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 -------