Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!sri-spam!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!ametek.UUCP!walton
From: walton@ametek.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Kissinger and South Africa
Message-ID: <12252020839.50.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 3-Nov-86 13:00:34 EST
Article-I.D.: RED.12252020839.50.MCGREW
Posted: Mon Nov  3 13:00:34 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Nov-86 05:34:28 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 30
Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu


Raif Hijab (hijab@cad.berkeley.edu) writes:

>The problem with [Kissinger's suggestion of a federal system for
> South Africa] is that it does not takes into
>consideration the right of the black South Africans to self-
>determination in their homeland, or majority rule. It presumes
>to impose a *Western* solution on South Africa. Why? ... Because
>Kissinger would like to stack the decks in favor of the White
>Afrikaaners, with whom he empathizes so much. The worst part of
>it is that the solution would start from a position of overwhelming
>superiority by the Whites, without any obvious way to redress
>the balance. The only way for justice to prevail is for the
>Afrikaaners to *lose power*, and for the black majority to take
>over, just as happened in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

   I perhaps did not emphasize sufficiently strongly in my original
message that Kissinger's editorial said that any replacement for
apartheid should be based firmly on the principal of "one man, one
vote."  But a major subpoint of the Kissinger argument is that there
is no "black majority" in South Africa, of which fact the tribe vs.
tribe violence of recent months should be ample evidence.  Hence his
suggestion of a federal system.  If this is advocacy of a "Western
solution" to the problems of South Africa, so be it.  Personally, I
can't see that the nations of black Africa grant much more freedom to
their citizens than the Afrikaners give to black South Africans, and
that includes Zimbabwe.  Would Idi Amin be an improvement over P.W.
Botha?

-------