Sociological Realism: Partition for South Africa?

The existing pattern of race relations in South Africa, characterized by authoritarian repression of nonwhites, provides an unstable social climate. This paper examines currently discussed alternatives and finds them wanting in terms of their practicality. A realistic appraisal of the global situation of South African society suggests that the equitable partition of South Africa into two viable autonomous states may be the optimal solution. It is a truism that white-dominated South Africa is the bete noire of the rest of the continent. The current status of race relations is held intolerable for it is an explicit negation of the equality of all men holding membership in the same body politic. South Africa's government compounds the felony of "alien rule" over an "indigenous" population (a situation structurally similar to several other African countries, e.g., Liberia, Rwanda and Burundi, which until recently had castelike stratification systems) by having as the master class a white, European, capitalistic stratum. The major powers of the world are also disturbed by the South African status quo (though perhaps for more practical political and economic reasons than independent African states). In brief, there is a widespread consensus that the present South African situation is both instable and intolerable, and the days when a minority group of three and onehalf million whites can control the life situation of 13.8 million nonwhites (Bantu, Asiatic, and Cape Coloured) are definitely over in terms of international legitimacy and concern.1 Accepting the fundamental instability of the South African case-at least in terms of the international social order-this paper will first address itself to what are the major alternatives to the existing state of race relations, summarized by the label of "apartheid."2 Unfortunately, there seems to have developed in popular discussions of South Africa a sort of fatalistic despair, a feeling of perhaps the inevitability of the self-immolation of that society, a feeling that it can only perish due to its own self-contradictions and that nothing cail be clone about it, that time hlas already run out, etc. An expression of this is exemplified in the initial October 1964 issue of the American Committee on Africa's South Africa Bulletin which urges its readers to write to the Chrysler Corporation to withdraw from South Africa "in view of the racial war which will certainly come, sooner or later, to South Africa." Most sociologists, for that matter, have been predicting for the past decade or so that the only outcome to the South African situation is a revolutionary holocaust.3 It is the contention of this paper that rather than accepting uncritically this extremely pessimistic prognosis-which is analogous to telling a person stricken with pneumonia that there is no point in seeking medical help since he surely must die-it may be possible to arrive at a realistic proposal which could lead us out of the present impasse, an impasse formed by an irresistible force (international and interAfrican pressures) and an unmovable object iOf course, there are whites and whites, as far as international concern goes. The situation in the Sudan where blacks live under a white repressive regime even harsher than South Africa seems not to have pricked the conscience of the world. 2 One of the few papers to have done this is the recent article by Austin T. Turk, "The Futures of South Africa," Social Forces, 45 (March 1967), pp. 402-412. 3 This is the general tone of Pierre L. van den Berghe, Sotuth Africa, A Study in Contflict (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1965), esp. p. 182. In terms of antecedent conditions preceding revolutionary upheavals, I would be prepared to argue that a large-scale revolution is more likely to occur in the United States than in South Africa. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.210 on Sun, 31 Jul 2016 06:14:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms PARTITION FOR SOUTH AFRICA? 209 (South Africa's racial policy). The present mobilization of energy concerning South Africa is seen by this writer as headed for only nonconstructive consequences, no matter from zvhose standpoint of those really affected, and the problem is whether more constructive channels may be found stemming from a realistic sociological appraisal of salient actualities and viable alternatives. What, then, are the various possibilities? Taking the present state of affairs as a central point of reference on a political axis ranging from right to left, the following schematizes major patterns: total Africanintegration apartheid "baaskap" utopian ization (via (status quo) apartheid revolution) ("Bantustans") The present total system of race relations is termed "apartheid" (apartness), but it is complicated by an ideological component not coextensive with the actual state of affairs.4 This refers to the doctrine of apartheid as a total separation of all distinct ethnic-racial-cultural groups into their own territories, of which the creation of separate Bantustans has received the most attention (and notoriety). Irrespective of its idealistic intenition, total apartheid as formulated by Afrikaner theorists must be seen as falling to the extreme right of actual South African society; in terms of modern trends, the compartmentalization of populations in terms of particularistic tribal-racial criteria grounded in traditional "homelands" has a strong reactionary flavor about it. The economics of the Bantustan scheme are not for present purposes at issue. Even if each of the seven or so proposed Bantustan areas were brought into being and capable of supporting its own tribal population, several factors would mitigate against the long-term survival of Bantustan areas. These bear mention since they tend to be overlooked by the government's social architects. First, should each tribal area prove to be successful and attract a large, stable population enjoying a viable agriculturally-based economy -let us say by analogy that each Bantustan became a sort of Denmark-this would soon have drastic economic repercussions on the white industrial society whose structure is contingent on large supplies of low-skilled Africans, a significant percentage of whom are migrant laborers. Faced by a growing labor shortage, South African mine owners and farmers will place pressures on the government to regress the separate development of Bantustan areas by various schemes. Second and equally crucial, territorial separation along tribal lines will be strongly resisted by Africans who see in the Bantustan idea of "tribal development along its own line" a disguised attempt to perpetuate African backwardness and white domination.5 Since tribalism is an anathema to the modern political conscience of African nationalism, it is foolish to expect that African states will ever legitimate the status of respective Bantustan territories, no matter how much autonomly these may be given by the South African government. Even if the latter were to grant complete determination to the Transkei and other tribal states to the extent that each could apply for membership in the United Nations, it should be expected that each would receive the same treatment as Prime Minister Tslomnbe of the Congo received when he tried to mnlake an appearance in Cairo in 1964 at a sumnmit conference of African heads of state. In brief, the suspicionl of "Uncle Tomism" is bound to make the Bantustans (embodying "utopian" apartheid) meet with ill-favor outside South Africa. Moreover, inside South Africa this alternative to the status quo will never get the support of urban Africans-a steadily increasing segment of the total Bantu population-for a variety of reasons. Having 4 For background readings, see N. J. Rhoodie and H. J. Venter, Apartheid (Cape Town and Pretoria: Haum, 1960) ; Eugene P. Dvorin, Racial Separation in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952); L. E. Neame, The History of Apartheid (London: Pall Mall Press, 1962). 5 See, for example, Govan Mbeki, Soutth Africa: The Peasant Revolt (Baltimore: Penguin Books,