White Power and Wealth: What’s New?

White South Africans opposed to the ruling National Party believe that the party’s losses in the election earlier this month are a harbinger of reform. However, the country’s black community rejects suggestions that there is hope for any major change.

For the first time in 40 years, it is agreed, there was a dramatic swing to the left. But this does not mean that apartheid is about to be scrapped.

Political commentators and white liberals maintain that the National Party and the more liberal Democratic Party are now in a position to form an alliance and forge ahead with reforms they have agreed on, and in some cases begun. This view is scorched by blacks.

Right from the onset, blacks opposed the parliamentary election as irrelevant. They held illegal demonstrations that resulted in violence, primarily by police, and arrests across the country.

And for the past six weeks, demonstrations have plagued the country. More than 20 people have died and Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Allan Boesak were among hundreds arrested for participating in marches deemed illegal under the government’s emergency decrees.

Since the election, the government has lifted its ban on protest marches providing a magistrate has given permission, and organizers guarantee that they will maintain order. There was no choice but to allow the marches and make other minor concessions, as President Frederik W. de Klerk wants to portray himself as the “good ruler,” ready to accommodate black aspirations.

A significant number of black moderates believe that events such as the legalizing of marches mean that the tide has at last turned and there is cause for hope. They argue that the pressures facing the country are so immense that the government has to urgently grapple with apartheid.

De Klerk’s hand, they say, has been strengthened by the resurgence of liberal politics in the country, an indication that whites now want to break with apartheid. The Democratic Party would not only support the government’s initiatives at reform, but would come with amendments that made them bite.

To crown it all, the argument continues, the Democratic Party has initiated contact with the outlawed African National Congress, and could be the go-between for the new government.

Radicals, on the other hand, insist that the elections were irrelevant and their outcome just as irrelevant.

The Democratic Party and National Party did not include redistribution of wealth in their party manifestoes, and distribution of wealth is what the radicals’ liberation struggle is all about.

The per-capita monthly income for whites in 1987 was the equivalent of about $620, while that for blacks was $75. In education, the government spent five times the amount on each white child that it did on each black child.

Any member of Parliament who dared suggest making equal either black and white incomes or government expenditure would be out of office in a matter of days.

My own view, closer to that of the radicals than the moderates, is that South Africa’s white parties agreed on the retention of the white power structure, differing only on how this was to be done. De Klerk has not deviated from his predecessors and still preaches change on white terms.

In addition to this, the government clings to the Population Registration Act, the law classifying South Africans in terms of race. One person, one vote has been rejected.

Regardless of the fact that the hard-right Conservative Party failed to rise up to expectations in the election, its policies still appeal to the ordinary white man and, in the final analysis, it was he who would approve or veto change.

De Klerk took over from retired President Pieter W. Botha in a blare of publicity and expectations, but it is doubtful he will be able to meet black aspirations.

Apartheid is too deeply embedded. For it to be dismantled would mean demolishing its offspring. These are the homelands, and black localities such as Soweto, with their black local authorities who would be unwilling to give up their power. There is also a central government bureaucracy bloated by separate ministries for black and white government services. Elimination of these duplicate ministries would of course mean the loss of jobs for thousands of white petty bureaucrats.

The Democratic Party may very well meet with the African National Congress or the Pan-Africanist Congress, but such meetings are bound to fail because they cannot bring about one person, one vote, and the redistribution of wealth.

The bottom line is that there have been elections in this country since 1910, with black people--more specifically how black people should be ruled by whites--always at issue. Although arguments presented by moderates do make sense, they appear to be clinging to straws rather than accepting the sad truth that apartheid represents centuries of privilege for white South Africans, and these privileges will not be surrendered in an election like this one.