It seems like it took forever to the US to even warm up to the idea of any kind of sanctions against South Africa, in fact, during the Reagan years it was like certain Republicans/Conservatives, such as Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell & Bob Dornan were trying to smear the then imprisioned Nelson Mandela as a Commie Pinko, who deserved to be beaten to death, rather then the luxurious life he was living in his island jail cell.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Was the African National Congress considered a front for the Communist movement in South Africa?
After Mandela was elected President of South Africa, I don’t recall him implementing any radical socialist type programs, but it was a while back, so I could have forgotten about them…NOT BLOODY LIKELY.
So, why did the US take so long to move against the apartheid governement?
I once got to hear an Undersecretary of State at my college (Hello, Frostburg!) speak on the Reagan administration’s position on South Africa in the 80s.
He basically hung ‘engagement’ on two items. First, South Africa was a primary source of many important resource for US defense and manufacturing. Second, the ANC was a pack of killers and communists.
He was right on both points, let’s admit. But I’m glad apartheid ended.
I was in Swaziland 1983-87, and knew many of the ANC. These were the young turks, not the leadership.
ANC were terrorists/freedom fighters (that dichotomy made more sense then than now). Every one I knew, along with the sympathizers, were Marxists. I for one got tired of being called a “Reactionary” constantly, because I was a capitalist.
The ANC eventually assumed the leadership, but during this period that was not a given. I was rooting for Chief Mangusutho Butheleze, of the Zulus. He was more “Kissingerian”, more real world. (Plus, the Zulus rock.)
Keep in mind that Reagan was trying to win the world war against Communism. Africa was not really on anyone’s map.
Angola had its rebels, and the apartheid government were fighting against the Marxists. Ditto in Mozambique.
To sum up, my thoughts were that too many of the ANC ascribed capitalism to apartheid to whites.
The economic boycotts against SA were starting to build up around 1985, pushed mightily by students at American universities. I then and now considered them counterproductive: they hurt the blacks, in SA and surrounding countries, much worse than it affected the apartheid government and most whites. Believe it or not, what caused more consternation to the whites were the sports boycotts!
Once the ANC leadership figured out they were fighting a form of government and not capitalism, the US and thus the rest of the world got on board, around 1989-1991 (those years ring any bells, Europe?). Mandela got released, more than a few backroom deals got made, and apartheid went its way.
Fear of fomenting regional instability and precipitating further Soviet/Cuban adventurism also drove U.S. foreign policy during this period. Remember the geopolitical context: Angola had been racked with civil war since the mid-1970s, with Soviet proxies and heavy Cuban involvement faced off against the U.S.'s proxy, Savimbi’s UNITA. Ditto left-leaning Mozambique. A destabilized Zimbabwe was emerging from civil upheaval, and rumblings within the U.S. conservative wing feared it too was susceptible to Soviet dominion.
The prevailing thought was that, as goes South Africa, so goes Southern Africa. Much was made of precious natural resources, geostrategic shipping lanes, and an African domino theory. Ultimately, administration hardliners felt that apartheid was the lesser of two evils, perhaps especially since it involved Africans being oppressed.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but most South African blacks supported the boycotts. The question I’m interest in exploring is how much of a factor the boycotts and other international pressure were in bringing down the regime. But that’s outside of the scope of this thread.
For this thread to stay in GQ we have to limit ourselves to discussing the facts. The factual question here is why the Reagan administration pursued the policies it did. The question of whether they–or their critics–were right or wrong to do what they did is fodder for GD, not GQ.
This is a very dim memory, but I remember reading that there was some valuable mineral of which the two largest producers worldwide were the Soviet Union and South Africa. If that’s the case it’s not too difficult to understand why the US government during the Cold War would want to stay friendly to SA.
ruadh - You’re probably thinking of the platinum group of metals (iridium, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhodium, and ruthenium). They are key components in catalytic converters, and anyone who remembers the '70s will know what that meant. Rustenburg Platinum produced about 70% of the free-world’s output of this group.
Certainly, by the SA governernment. Most of the prosecutions, house arrests, exiles etc were under the “Suppression of Communism” act. It was taken as a given that if you were in favour of equality, you were a communist, and if you were a communist, you were in favour of equality. This to me is a very strange development, because communism ended up as being amongst the most elitist and inequitable systems in the rest of the world, and the ministers in the current SA governemt who are “true” communists (i.e marxists) are similarly inclined.
You might look at it from a more Chomsky viewpoint. Under this paradigm, human rights is irrelevant to US foreign policy. If human rights happens to align with our interests in a region, we are for it. If it ain’t, we’re against it.
I know very few facts of the actual situation, just proprosing a lens to see events through.
Speaking for myself, if I was looking at anything through a “Chompsky” lens, the first thing I would be doing is going out and looking for a good opthalmologist to give me a new lens!
The man is a lunatic, his “viewpoint” sucks, and (strangest of all), US foreign policy is not the single most evil thing in the world.