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africa[w83,jmc] Opinion on South Africa

	The main thing wrong with apartheid is that it relegates the
blacks to 14 percent of the country.  Their numbers would suggest 75 to 80
percent.  The whites are in a strong bargaining position and so can
probably get more than 25 percent.

	However, the present situation is unlikely to change for quite a
long time.  The majority of whites benefit from exploiting black labor and
won't really go for a separation so complete that they will have to do
their own housework.  They will only go for dividing the country when the
exploitation of black labor becomes impractical.

	It can become impractical for any of three reasons:

	1. The development of black run business in South Africa that will
give better opportunities to black workers.  I suppose there is some of
this now.

	2. The development of South Africa's black ruled neighbors to the
point that they offer their own people jobs preferable to going to South
Africa and living in barracks and working in the mines.  The fact that
there is an effectively infinite supply of labor from the neighboring
countries willing to work for low wages depresses the market for the labor
of South African blacks.

	3. The development of black terrorism to the point where the
employment of black labor becomes unsafe for the whites.  This is
unlikely, since it didn't even happen in Rhodesia, but it isn't
impossible.

	South Africa's black neighbors and world liberal and radical
opinion are edging towards a different solution - a war against South
Africa.  It is most likely that this will be found impractical for the
same reason that a war to break up the Soviet empire is impractical.
South African whites will probably deploy sufficient nuclear weapons to
discourage it.

	Of course, the nuclear war may occur in spite of its impracticality.
The tide of all kinds of fanaticism is rising in the world, and the
victory-or-death spirit has often afflicted humanity.  It would be an
interesting experiment to poll individuals in the peace movement on
whether they would support a war against South Africa.  I suspect that the
idea would be quite popular.

	Another possibility is the one favored by the liberals - that
South Africa follow the same path as Zimbabwe.  It seems likely to me that
the Zimbabwe experience will convince the South African whites that war is
better.

	Finally we come to the moral issue.  It is bad that the South
African whites exploit the labor of the South African blacks.  I have
described how I think the exploitation will be brought to an end.  World
democratic opinion has very little leverage in bringing this about,
because it is unwilling to criticize the messy little socialist
sloganeering dictatorships that surround South Africa.  As long as these
countries continue on their present courses, it is extremely unlikely that
they will provide jobs for their populations better than working in the
South African mines.  At present it is even safer to work in the South
African mines than to belong to the wrong tribe in Zimbabwe.

	Perhaps the best bet for foreign liberals is to encourage
foreign companies to promote blacks to good jobs, and to encourage
their governments to pressure the South African government to remove
obstacles to blacks getting good jobs.  This will tend to dry up
the domestic supply of blacks willing to be exploited.
Encouraging capitalist oriented politicians in the neighboring countries
would also help.

	Unfortunately, this kind of development has no romantic appeal
to liberal intellectual youth.  Therefore, increasing support for
terrorism, war and vicarious revenge are likely.

	I forgot to say that I don't think that getting revenge for past
exploitation of blacks in South Africa is a worthy objective.  It is
especially unworthy when the proposed revenge is vicarious, i.e. revenge
by people from the industrial countries who merely identify with the
exploited.