# Is it "too early to tell" whether South Africa will turn out like Zimbabwe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495 "2012-05-20T05:54:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JBGUSA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/258eb7/32.png) [@JBGUSA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBGUSA)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/41 "2012-05-28T02:53:43Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Common sense tells me it’d be quite dishonest to present “Apartheid nostalgia” as anything other then fringe within the black South African community. A publication which doesn’t make this VERY CLEAR when reporting on a topic seems highly untrustworthy (and probably fringe itself). To me oppression is oppression whether by one group of blacks against another, or whites against blacks. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/42 "2012-05-28T02:55:34Z")
> [@JBGUSA](#): > > To me oppression is oppression whether by one group of blacks against another, or whites against blacks. No one here is defending black-on-black gang violence in SA, or whatever it is you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/43 "2012-05-28T06:06:23Z")
> [@JBGUSA](#): > > To me oppression is oppression whether by one group of blacks against another, or whites against blacks. What’s happening in South Africa politically and socially right now by no means comes under the heading of “oppression” for anyone. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/44 "2012-05-28T06:17:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > This is partly because they (conservatives, I mean - Reagan etc.) spent so much effort in actively propping it up. 😕 But what about [“constructive engagement”?!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_engagement) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/45 "2012-05-28T06:27:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 But what about [“constructive engagement”?!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_engagement) I assume you’re using the puzzlement smiley sarcastically? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/46 "2012-05-28T07:54:30Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I assume you’re using the puzzlement smiley sarcastically? Actually, I seriously want the (black) South African take on it. Never seemed to hear that back in the '80s, when “constructive engagement” was being debated here, Admin officials and Congresscritters were saying it with a straight face, and college students were demanding sanctions and screaming “X University must divest!” (And I wondered at the time and I wonder still whether any of the American pols who touted “constructive engagement” as the best way to end Apartheid sincerely believed that, or were just being cynical and watching out for the bottom-lines of American investors in SA. But I heard a lot of arguments for it that **sounded** pretty sincere.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/47 "2012-05-28T08:28:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Actually, I seriously want the (black) South African take on it. Never seemed to hear that back in the '80s, when “constructive engagement” was being debated here, Admin officials and Congresscritters were saying it with a straight face, and college students were demanding sanctions and screaming “X University must divest!” Well, Tutu is a Black South African, I think his words sum it up nicely: “constructive engagement is an abomination, an unmitigated disaster.” > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > (And I wondered at the time and I wonder still whether any of the American pols who touted “constructive engagement” as the best way to end Apartheid sincerely believed that, or were just being cynical and watching out for the bottom-lines of American investors in SA. But I heard a lot of arguments for it that **sounded** pretty sincere.) Some may have been sincere in believing it was the best way to engage, but others were quite upfront about the fact that they were mainly doing it as Cold War realpolitik, I think. Others were no doubt racist scum. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/48 "2012-05-28T09:39:55Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Some may have been sincere in believing it was the best way to engage, but others were quite upfront about the fact that they were mainly doing it as Cold War realpolitik, I think. Others were no doubt racist scum. I do recall Jesse Helms ranting on the floor of the Senate that the end of Apartheid would not usher in majority rule but “minority rule – that is, Commyernist rule!” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/49 "2012-05-28T12:47:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I do recall Jesse Helms ranting on the floor of the Senate that the end of Apartheid would not usher in majority rule but “minority rule – that is, Commyernist rule!” The ANC was never a communist party, though. The irony is that they turned to the USSR for money and military training, and forged a closer alliance with the South African Communist Party, chiefly because they were branded terrorists at the urging of the apartheid government (and friends), and received short thrift from the English and US governments when Tambo moved to the UK. Remember that the SA government defined Communism as [ > [@](#): > > any scheme that aimed “at bringing about any political, industrial, social, or economic change within the Union by the promotion of disturbance or disorder” or that encouraged “feelings of hostility between the European and the non-European races of the Union the consequences of which are calculated to further…” disorder. ]([Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Communism_Act)) and their overseas supporters were willing to go along with that because …well, I don’t know why. Because they didn’t trust that if they supported majority rule, the resulting government would automatically see itself as beholden to them, I guess. Remember that the ANC was initially an African Nationalist movement, not a Communist one. And that Oliver Tambo started out as a strict Ghandi-style pacifist, and had to be talked around to the switch from nonviolent to armed struggle. Basically, US and UK (and others - the SAAF flew for-their-time state-of-the-art Mirages in the 70s, for instance) support for the apartheid junta stretched out the era of apartheid artificially, and made for a couple of particularly bloody wars in Southern Africa. “Constructive engagement” was just the last-gasp smokescreen name for a policy that they’d followed for decades anyway. ---
**Author:** ![JBGUSA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/258eb7/32.png) [@JBGUSA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBGUSA)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/50 "2017-10-01T23:58:32Z")
So far, so relatively good. SA has not been perfect but it has not degenerated into a total c\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*le. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495/51 "2017-10-02T00:11:45Z")
Stop bumping old threads unless there is some substantive update. [/moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-too-early-to-tell-whether-south-africa-will-turn-out-like-zimbabwe/622495.md?page=2)