Black Opposition to Disinvestment

Mangosuthu G. Buthelezi

While sharing with the banned African National Congress a firm opposition to apartheid, Chief Buthelezi and Inkatha, the movement he heads, reject the ANC's strategies of economic disinvestment and political violence as well as its ideological commitment to socialism.  The two organisations are also divided by tribal differences.

There have always been South African voices crying against apartheid.  And since the Act of Union in 1910, when the British Government supported the Transvaal Republic, the Republic of the Orange Free State, the Colony of Natal and the Cape Colony in establishing a whites-only Parliament, blacks have been struggling to establish an open, race-free democracy in South Africa.

Vehement black opposition to apartheid over the decades was met with ever more oppressive legislation.  Nevertheless, there has been no capitulation to subjugation by black Africa -- only an escalating struggle which should command the respect of every democratic nation in the world.

Nor has the struggle for liberation been confined to black political organisations.  Every year hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, claiming their right to be free in the land of their birth, are arrested and thrown into jail because they defy influx control regulations, pass laws and the Group Areas Act.  It is their liberation that I seek;  their will that I express.

Inkatha now has a paid-up membership approaching one million, which makes it quite the largest black political constituency ever to have been formed in black South Africa.  Ordinary people dictate Inkatha's tactics and strategies, elect its leadership and bring it to account at annual general conferences.  Inkatha's voice must therefore be regarded as the voice of ordinary people in South Africa.

Its membership is represented through thousands of branches across the length and breadth of the country;  in cities and towns as much as in rural areas.  In Soweto, which serves as a dormitory town for South Africa's industrial heartland, Inkatha has over 30 branches and tens of thousands of members.

It is in Soweto that I hold one of my annual rallies for people who have made their own political decisions;  up to 40,000 fill a soccer stadium to express their solidarity with Inkatha and encourage its leadership to continue on course.  Every democrat in the United States of America, every congressman and every senator, should therefore heed the voice of the black South African masses as they express themselves in Inkatha.

No year passes without my putting the disinvestment question before Inkatha's annual general conference.  This body of 3,000 to 4,000 representatives -- elected by the people at local, branch and regional level -- every year unanimously rejects disinvestment as a strategy.  No year passes when I do not address mass meetings in different parts of the country -- and every year tens of thousands of ordinary South Africans roar their disapproval of disinvestment as a strategy.  Can America, as the world's leading democracy fighting against totalitarianism in whatever form it is expressed, reject the pleas of ordinary black South Africans to abandon once and for all those who seek to ally America to disinvestment strategies?

Inkatha stands for the rule of law in an open, race-free society and for progress through the responsible development of free enterprise.  It rejects totalitarianism and all forms of state control over matters which are best managed by the people.  It rejects violence as the best means of bringing about radical change in South Africa, and is committed to non-violent tactics and strategies, to the politics of negotiation.  It stands, in other words, for the very things which America epitomises.  How, then, can Americans ignore the voice of Inkatha?

Of course Inkatha is grateful that Americans are rising to express their indignation and their disgust with apartheid;  putting pressure on Pretoria to introduce real and fundamental reforms in South Africa's social, economic and political systems;  sharing black South Africa's dream of one day establishing a free and open democracy that can take its rightful place in the Western community of nations.  We are grateful that great Western traditions lead to the condemnation of apartheid in every Western country.

Among Inkatha's massive membership there are hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who sent an African National Congress (ANC) mission into exile to rally support for the struggle at home.  Inkatha's roots run deep into South African history;  it is the modern expression of the aims and objectives so clearly stated by the ANC's founding fathers.  We have repeatedly and publicly committed ourselves to these aims and objectives.  In short, Inkatha is not a third force which has emerged in the latter-day struggle, but represents a continuity of the black political tradition.

Black South Africa did not send an ANC mission into exile in rejection of democratic opposition and the politics of negotiation;  to adopt the armed struggle as the primary means of liberating our country.  Joe Slovo, as one of the foremost thinkers of the ANC's mission-in-exile, wrote an article that was published in the ANC's official organ, Sachaba.  In it he said:

"The attempts, particularly in the West, to question this policy and to influence the ANC to consider the adoption of a "peaceful road to change" is nothing less than a recipe for submission and surrender of national liberation aims.  We must bear in mind that the ANC was declared illegal long before it adopted a policy of armed struggle.

