Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!walton@csvax.caltech.edu@ametek.UUCP
From: walton@csvax.caltech.edu@ametek.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest   V6 #99
Message-ID: <12264922944.22.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 22-Dec-86 18:13:57 EST
Article-I.D.: RED.12264922944.22.MCGREW
Posted: Mon Dec 22 18:13:57 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Dec-86 20:40:35 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 40
Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu


Willie Lim writes at length in response to my comment about black
African countries not being democracies for the most part.  His
message gives me hope.  I had been aware of some of Zimbabwe's
success, thanks to an NPR report on agriculture there, and I tend to
avoid the Wall Street Journal.  (As an aside, anyone want to help me
write a generic Wall Street Journal Editorial?)  It is clear that
Willie at least does not believe that black rule, in and of itself, is
an automatic guarantee of peace, freedom, and prosperity for South
Africans of all races, which was my misinterpretation of an earlier
posting.
        However, Zimbabwe and South Africa are somewhat different.  As
others have pointed out, the Afrikaners (whom Willie appropriately
calls the "white tribe") is both larger and more deeply rooted in
South Africa than were the whites in Rhodesia.  Also, Robert Mugabe's
tribe is a clear majority of the population in Zimbabwe.  In South
Africa, the largest tribe is the Zulu, with some 6 million members of
a population in excess of 20 million.  Thus my endorsement of
Kissinger's recommendation for a federal-style government for South
Africa rather than a parliamentary style one such as Zimbabwe adopted.
     Michael Kinsey, author of "TRB from Washington" in the New
Republic and "Viewpoint" weekly on the Wall Street Journal's OpEd page
(did you see last week's?  The one where he dismembered this year's
Nobel Economics Prize recipient and the WSJ's editorial support for
it?), has pointed out that by Jeanne Kirkpatrick's own criteria, South
Africa is a "totalitarian" and not an "authoritarian" regime, since
the government claims the power to decide where people can work and
live and whom they can marry.  I think it is axiomatic that a
totalitarian state cannot have a free market, and thus Willie is also
correct that applying the term "capitalist" to SA is a misnomer.
        So, I don't think Willie and I disagree at all, except perhaps
as to the means to arrive at the desired end, which is a fair "one
person, one vote" government for the long-suffering peoples of South
Africa.  I hope he is correct that the movement away from centrally
planned economies in Africa is far-reaching and permanent.  If true,
it is the most hopeful thing to happen on that continent since
decolonization.

                                        Steve Walton
-------