South Africa's Growing Power-Two Articles Penetrating the Continent
WALLERSTEIN, IMMANUEL
South Africa's Growing Power—Two Articles Penetrating the Continent By Immanuel Wallerstein In 1960, the "year of Africa," men spoke of the descending thrust of African nationalism. They meant...
...Southern Africa seemed last and next...
...Many of the white intelligentsia opposed to the regime have emigrated over the past 10 years, largely of their own volition...
...Indeed, at the Second All-African People's Conference, which met in Tunis in January 1960, the assembled delegates set 1963 as the deadline for the liberation of all Africa...
...Early in 1967, its Ambassador to the U.S...
...Coordinated economic assistance to black African governments might be a first step...
...South Africa is beginning to feel its oats...
...We were convinced, with Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macniillan, that a "wind of change" was sweeping Africa...
...There was less talk in the U.S...
...The Portuguese took timid steps toward "liberalism," granting full citizenship to Africans and establishing a "university" in Angola...
...and Britain...
...This group, which has no name, has already signed a secret military assistance pact...
...When the Organization of African Unity (oau) at its founding meeting in Addis Ababa, in May 1963, created the African Liberation Committee to assist in the final liberation of southern Africa's white redoubts, optimism was still the order of the day...
...4. Should the three objectives above be realized, South Africa would then aspire to a return of its old alliance with the U.S...
...and France...
...American investments are now estimated by South Africa to be between $500600 million...
...But what does it mean for Africa as a whole...
...When the Transkei "separate administration" was established in 1963, the step could be seen as a hedge against disaster, preparing the way for ultimate partition should the pressure become too great...
...The International Court of Justice in 1966 gave South Africa an unexpected bonus in its refusal to adjudge the merits of the South West Africa case...
...At home, South Africa's renewed strength means the maintenance of the status quo for a while longer...
...If it could help to bring to power a government that would trade with it and end the sanctuary for southern African liberation movements (now almost all located in these three countries), South Africa could open a channel to the north...
...For Africans and other non-whites, the techniques of repression—brute force, imprisonment, tight movement control, an extensive informer system—have been reasonably effective...
...If some commentators thought they were over-optimistic, few thought they were absurd...
...These three countries, now in close political, economic and military alliance, form the major barrier to South Africa's diplomatic expansion northward...
...Only these three countries have significant influence on the internal affairs of independent African states—and the power of South Africa is growing...
...Others have been coerced into going by a simple mechanism: They have been imprisoned or "detained" and, after a suitable taste of the unpleasantness of South African jails, have been offered release if they would accept an "exit permit" involving permanent banishment...
...In March, Henry Ford II made his first trip there...
...1. It will expand the policy of creating Bantustans within its own territory...
...Immediately to the north lies a belt of three countries spanning the African waistline: Congo/Kinshasa, Zambia, and Tanzania...
...Even the Afrikaaners in South Africa relented, making it possible for Africans to buy liquor...
...Some of the staunchest bastions of opposition to African liberation fell: the Belgian Congo in 1960, Algeria in 1962 (and to the fln), Kenya in 1963 (and to Jomo Kenyatta...
...Those who are opposed to the system of life in southern Africa may soon find themselves in an uncomfortably defensive position...
...These objectives, of course, have not yet been achieved...
...Robert Gardiner, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, has suggested that South Africa be invited to rejoin eca, from which it was expelled in 1963...
...Investors found this insufficiently reassuring and shifted their sights elsewhere, despite the high rate of profit which South Africa seemed to offer...
...3. A glance at the map will show that South Africa and its friends (Lesotho, Botswana, Malawi, Rhodesia, Angola, and Mozambique) form a contiguous bloc...
...and Britain, with South Africa's industries playing a major role, might be a second...
...Now the Bantustans can be seen as structures that not only divide Africans among themselves but provide potential votes in such organizations as eca...
...The Southern Rhodesians eliminated Immanuel Wallerstein, a professor of sociology at Columbia, is author of Africa: The Politics of Unity...
...Perhaps they never will be...
...On January 10, South Africa received its first official visit from a black African Prime Minister, Chief Leabua Jonathan of Lesotho, a man whose electoral campaign was financed in part by South African money...
...Moreover, as time passed events seemed to vindicate the optimists...
