SOUTH AFRICA IN CRISIS: WHAT ROUTE TO DEMOCRACY?

Abstract

A NEW CONSTITUTION; a state of emergency. Serious economic problems. Industrial and political struggles on an unprecedented scale despite deep economic recession and escalated police and military repression. Rolling near-insurrectionary uprisings in black townships, large and small, up and down the country. South Africa is in unparalleled turmoil. Even Gavin Relly, Chairman of Anglo American Corporation, warned President Botha recently that the current crisis was 'far more serious' than any previous crises and Chas a long-term thrust' (Financial Times, 12/8/85). Moreover, increasing numbers of commentators recognise that there is an unbridgeable gulf between what the rulers of society are prepared to concede (or offer as perspectives for resolving the crisis) and the minimum demands of the overwhelming majority of SA's people. The gulf emerges sharply on the question of one-person-one-vote in a unitary South Africa. Botha, in his much-heralded speech to the Natal NP Congress on August 15th once again ruled this out as non-negotiable. But this is the position not only of the government, but of all sections of big business. Gavin Relly (in his same speech) stated that 'If the black attitude was that there could be no discussion unless it was about one man one vote in a unitary state' then any negotiating forum 'would not go far'. Botha) Relly, and those who support them defend this position on the grounds that South Africa is a Cplural society' (racially, ethnically, culturally, etc), composed of a variety of 'constituencies'-even that it is a society with no real 'majority', but only a collection of 'minorities.1 Yet the weight that they give to repudiating universal suffrage in an undivided South Africa itself reflects the extent to which this is the central political