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PROCESSES AND STRATEGIC. OPTIONS FOR SOUTH AFRICA Lawrence Schlemmer .he search for freedom, democracy, and equal opportunity in South Africa has drawn increasingly fervent commitment among a range of social reformers and activists not only within the country's boundaries but throughout the international community. Today, the need for change in South Africa has nearly reached a consensus that extends even to within the ranks of the South African government. As is usually the case when speaking of such a broad-ranging consensus , the appropriate methods to forge change are varied and often conflicting. This analysis, which briefly examines the most appropriate strategies for changing the significant surviving institutions of apartheid, takes as a point of departure three relevant questions: Is South Africa a revolutionary society? If so, many of the fine points of a strategy promoting change are simply irrelevant or doomed to be swept aside by the tide of history. Is the system becoming "better" or "worse"? If the latter is the case, more punitive measures and pressure strategies might be appropriate , certainly in moral terms. If the former is the case, there may be dynamics even within the South African power establishment that appropriate strategies could strengthen. Finally, and most important, does South Africa have the scope and resources for settlement and conciliation in South Africa? Is creative compromise possible, or is the situation destined to end in a forced resolution? Lawrence Schlemmer is director of the Centre for Policy Studies of the University of Witwatersrand. He is vice president and past president of the South Africa Institute of Race Relations and a former president of the Association for Sociology in southern Africa. He is the founding director of the social science publication , Indicator South Africa. 107 108 SAIS REVIEW Is South Africa a Revolutionary Society? Archbishop Desmund Tutu, whose views are conceivably more influential in shaping external opinion on South Africa than those of any other single individual, bases many ofhis strategic arguments on the need to avoid an inevitable revolutionary upheaval: "All I can say is that I am trying, as other people are trying, to stop us from getting bang into a catastrophe. I believe we are on the verge of that."1 This reasoning is commonly held and has produced a sense ofgreat urgency in the strategic debate about South Africa. How realistic is this viewpoint? In 1985 and 1986 South Africa appeared nightly on television screens around the world. The country was in the throes of what was arguably the worst crisis of public order anywhere in the world, beyond situations of open civil war. From September 1984 to April 1987 37 incidents of unrest occurred daily, with more than 2,000 people killed and nearly 7,000 injured; 16,000 houses and buildings and 23,000 vehicles were damaged or destroyed; and almost 2.5 million man-days lost in strikes and work stoppages. According to the commissioner of police, some 19,000 people were detained during the upheavals, a figure opposition groups claimed to be higher.2 By any comparative standards this turmoil appeared to be no less than a massive onslaught on the state. Yet in retrospect, by South African standards, it was but one more cycle of violent or open protest in a long series, albeit the most serious. The incidence of violent protest is well represented by the number of fatalities, which rose, peaked, and declined as follows:3 September 1984-February 1985:185 March 1985-August 1985:492 September 1985-February 1986:565 March 1986-August 1986:955 September 1986-February 1987:187 As the unrest proceeded, furthermore, an increasing proportion of fatalities were caused by interfactional violence in the black communities. At the time of this writing virtually all deaths in the unrest are attributable to 1 . CP. de Kock, "Possible Implications of the Election on the Escalation and De-escalation of Violence in South Africa," in D.J. van Vuuren, et al., eds., South African Election 1987 (Pinetown, Natal: Owen Burgess Publishers [in collaboration with Human Sciences Research Council], 1987), 293. Also, Carole Cooper et al. , Survey ofRace Relations 1986 (Johannesburg: SA Institute of Race Relations, 1987). 2.Weekly Mail (May 8, 1987). 3...

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