Ballot-boxed in - South Africa's tyrannical approach to free elections - Editorial

National Review, March 7, 1994

SOUTH AFRICA stands on the verge of civil war. An outline constitution and multi-racial elections, scheduled for April 27, have been agreed upon between the African National Congress, the (just) ruling National Party, and South Africa's liberal business community, and in essence imposed on everyone else. Neither the conservative whites nor the Zulu,based Inkatha Freedom Party, led by Chief Buthelezi, are prepared to accept what looks like a recipe for ANC rule, however, and they have announced that they will not participate in the April elections. Much moralistic harrumphing has greeted this refusal in the U.S. and Europe where liberal opinion gives a simplistic endorsement to free elections even if they lead to a de facto tyranny.

Viewed from the streets of Durban and Soweto-- where a low-intensity tribal war is already taking place the situation looks very different. The ANC, dominated by an alliance of Xhosas and Marxists, has revealed itself to be power-hungry, totalitarian, and savagely violent. (For a chilling expose, see Marching to Slavery, by Dr. Sipo E. Mzimela, a former ANC supporter who is now Inkatha's representative in the U.S.; Soundview Publications, P. O. Box 467939, Atlanta, Ga., 30346-7939; 800-728-2288, $12.50.) News of the uncompromisingly unitary outline constitution seems to have enraged other elements in Zulu society, notably King Goodwill Zwelithini, who has shocked South Africa's notoriously optimistic white liberals and their American media amplifiers by calling for the reconstitution of the old Zulu kingdom, encompassing most of Natal.

This is no mere nostalgia. South Africa is a collection of peoples (a/k/a tribes). There is no single South African identity, and the only unity that has ever existed there was imposed first by the British, later by South African white powers. Now that white power is collapsing, the country's tribal identities are re-asserting themselves. In the absence of a shared South African identity, there is no moral reason the Zulus should submit to a vote of their hereditary enemies--and least of all offer them a blank check with details to be filled in after the elections, which is what South Africa's constitutional negotiations process actually amounts to. Nor is there a peaceful way the Zulus can be compelled to accept a contitution they regard as foreign rule in disguise.

Genuine statesmen would respond to these realities by shaping a truly federal constitution that devolves real power to different ethnic groups. That, however, would require the ANC to renounce its dream of absolute power--when ANC Stalinists like Joe Slovo are doubtless already plotting to crush Zululand as the French Revolution did the Vendee, the Russian Revolution the Ukraine, and the Shonadominated Zimbabwe government Matabeleland. Whether the Zulus can resist such an ANC onslaught depends on their strength in the streets. Hence the pre-emptive raids in the townships.

The nearer full civil war approaches, with all its bitterness, the less practicable a federal South Africa seems. If civil war is truly the alternative, the U.S. should accept, and if necessary advocate, partition and an independent Natal.