the white regimes v/ill collapse in the long run. One can no longer
take their stability for granted.... The position of the v/hite
regimes is relatively strong at this moment. But they simply
cannot resist history.
There is little doubt now that the future will bring violent
upheaval in Southern Africa. The forces that oppose apartheid have
grown in strength and will continue to grow more pov/erful. Portugal,
Rhodesia, -and Souths Africa will^ defend white -supremacy tcrthe^tastr
It is absurd to expect that they will dissolve by fiat or abandon
by a long series of negotiated settlements the very system for which
they stand. The world is dealing with a totalitarian system, exploiting whole peoples, and increasingly arming itself for "defense."
It is clear that we are not heading toward "peaceful change."
It has been clear for many years that Southern Africa would
eventually be the scene of a major world crisis. The first reaction
among the western nations was significant. After Sharpeville,
it was clear that change was in the wind. Countries with close
ties to South Africa at the time tried to reinforce the status
quo while being fairly discrete about it. Immediately after Sharpeville, foreign interests in South Africa helped to prevent financial
chaos by providing substantial loans, and by various other means.
But on the whole the attitude was one of caution and "1/ratchful
waiting."
The refusal to see the reality of the approaching crisis was
convenient. For it made it possible to condemn apartheid and Portuguese colonialism and to leave it at that. There was no conflict
between economic and strategic interests on the one hand and the
maintenance of an honorable and antiracist foreign policy on the
other. But that was because there was no danger....flow, however,
the period of effortless virtue in foreign policy has ended.
The western powers have had to confront the realities of the
situation in Southern Africa. The logic of neo-colonialism has
forced them to think not in terms of rights and wrongs but in terms
of power....People who make decisions have been thinking in these
terms for many years....
This kind of reasoning started the machinery of government turning
long ago. The result has been a new, covert policy designed to "secure" Southern Africa in the intersts of stability there and throughout the continent.
Everything which the western powers are doing in Southern Africa
now is designed to serve that end, or to hide the fact that this
is the end pursued....I do not say this in any sense that might be
suggested by the word "conspiracy." The western powers have simply
set in motion the machinery v/hich they use to counter threats to
their interests. The principle on v/hich policy is based is simple.
It was stated some time ago at a meeting of the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York:
"The lesson of the Cuban experience—or one of them—is never
let an insurgency movement, no matter how insignificant it may be,
survive, for it may gather force and grow....The lesson of the Chilean
elections—or one of them—is that Latin American societies, no matter
how politically sophisticated they may appear to be, no matter how
lengthy their experience with the forms and formulas of democratic
practice, are not really to be trusted at free political play...."
Prom this prinicipal many things follow.