Will Freedom From Apartheid Be Next? : South Africa: With the world in motion and the costs of systematic racism sky-high, Pretoria’s leaders recognize that democratic change is inevitable.

As democracy emerges from the shell of tyranny all over the Earth, people of good will look expectantly to South Africa. For if Vaclav Havel, a liberal playwright, can become president of Czechoslovakia, if the people of Romania can abolish the despised secret police, if Mikhail Gorbachev can suggest that the Soviet Union will tolerate new political parties, then we have reason to hope that the government of South Africa can drop the dehumanizing and brutal system of apartheid.

As a new world is born, we pray that the 23 million blacks of South Africa will be next to gain their freedom and find peace with justice in their land, which is now run by a minority of 4.5 million whites.

I, for one, am hopeful of the prospect for peaceful social reconstruction in South Africa. After 10 years of appeals, I have been granted a visa to go there later this month at the invitation of the South African Council of Churches, headed by Frank Chikane, and Walter and Albertina Sisulu of the African National Congress. It is also significant that I have received an invitation from the National Religious Broadcasters and the Dutch Reformed Church, to which the majority of Afrikaners belong and which holds that apartheid is heresy and “cannot be accepted on Christian ethical grounds.”

Whenever the theological rationale for oppression is eroded, and the moral foundations of domination begin to desolve, political change soon follows. If it is morally wrong, it cannot be politically right.

My hope is that my visit will help further improve the climate of rebuilding, conciliation and reconstruction in South Africa at this crucial moment.

There is so much damage to be undone. The apartheid system has brutalized and degraded the black majority: no vote, no voice, no justice, no respect. These are the realities of life for black people, our brothers and sisters, in South Africa.

And yet they have never accepted their oppression. More than 2,000 peaceful black demonstrators have lost their lives at the hands of South African police since the most recent round of resistance and protest began in the early 1980s. The courage of these martyrs focused the attention of the world on the brutal state of emergency imposed by the government. Soon after, nations around the globe imposed economic sanctions against South Africa. In October, 1986, the U.S. Congress, over the objection of President Ronald Reagan, and led by Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley), passed a sanctions bill.

Today, this strategy bears fruit. According to a recent bank study, foreign economic sanctions cost South Africa $32 billion to $40 billion between 1985 and 1989, including at least $11 billion in net capital outflow and $4 billion in lost exports. South Africa’s isolation during the 1980s has helped turn around the thinking of its leaders, who now recognize that the course of democratic change is irresistible and inevitable.

President Frederik W. de Klerk has promised and delivered on a number of modest reforms. He has freed several political prisoners, effectively legalized many formerly banned political organizations and desegregated many beaches and public facilities.

We may finally be moving to a South Africa beyond fear and distrust, beyond apartheid and the Group Areas Act, beyond pass laws and the cruel state of emergency. We may finally see a South Africa that is no longer based on the exploitation of one racial group by another.

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was living in the throes of American apartheid, and his people were being killed, he dreamed of a new society beyond apartheid. We must now have such a dream for South Africa.

A new South Africa will be a place of hope, where those who have had the advantage see the light and those who have been kept down finally share in the bounty of the nation.

A new South Africa will profit from the tremendous leadership of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela (who may soon be released from prison), Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Rev. Allan Boesak, the Sisulus. It will rejoice in the splendor of all of its peoples, their creativity, passion and brilliance. It will triumph not through violence and hatred but through peace and justice. Democracy will replace tyranny in South Africa, and equality will take the place of domination.

A new South Africa will be a thriving center of economic prosperity and growth on the African continent. It will be a powerhouse and a beacon among countries. It will not be isolated and vilified. It will be celebrated and dignified because of its accomplishments.

South Africa can kick off a historic transformation in the spirit and life of the African people. It can help the rest of the world lay to rest once and for all the discredited ideology of racism. It can renew its place in the community of nations. It can make history. It can throw away hysteria. It need only take a deep breath and blow down the house of apartheid.