethnically belong...
...In the age of colonialism, which ended only with World War II, this was nothing unusual...
...I ask...
...He pays little attention to the food...
...And Silver...
...His wife is banned...
...Motlana answers: "As far as the end goal is concerned, l am as radical as anybody...
...Nevertheless . . . Dr...
...I left a part of my heart there...
...Yes," Pogrund says, "many speak about the black trade unions...
...Doesn't white survival go with it, too...
...No, he would not want to return, and yet, somewhat incongruously, he expresses hopes that District Six may become a mixed neighborhood...
...They are vitriolic and directed at the Afrikaners...
...The blacks are frightened and hopelessly infiltrated by informers...
...Why, again...
...For instance, we could not operate the mines by ourselves...
...But I dimly recollect that Pogrund has had quite a few personal troubles stemming from his newspaper activities...
...I ask him about S l a b b e r t ' s s t a t e m e n t that "white domination still has another 10 to 15 years to go...
...Colonialism did not need to legislate this state of affairs...
...I II II )8S Wayne Hummer & Co...
...The blacks have too many accounts to settle, or at least this i s what the whites in t h e i r understandably bad conscience have good reason to fear...
...Moreover, it was the authorities who consciously sought to radicalize the union and force it into a more political direction...
...But if they have little bread they want more freedom...
...Stelle~bosch, August 16...
...The tour of t h e Springboks, the South African rugby team, causes--according to the newspaper--near civil war in New Zealand...
...The "slender lady who beckons us into her office in the Parliament building still has a young face, but snowwhite hair...
...Now retired, he lives as a writer and lecturer in Brookline, Massachusetts...
...This Esperanto is called Fonacalo and contains ingredients of Afrikaans, English, and the tribal languages...
...At this writing all the deported have filtered back to the Cape area...
...my wife asks...
...Dr...
...He does not pretend to like blacks...
...I'm not thinking here of Lenin's ideology, but of the natural radicalization of revolutions...
...We find that the famous Cape of Good Hope is a neglected side show...
...Why the homelands and the " i n d e - pendent" black states...
...And I can assure you, you have nothing to r e g r e t about this s e p a r a t i o n . You would not imagine how these people behave...
...Schroeder is a colored...
...Y e s , " he says, "unless one is an Indian...
...South Africa's crime is being out of step with time...
...Our Johannesburg friends say he is a good man, but a physician with a good income who lives comfortably...
...It has picked up lately, but compared with the total strength of this country, it still doesn't amount to anything serious...
...As we enter the National Park the landscape becomes eery...
...The Minister is out of town...
...Soweto is no shantytown, no favela, no cit~ misere...
...We need them...
...There is not the slightest sign of giving in--or giving up-among the Afrikaners...
...The operation of the gold mines has required the creation of a new language...
...Because no other Africatl country grants the airline landing rights...
...Outside there is a little square filled with exactly one ton of rocks...
...It is no Harlem, either...
...Rousseau's answer seems convincing: "Last year, our budget for black education was 224 million rands...
...Motlana asks innocently...
...It was the government's actions which radicalized and polarized our movement...
...Under questioning, Motlana concedes that he would be admitted to the United States...
...One could believe that there exists absolute freedom of press," I say...
...It does not have enough energy left for satisfying the needs of its population...
...On the one hand, they have no vote, and the other, no homelands that would provide a justification, or at least pretext, for the absence of this vote...
...We drive to the Cape...
...A day or two later, the squatters will be arrested, put into busses, and "returned" to the independent homeland Transkei, whose chief, Kaiser George Matanzima, had a few days earlier made a "state visit" to Capetown...
...interiors and their overcrowdedness...
...The greatest police concentration in the history of New Zealand tries to keep the two camps from slugging it out and to protect the South African team...
...We wonder: Are we being shown Potemkin villages...
...If the doctor really believes in what he says, he may be a Kerensky...
...I u flight, August 6, 1981: The flight by South African Airlines from New York to Johannesburg provides a lesson both about South A f r i c a ' s isolation and its innate s t r e n g t h . The one r e f u e l i n g stop in the long journey is Ihla de Sal in Cabo Verde...
...No, I don't foresee any cataclysmic changes...
...Blacks can work " l e g a l l y " for specified periods outside their homelands...
...We find 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 that the Lord has been p a r t i a l to South Africa not only in minerals...
...Without legislation and without a name, the absurdity might not necessarily appear so absurd...
...I t ' s true, ten years ago, I could not have been sitting with you i n this hotel...
...Thousands protest against the presence of the South African sportsmen (who, ironically, include some blacks), because they see them as r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of the a p a r t h e i d - s t a t e . Rugby fans, on the other hand, want to see them play, because the Springboks may well be the world's best rugby team...
...Sabotage is now 20 years old...
...Rousseau," I begin again, " I understand that education is your profession, black education your life's devotion...
...The angel protested: "Aren't you going overboard with Bolivia, oh Lord...
...Q: One final question...
...And as I say no, he continues: "You see, I wouldn't want the whites to leave...
...Slabbert suggested that white domination has at best another 10 or 15 years to go...
...I had visualized a huge slum...
...As for the government, it has not quite solved the problem that the coloreds and Indians pose for its ideology...
...Suzman has two daughters living in the States, and we know the one who is a doctor in Boston...
...He is now the Globe's correspondent in South Africa...
...Apartheid, the oppression of people, "was dead...
...Ours is the TransCarou Express, and it is more than adequate...
...Treurnicht...
...After all, we are at the end of the continent and the thought impresses us...
...I doubt whether this would be n e c e s s a r i l y so...
Vol. 15 • April 1982 • No. 4
