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Reform of Apartheid and Continued Destabilisation in Southern Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Steve Kibble  and
Ray Bush
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Extract

Continuous pressure against the South African Government has led to what previously seemed unthinkable: the reform of apartheid. Strikes from 1973 onwards, the Soweto revolt in 1976, the increasing resistance from school and consumer boycotts, the strengthening black trade-union movement and mass political organisations, and the unceasing campaign by the African National Congress, have led the State President, P. W. Botha, to declare in early 1986 that apartheid in its present form cannot be maintained, despite strong reactions from sections of Afrikaner interests. Many of the structures thought essential to racial segregation are to go: the pass laws controlling the movement of African men and women, the fiction that the ‘Bantustans’ are ’independent’ or ‘national’ states, and that urban blacks are citizens of other countries. There is even the promise of political representation for Africans. These measures appear to mark the end of Botha's attempt to create a divided black working class — some with residence rights in white-only areas, and others, notably unskilled migrants, without. The specific shape of the more racially-integrated South Africa which Botha promises remains unclear. It is not surprising in a recession that the President appears to have recognised the inappropriateness and disproportionate cost which maintaining structures of black recruitment to white employers has on the state's exchequer — not including the cost of policing influx control.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 203 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Page 204 note 1 Davies, Rob and O'Meara, Dan, ‘Total Strategy in Southern Africa’, Review of African Political Economy Conference on ‘The World Recession and the Crisis in Africa’, University of Keele, 29–3009 1984;Google Scholar and Saul, John S. and Gelb, Stephen, The Crisis in South Africa: class defence, class revolution (New York and London, 1981).Google Scholar For an assessment of recent internal reforms and an overview of the ongoing conflict within South Africa, see Bush, Ray and Cliffe, Lionel, ‘Southern Africa: the struggle ahead’, in Bush, , Johnstone, Gordon, and Coates, David (eds.), Socialist Perspectives on the World Order (London, 1986).Google Scholar

Page 205 note 1 Marini, R. M., ‘Brazilian Sub-Imperialism’, in Monthly Review (New York), 23, 9, 02 1972, pp. 14–24.Google Scholar

Page 205 note 2 Amin, Samir, ‘Towards a New Structural Crisis of the Capitalist System?’, in Carl, Widstrand (ed.), Multinational Firms in Africa (Uppsala, 1975), pp. 3–25.Google Scholar

Page 205 note 3 National Planning Commission, Peoples Republic of Mozambique, Economic Report (Maputo, 1984).Google Scholar

Page 206 note 1 South Africa Yearbook, 1985 (Pretoria, 1985), p. 556.Google Scholar

Page 206 note 2 For an overview of the periodisation of the proposed Constellation, see Shaw, Timothy M., ‘South Africa, Southern Africa, and the World System’, in Callaghy, Thomas M. (ed.), South Africa in Southern Africa: the intensifying vortex of violence (New York, 1983).Google Scholar

Page 207 note 1 Vale, P. J., in New Zealand International Review (Wellington), 4, 07/08 1982, pp. 15–18.Google Scholar

Page 207 note 2 Jaffe, Georgina, ‘The Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC)’, in Southern Africa Review I (Johannesburg, 1983).Google Scholar

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Page 208 note 1 International Hearings on Destabilisation in Southern Africa, Oslo, 1983.Google Scholar

Page 209 note 1 Marini, op. cit. p. 15.

Page 212 note 1 Leys and Tostensen, loc.cit. p. 61.

Page 212 note 2 Ibid.

Page 212 note 3 Ibid.

Page 213 note 1 This is accentuated by the threat to deport ‘legal’ as well as ‘illegal’ foreign workers if sanctions are applied – a move unpopular with the Chamber of Mines, and one that the new trade-union federation C.O.S.A.T.U. has pledged itself to resist. The Guardian (London), 16 11 1985,Google Scholar and The Times (London), 4 12, 1985.Google Scholar

Page 213 note 2 See Bush, Ray, Cliffe, Lionel, and Jansen, Val, ‘The Crisis of Social Reproduction in Southern Africa’, Review of African Political Economy Conference, University of Keele, 29–3009 1984.Google Scholar

Page 216 note 1 Davies and O'Meara, loc.cit.

Page 218 note 1 Minerals and metals accounted for $2,204 million of total export earnings of $12,775,000 in 1984, and gold is the single biggest earner of foreign exchange at between 40 and 50 per cent.

Page 218 note 2 South Africa Yearbook, 1985, p. 512.Google Scholar See also Seidman, Ann and Makgetla, Neva Seidman, Outposts of Monopoly Capitalism: Southern Africa in the changing globe economy (London and Westport, 1980).Google Scholar

Page 218 note 3 Whilst South Africa currently produces 70 per cent of gold in the non-communist world, output is estimated to drop from 664 tons in 1982 to 575 according to stockbrokers Phillips and Drew in their 1984 Gold Book (London, 1984),Google Scholar quoted by The Star (Johannesburg), 30 01 1984, whilst production elsewhere will double to nearly 700 tons. There is, though, considerable disagreement about future short- and medium-term trends in both prices and supplies.Google Scholar

Page 218 note 4 South Africa has 48 per cent of the non-communist world's chrome, 42 per cent of its ferro-chrome, 85 per cent of all the known world resources. The U.S.A. gets 55 per cent of its chromium from the Republic, 49 per cent of its platinum, 44 per cent of its vanadium, and 39 per cent of its manganese. But South Africa has, of course, to sell them and needs all the foreign exchange it can get.

Page 218 note 5 South Africa Yearbook, 1983 (Pretoria, 1983), p. 951.Google Scholar

Page 220 note 1 A 5 per cent increase in annual growth would be needed just to absorb new entrants to the work-force without making any reductions in the existing figure of 25 per cent for black unemployed, and only with foreign capital inflows could this rate be achieved. Despite an actual balance-of-payments surplus – needed to pay off the agreed debt schedule – businessmen are in fact keener on getting out than in.

Page 221 note 1 Davies and O'Meara, loc.cit. p. 68.

Page 222 note 1 The Guardian, 1 November 1985.Google Scholar

Page 222 note 2 E.g. Harry Oppenheimer's 1976 lecture to the London Stock Exchange, quoted in The Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), 7 12 1976.Google Scholar

Page 223 note 1 Ibid.

Page 223 note 2 The Financial Mail (Johannesburg), 10 01 1986.Google ScholarPubMed

Page 225 note 1 The Guardian, 18 March 1986. See also South Africa Yearbook, 1985, p. 915.Google Scholar

Page 225 note 2 The latter gesture in February 1986 appears aimed as much at the international bankers, who are close to the party of big business (the P.F.P.), as at convincing the white electorate of the truth of its assertion of increasing totalitarianisation – a handy cover, if need be, for withdrawal from the longer-term alliance with militarism.

Page 226 note 1 The Financial Times (London), 24 10 1985.Google ScholarPubMed

Page 226 note 2 The Guardian, 30 November 1985.Google Scholar

Page 226 note 3 Ibid. 7 October 1985.

Page 227 note 1 Ibid. 13 November 1985.