"Adapt or Die"

An end to "petty apartheid"?

"Kaffirboethie!" (nigger lover), a stocky man in a safari suit yelled at the political speaker in the Transvaal town of Rustenburg. A burly youth then launched a right hook at the heckler. Scuffles erupted throughout the hall before baton-swinging police managed to restore a semblance of order.

The taunt was the kind of hostility that diehard Afrikaners usually direct at opponents of South Africa's ruling National Party and its harsh policy of apartheid. This time, however, the target was none other than Stephanus ("Fanie") Botha, Labor Minister in the Cabinet of Prime Minister P.W. Botha. To the horror of the Nationals' conservative verkrampte wing, Botha has proposed the progressive dismantling of "petty apartheid," the complex web of racial laws and regulations that has governed virtually every aspect of South African life since the Afrikaners gained political control in 1948.

Challenging his fellow Afrikaners to "adapt or die," Botha announced last week that he would seek new laws permitting black workers who do not have permanent resident status in white areas to organize trade unions. He also proposed changes that would permit blacks to eat in white restaurants and qualify them for higher-paying jobs now reserved for whites. Most shocking to traditionalist Afrikaners: suggestions of a possible repeal of the Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act, the laws under which more than 15,000 South Africans have been prosecuted for marrying or having sexual relations across the color line. Botha urged the reforms with rhetoric that is mild by U.S. standards but nearly inflammatory for a dedicated member of the Broederbond, the Afrikaner secret society. Said he: "There are higher things in life than to stare at the color of a man's skin. We are prepared to allow black people into our kitchens to prepare our food, but the moment a black appears next to us in the post office, we say, 'Go away.' What kind of nonsense is that?"

Also envisioned are changes in so-called "grand apartheid," the long-range plan to divide South Africa into a constellation of ten "independent" tribal enclaves scattered across a surrounding white territory, which includes 84% of the country. Three such homelands (Transkei, BophuthuaTswana and Venda) have already received their nominal freedom. But the scheme has been roundly criticized because most of the new states are fragmented parcels with few resources. Botha and his advisers are now redrawing the boundaries of these mininations, so that they will be contiguous and better endowed economically. If the scheme is completed, the new nations would be linked in an economic community but retain--on paper, at least--control of local legislation.

Botha's sweeping liberalization strategy is based on a cold-blooded assessment of his country's increasingly vulnerable security position. If Britain's effort to produce genuine majority rule in neighboring Zimbabwe Rhodesia succeeds, South Africa can expect to become the next target of resentful black Africans, who are determined to erase every vestige of white rule from the continent. In these terms, the proposed reforms are essentially an attempt to stave off future revolution.

Not surprisingly, the new moderation has touched off a storm of protest. Jaap Marais, leader of the intransigent Reformed National Party denounced the proposals as "cowardly appeasement that can only lead to the white man's downfall and annihilation." Connie Mulder, former Minister of Information who was banished from the ruling party for his involvement in South Africa's recent influence-peddling scandal, defiantly announced the formation of a new opposition group, a pro-apartheid Action Front for National Priorities. One indication that Mulder's party might have a future emerged from four by-elections at week's end. Fewer than 35% of the eligible whites, one of the lowest turnouts in the past 30 years, turned up at the polls and returned Nationalist candidates to safe seats.

South Africa's 20 million blacks, meanwhile, are more skeptical than grateful. They believe the reforms would still all far short of the full equality they want. Scoffs Bishop Desmond Tutu, secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches: "All this amounts to is shifting furniture around, but leaving the room just the same."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.