Slowing a Glacial Pace

President Pieter W. Botha’s reaffirmation of his plan for reform in South Africa, despite the setbacks of his ruling party in the by-elections last week, is reassuring. “Reform is not a matter of choice but ultimately a requirement for national survival,” the official Radio South Africa commented after the ballots were counted.

There remains, nevertheless, the risk that the returns will decelerate the already glacial pace of the reforms. Botha’s National Party remains firmly in charge, but no politician can be pleased to see his party lose one race and suffer declining support in four others to rightist extremists opposed to any moderation of apartheid.

Botha seems to understand, however, that the extreme right, for all its gains, is still a small force. To bow to the extremism preached from the right, or to retard the pace of reform in response to that extremism, would make much worse the present situation and would reduce the already declining prospects for a negotiated settlement.

A member of Botha’s cabinet, on a recent visit to the United States, made clear the commitment of his government to open a full dialogue with the black majority, to end apartheid as it has been practiced, to grant each person a vote, although most likely in a federated complex rather than a unitary state, and to assure citizenship for all, ending the relegation of blacks to tribally derived homelands. That was good to hear, however incomplete the blueprint.

But the pace toward those changes has been more of promise than of practice, failing thereby to dampen the growing violence. There has been a tendency to propose dialogue and then lock up the key people with whom the government must talk. It is fair and reasonable for the government to propose a broad and representative group to speak for the majority--not just the African National Congress and its imprisoned leader, Nelson Mandela. There is nothing fair and reasonable, however, about isolating the ANC, discouraging contact with it, and mounting treason charges against those opposing apartheid--especially when those charges have been aimed at many who have argued for a political, not a violent, solution.

Botha has invited fresh questions about his real intentions with the imposition of close controls on press coverage of the unrest. The world will not forget the injustices of the troubled land, even if the government should succeed in an information blackout. Nor will peace be facilitated by trying to hide from South Africans themselves the convulsions of their nation.

Botha’s own sincerity will be further subjected to doubt if he fails to accelerate the reform process. The first anniversary of his most notable reform speech is fast approaching. Unless he moves quickly, it will be an empty observation. The election has at least told him that he is free to move ahead, and to move rapidly, for the racist reactionaries on the right will resist what he is doing no matter what the pace. But the majority cannot wait.