...American businessmen asked the counsel of the Department of State as to whether their investments were truly safe, and the Department gave ambivalent responses...
...Obviously, South Africa needs to break through the Congo-Zambia-Tanzania belt...
...They meant that African nationalist movements emerged and seemed to succeed in an order that more or less matched chronology with geography: from north to west to west-central (or Equatorial) to east to central...
...South Africa can afford to be patient here, more patient no doubt than the white Rhodesians like...
...Mobutu's willingness to divest the the Congo government of support from the whites in southern Africa was formally recognized by Presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia when they accepted an invitation to visit Kinshasa on June 30, 1966...
...In the United States, our public distaste for apartheid began to lose some of its traditional prudence after the Sharpeville shooting of March 1960...
...Its military and police are well-armed, well-disciplined, and amply financed...
...from mid-1964 to the end of 1965, while Tshombe was in power, South Africans and Rhodesians made up a substantial part of the mercenaries he recruited to crush the rebellions...
...An African common market, supported by the U.S...
...The nationalist revolutions in Portuguese Africa appear to have stabilized at a point short of victory...
...The indignation of the UN General Assembly has mattered no more there than in Rhodesia (as Keith Irvine demonstrates in his article beginning on page 9...
...When Salazar dies?can it be long?—white settlers in Angola and Mozambique, with the support of army elements, may well proclaim their independence...
...Chief Jonathan recently urged that whites and blacks form their own economic community, and Pretoria has indicated it is ready to help African independent states with technical assistance...
...racial discrimination in various spheres...
...On March 21, Pretoria announced that it would create a Bantustan in Ovamboland (South West Africa...
...2. South Africa will seek to consolidate the neighboring settler-controlled states...
...From 1962-64, Angola provided sanctuary for his Katanga forces...
...I myself believe this turn of events is for the most part a consequence of the U.S.-Soviet detente, and dates from the Congo crisis of 1960...
...This will include trying to get the boycott on Rhodesia gradually lifted and the Rhodesians gradually accepted in the international arena—something it almost accomplished through the quiet mediation that helped bring about the short-lived "Tiger agreement" between Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Ian Smith...
...Prospects for its "acceptance" in independent Africa might then become very real...
...Ian Smith proclaimed the independence of Rhodesia on November 11, 1965, and despite a semi-effective economic boycott and failure to obtain international recognition, Rhodesia is still with us...
...Meanwhile, American businessmen have regained confidence in South Africa's future...
...of the importance of strengthening the hands of white liberals who might bring about peaceful change, and more talk about the inevitability of violence...
...Since General Joseph Mobutu took over in early 1966, the Congo has pursued a pro-Western but anti-South African policy, easing out the South African mercenaries...
...But they are within the realm of possibility now...
...The underground resistance is deep under ground at the moment...
...As for Portuguese Africa, it is likely that a solution a la Ian Smith might be found...
...In 1963, the coordinated efforts of oau members led to the expulsion of South Africa (and Portugal) from a number of international organizations...
...From that time on the three leaders have moved to consolidate the front against South Africa by holding several meetings of 10 independent countries (Congo/Kinshasa, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Burundi, Congo/ Brazzaville and the Central African Republic...
...The important question at the moment, however, is what this portends for the immediate future...
...Today South Africa is the third most powerful country on the African Continent, after the U.S...
...proudly announced that trade between the two countries was at an all-time high...
...The abortive July 1967 attempt of Major Schramme and his band of mercenaries to seize control in parts of the Congo represented the last gasp of their effort to maintain themselves in the Congo...
...But since 1963 the tide seems to have ebbed...
...The old antagonism between the English and Afrikaaner communities has diminished radically in the past few years, until today one is likely to find pockets of principled and militant opposition to apartheid more among whites of Afrikaaner than of English descent...
...South Africa has also received delegations from Botswana and Malawi, and the latter has announced it will establish diplomatic relations with Pretoria...
...Internally, too, the South African regime has never been stronger...
...Responsible and respectable men began quietly to investigate the implications of an economic boycott of South Africa...
...It seems clear that South Africa will move simultaneously in four directions to consolidate its new foothold in independent Africa...
...Small signs all, to be sure, but sober men considered them signs of the times...
...South Africa first tried to break through by giving substantial support to Moise Tshombe in the Congo...
Vol. 50 • September 1967 • No. 19
