Choice of evils
Carlin, David R. Jr.
Commonweal: 518 Of several minds: David R. Carlin, Jr. CHOICE OF EVILS APARTHEID OR TOTALITARIANISM? THE AMERICAN debate on South Africa, as is usual in such cases, has disclosed more about...
...investment in South Africa revealed him to be more of (a) a knave or (b) a fool (choose one) than anyone but Norman Lear had suspected...
...While it would be an exceedingly fine thing to eliminate totalitarianism from the world, this is not an immediately practical project...
...The logic-chopping Rev...
...interests...
...For obvious historical reasons, black Americans strongly identify with the plight of South African blacks...
...has regularly brought pressure to bear on Communist countries, not only by being armed to the teeth against them since the late 1940s, but by a variety of economic sanctions as well: the long-standing prohibition on trade with Cuba, the more recent one on trade with Nicaragua, trade restrictions with Poland, the grain embargo (imposed by Carter, lifted by the fervently anti-Communist Reagan) on the Soviet Union, etc., etc...
...It has been a vicious side effect of the great era of European expansion and imperialism,, which began in the late fifteenth century and is dying out in the twentieth...
...Why South Africa...
...but as we wait for their small supply of light to increase, let us join them in eradicating the evil we agree upon...
...But the defeat of apartheid in the relatively near term is definitely a practical goal...
...But why stop there...
...Anti-apartheidism thus becomes an ingredient in American racial justice...
...While it was nice to have the recantation, it was chilling to realize that at least until August 1985, more than four-and-a-half years into his presidency, Mr...
...Falwell could have distinguished still further and explained — once it had been pointed out that Bishop Tutu never did pretend to speak for all black South Africans — that his "phony" remark referred to an empty class (' 'Tutu insofar as he pretended to speak, etc...
...When the principal opposition to strong American pressure on South Africa is coming from the Falwell-Reagan school of thought — a school of thought whose distinctive characteristic is that it is devoid of thought (reminiscent of the Sea of Tranquillity, a sea devoid of water) — it seems hardly worth the trouble to respond to arguments supportive of the South African regime and its "reform" efforts...
...DAVID R. CARUN, JR...
...Great powers do not live by armaments alone...
...Just as support for Israel is a way of expressing solidarity with Jewish Americans, so doing battle against apartheid is a way of demonstrating solidarity with black Americans...
...Jerry Falwell, whose coarse remark about Bishop Tutu being a' 'phony'' and whose preposterous call for increased U.S...
...If the U.S., in its protracted struggle against totalitarianism, hopes eventually to win the hearts and minds of the world to liberal democracy, we had better demonstrate, at a minimum, that we are sensitive to the fact that the third world still smarts under centuries of Western injuries and insults...
...This is especially true of Rev...
...Like the mills of God, the collective conscience of humanity advances slowly...
...This being granted, there nonetheless remain very good reasons for Americans to get themselves worked up about South Africa and apartheid...
...But when viewed in the dim light of the late twentieth century, racism looks wrong to nearly everybody (except the purblind National Party of South Africa), while the evil of totalitarianism remains in dispute...
...Falwell only made matters worse by his apology for the "phony" remark, explaining, in effect, that he didn't consider Tutu a phony in toto but only insofar as he pretended to speak for all blacks in South Africa...
...Racism is a crime of humanity's past, clinging to a dwindling life in the present...
...This is especially so in third-world countries, usually populated by "persons of color" and always having behind them the long and painful experience of being humiliated underdogs...
...THE AMERICAN debate on South Africa, as is usual in such cases, has disclosed more about Americans than about South Africa...
...it is asked...
...President Reagan did only slightly better than Falwell — or rather, he did much worse, since we expect higher levels of good judgment from the president of the United States than from the pastor of a church, even a widely televised church, in Lynchburg,Virginia...
...Second, practicality...
...4 October 1985: 519...
...If we're so concerned — especially the liberals among us — about freedom and democracy and human rights, why do we put pressure only on South Africa...
...Why not go after the Soviet Union and other Communist countries as well...
...Predicting the future is a notoriously risky business, but it appears that the days of institutionalized racism are numbered, while totalitarianism, by contrast, seems to have a long and vigorous life in front of it...
...Fourth, prestige and influence...
...and therefore didn't refer to Tutu at all...
...South Africa is a critical test case...
...Third, domestic racial justice...
...To concentrate our energies on feasible, as opposed to quixotic, aims is not political hypocrisy...
...To begin with, it may as well be acknowledged that Communist totalitarianism, at least in the long ran, is a greater political evil than apartheid...
...First, moral consensus...
...It is the essence of political wisdom...
...For the truth is that in important respects we really are more serious in our opposition to the South African regime — at least the liberals among us — than we are in our opposition to Communist regimes...
...prestige and influence in the world suffer...
...Let those of us who live in liberal societies deplore, then, the lack of moral insight exhibited by the practitioners and friends of totalitarianism...
...Totalitarianism, on the other hand, is a crime of humanity's present and future, still very much in the prime of life...
...But a better response is needed...
...To the degree the Reagan administration is perceived — accurately perceived, one regrets to say — as being "soft" on apartheid, U.S...
...The easy answer is that the U.S...
...How can this be justified...
...Reagan had remained ignorant of the basic social facts in a country so critical to U.S...
...Such hypocrisy...
...In early September the president recanted his late August observation that South Africa had ' 'eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country...
...Nor may it become so for centuries yet...
...But at least one argument — which is sometimes, though not often, offered in good faith — is worth responding to...
...Constitutionally established racism exists nowhere in the world except in South Africa, and the day of its destruction will be a landmark event in the history of humanity's slow and arduous moral progress...
...Racism and totalitarianism are both no doubt exceedingly wicked, perhaps even equally wicked, when viewed under the aspect of eternity...
Vol. 112 • October 1985 • No. 17
