Rethinking the Rise and Fall of Apartheid (review)

This book is billed as a ‘much needed antidote to recent revisionist attempts to “rehabilitate” apartheid’. Guelke attempts to go beyond previous analysis of South African historiography by incorporating consideration of global political and economic developments. The book traverses discussions of South African racial policy through history and the interaction of domestic and international developments that influenced decision making in sustaining apartheid and then contributed to a transition to democracy.

The book is structured around a series of chapters, each titled with a question. Unfortunately, none of the chapters answers the question set and in some cases the content bears little relevance to the title. In a book that highlights the international element, Guelke brings a range of issues to the fore – changes in US foreign policy, the West’s hypocritical balancing of values and interests, comparisons with Nazi Germany, the fall of the Berlin Wall and changes in the Cold War political economy affecting Southern Africa, and the shaping of early policy through interactions with colonial Britain. A number of these prove to be insightful, but analysis remains unsatisfactory in others. The debate on Western hypocrisy is engaging, and his discussion of the ending of the Cold War suggests an area for greater study. But surprisingly little consideration is given to British foreign policy between the 1960s and 1990s. There is also a failure to develop a compelling argument linked to domestic changes and pressures.

On the domestic front, Guelke presents a summary of the changing political situation, but questions remain over his unproblematic treatment of the way in which certain committee findings were selectively used. Political developments are given greater coverage – the transition from Vorster to Botha is well detailed – than socio-economic factors. This trend is evident in the concluding chapter, which focuses upon apartheid’s continuing impacts in the post-apartheid era. Discussion of continued economic inequality as part of the ‘incomplete transition’ (p. 216) recognizes that the ‘white’ share of economic wealth has declined, and the ‘black’ share has increased. Here Guelke himself falls into the trap he complains of, that there has been little debate over the new, ‘neo-apartheid’ order (p. xiv) of economic inequality because of ‘the domination of the political system by the ANC with an ideology of non-racialism’ (p. xiv). Rather than engage with the challenges of embourgeoisement and the inevitable enriching of a minority middle class in a capitalist society, Guelke proposes a series of abstract questions about the duality of capitalism and poverty without attempting answers. Nor does he ask whether the ANC’s actual policy is one of non-racialism or multi-racialism.

Concluding with a comment about the omnipresent question – ‘will South Africa follow Zimbabwe?’ – Guelke criticizes this approach for isolating the individual state from global developments. Instead, he asserts, one must take account of international developments and ‘to make any predictions about South Africa would be folly, since it is evident that the world itself is in flux’ (p. 218). For this reviewer, such a conclusion is deeply unsatisfactory: Guelke appears to be writing himself, and many other academics, out of a job. Misgivings are not allayed by presentational errors such as the invitation (p. 167) to review further material on Lijphart’s analysis on a page that makes no mention of this text. His remarks relating contemporary events to discussions of the apartheid era – for instance his comments about Tony Blair and the United States (p. 72) – are simply a distraction.

Guelke’s statement that ‘the role that the international community played on the sidelines was of crucial importance in determining the outcome [the fall of apartheid]’ (p. 206) is a decisive conclusion to a book which fails to capture this power throughout. Advertised as a text bringing greater emphasis to the international role in the rise and fall of apartheid, it succeeds to an extent. However, there is lack of detailed analysis of the...