"If you are a black man (born and bred in Soweto or other black ghettoes, like 75 per cent of South Africa's black people), what peaceful road of change is open to you?  Is there a single constitutional way forward for the voteless and rightless Africans in the black urban ghettoes and in the neo-colonies of the Bantustans?"

The mission-in-exile adopted the armed struggle years after it went into exile, and it did so without having had the opportunity of consulting with ordinary South Africans.  I raise this point because it is pertinent to the disinvestment debate.  The foremost protagonists of disinvestment are those who support the armed struggle directly or indirectly by working to make South Africa ungovernable through violent protest, and the use of violence in the form of petrol bombings, stonings, and burning directed at fellow black South Africans.

The latter reject the armed struggle because the threat of future violence has no usefulness.  Americans who support the politics of non-violence and of negotiation should therefore ask themselves why America should support disinvestment when, within South Africa, it is championed solely by those who seek to establish a non-capitalist state through the use of violence.

WIDESPREAD CONSEQUENCES

Not that I expect America to take sides against them.  I mention them simply because I believe that the West is in danger of swallowing a falsehood:  that the (ANC) mission-in-exile speaks for the majority of people in South Africa.  On no single occasion have black South Africans arguing in the United States in favour of disinvestment, returned to South Africa to report back to a mass-meeting and to be acclaimed for what they said.  I, on the other hand, do just this and am repeatedly acclaimed for my stand on disinvestment.

Nor is my stand on disinvestment taken with an eye solely on its effects on South Africa.  If we in South Africa destroy the foundations of the future, we'll do so to the detriment not only of South Africa but also of the whole sub-continent.  President Machel is doing everything in his power to step up trade with South Africa, while Zimbabwe, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana already trade heavily with South Africa.  All are under-developed countries and, in a very real sense, wait anxiously for the liberation of South Africa so that Southern Africa can be truly free, not only of political oppression, but also of poverty, ignorance and disease.

But it must be faced that the destruction of the South African economy would have widespread consequences for the whole of Southern Africa.  Those who clamour for disinvestment seek to bring about change regardless of the consequences for the well-being not only of millions of South Africans but for many more millions in neighbouring countries.

African history has already revealed the dangers of pursuing political objectives with no regard for economic realities;  of achieving political victories that leave millions of people in poverty and despair.  The unemployment problem in South Africa is huge. ⁽¹⁾  There are vast backlogs in black housing, education, health and welfare.  Political victories will be real only if they lead to these backlogs being wiped out within the foreseeable future.

Not only will the poverty and misery of black South Africans be increased by a successful disinvestment campaign;  political progress towards positive change will also be impaired.  White South Africa has now accepted that it is irreversibly dependent on blacks for economic survival.

Job reservation has gone by the board and concerted efforts are being made to train blacks for responsible technical and managerial posts.  Foreign investors are in the forefront of those who spearhead these developments.  It would be tragic if their positive contribution towards the upliftment of black South Africa was terminated by their withdrawal.

The economic interdependence of black and white thus favours the politics of negotiation.  Black South Africa is moving into an era of increased bargaining power, based on its hitherto unexploited buying power and the power of its organised labour.  If the West wants to increase black bargaining power, it must double up on its investments, not disinvest.

Foreign companies should remain in South Africa to spearhead new developments in job advancement and the process of generating black managerial and entrepreneurial skills.

Everything we know about radical change tells us that one of the generating forces for it is produced by those who, being upwardly mobile in social and economic terms, are particularly irked by political restraints.  Economic development on a vast scale is therefore needed to produce many more such people.

It is politically significant that, in opposing disinvestment, the majority of ordinary black South Africans find common cause with a wide range of white allies.  Black rejection of disinvestment is part of a multiracial rejection of disinvestment, and reflects the parameters of the new arena in which the struggle for liberation will be waged.  Only those working for a future communist state see disinvestment as being in the best interests of South Africa.

ENDNOTES

1.  A report by the Bureau of Market Research at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, entitled "An Assessment of the Development of Welfare of Employees in the Republic of South Africa" (1986) concludes that total trade sanctions against South Africa are likely to increase the numbers of black unemployed by 644,000, white unemployed by 152,000, coloured unemployed by 114,000 and Asian unemployed by 18,000. (editor)