It is also true that "Apartheid," is the least understood concept outside of South Africa, of any proposed solution for Colonial problems, anywhere. I think that this is in part true because the opponents of Apartheid--predominantly the business interests--had the contacts overseas, and were able to color it with false attributions. It was in many respects intended to reverse the conditions that have been mistakenly attributed to it.
I ordinarily simply post links to essays that support my contentions. But the Chapter in my Debate Handbook on Perspective and Focus, deals with a number of examples of the point being made for the would be debater, only one of which discusses Apartheid as an example of how perspective can influence perception of an issue. Therefore, rather than ask anyone here to read the whole Chapter, I will extract the part on South Africa:
The controversy over South African Apartheid (the Afrikaans word for Separate Development) was perhaps the single least understood issue of the 20th Century. In an era when both the international Socialists and many CFR types were bent upon consolidating regions and building a new world order, based upon the myth of an undifferentiated humanity; the South African Government proposed to dismantle the cosmopolitan State, over which South Africa was granted Dominion status by the British Government in 1910, and divide the distinct peoples living within its borders into new States based upon tribe, race and culture.
While this would, at first blush, appear to be a purely internal matter--that is, at least until the new States sought international recognition--the proposals immediately drew a great hue and cry of "racism" from the parties on the Left, all over the world. The new Nationalist Government in Pretoria--elected in 1948--was assailed as an international pariah by those who regularly hurled Socialist slogans at every issue; and a forty-two year campaign for that euphemism labeled "Majority Rule," in a unitary State, ensued.
Before the South African situation may be discussed intelligently, a little background, both historical and social, is essential. Up until the British consolidated control over the region, following their victory in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), there were quite distinct peoples occupying what is now South Africa; peoples who had always developed separately. Some of these were of a Caucasian European background. But even they reflected three separate lines of development: Afrikaners, who had remained settled in their ancestral homes, after the British had acquired control a century earlier; ethnic British, who had always been governed by the British Monarchy; and those Afrikaners, the sons of the Voortrekkers, who had left British control to develop their own rustic Boer Republics. (The Afrikaners had arrived in South Africa in the 17th Century, then largely an unsettled wilderness with only a few Hottentots actually native to the areas first settled. From the standpoint of historic parallels, Afrikaner history is closer to that of the mainstream American, than to that of any other people on earth.)
The non-Caucasian peoples of South Africa come in a dazzling variety of tribes and races, in quite varied stages of development--at least from a European or American perspective--with considerable political variation. The strongest of the tribal Nations were the Zulus, who have a well established hereditary monarchy. These had earlier defeated most of the other Bantu peoples, and were greatly feared. But there were several other large Bantu tribes, including the Xhosa (about equal in numbers to the Zulu), Tswana, Sotho, Tsonga, Swazi, Ndebele and Venda, each with a different Government, culture, language and architecture, as well as various smaller tribal Nations. There were also Bushmen--racially quite distinct from both the Caucasian and Bantu peoples--Cape Coloureds (a cross between Caucasians and the now largely extinct Hottentots), Asian Caucasians (middle and working class Hindus) and Malays. While the modern cosmopolitan State, which followed Dominion status saw peoples from many of these backgrounds in manufacturing, mining and agriculture, at no time in history did significant numbers of those with distinct ethnicity really share a sense of nationhood or common culture. The Bantu Nations and the Afrikaners each retained specific separate areas, where each had originally settled, which were considered their respective homelands.
The International hue and cry against South Africa's announced plan for the separate development of diverse peoples, reflected a number of perspectives. This was the era of Communist expansion; and the Communist world coveted South Africa, both for her vast natural resources and strategic position at the foot of Africa. Western "Liberals," on the other hand, were caught up in the notion of building a new order based upon tearing down traditional States in the pursuit of some form of world government. And whereas Woodrow Wilson, once the "Liberal" icon on foreign policy, had celebrated fragmentation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into small nations, reflecting truer ethnicity, as fully compatible with his proposed League; in a new post World War II focus, the proposed fragmentation of South Africa was seen as a threat to everything that was suddenly sacred.
What had changed the focus of that species of affluent idealist, who had adored the Wilsonian "vision" in 1919, by the 1950s, was not any radical change in their perspective on the need for a worldwide association of peoples to secure a lasting peace. The difference came in a new perspective, developed out of the contrived misconception of National Socialism, addressed in depth in Chapter 7, and a major effort by Leftist theorists to develop and focus that new perspective into an attack on ethnic and nationalist sentiments among all European derived sub-groups of the Caucasian Race. (This was the same period when the same theorists launched their attack on National Origin as the determinant for American Immigration policy; an attack which led to its termination in 1965, discussed in Chapter 15.)
Was it rational to seek to abolish national or ethnic pride among White Europeans, because one group of European Socialists had abused the concept in pursuit of a totalitarian mindset? Or was it equivalent to abolishing the study of economics--or the causes for economic success-- because another set of totalitarian Socialists had attempted to interpret all human action in terms of economic class theory; equivalent to abolishing Religion, because of the terrible slaughter in past religious Wars? Rational or not, the new agenda was fervently and compulsively embraced. And as few wished to be accused of Nazi sympathy, very few challenged what was clearly a denial of both common sense and all human experience. Few had the courage to note that ideas are one thing; human history is that of people born into specific families, tribes and nations--sharing experiences in each generation among those whose ancestors had shared experiences and common achievements during many prior generations: People, moreover, whose first concern had always been the well being of their own posterity. That to focus on abstract values--such as international cooperation--to the exclusion of the normal claims of specific peoples, who had employed those values in a rational pursuit of the interests of their own posterity, was pathological.
At the same time, the so-called "Third World," much of it just emerging from European domination during the Colonial era, seized upon South Africa's proposed "Apartheid" as a last vestige of European Colonialism; and took every opportunity to denounce it as a rallying point for a more assertive world posture. In this proclaimed perspective, they were of course as far afield from actual reality--or any deep understanding of the players in South Africa--as the American parlor "Liberals." In fact, the strongest opposition to proposed Separate Development, within South Africa, came from large Colonial era business interests, which saw in the proposed dismantling of Imperial South Africa, a threat to their ability to obtain cheap labor and a ready market for various goods. The justification for the proposal, on the other hand, was in very large measure a desire to unwind that Colonial legacy, to return each of the constituent parts to their respective pre-Colonial independence; each with its ancient cultural heritage intact.
Beyond the opposition of large businesses and those South African Whites, susceptible to the usual "liberal" arguments; the idea of separate development seemed threatening to many Bantu, who had become de-tribalized in the urban centers and did not wish to be restored to traditional tribal authority. There were concerns as to the possible effect on employment opportunities, as well as a dread of tribal justice, which can be far less tolerant of anti-social behavior than the often very "Liberal" White urban authorities. There were also many questions of cost and practical implementation, which made immediate accomplishment impossible. The Nationalist Government adopted instead a phased approach, intended to deal fairly with reasonable considerations, and proceeded with deliberation rather than haste.
Some of the steps taken--such as tax incentives for business to locate new facilities in areas where the Bantu had traditionally resided, rather than draw labor from those areas into distant cities that had been the traditional homes of Europeans--have been copied recently (with little acknowledgment) in the United States, in various proposals for subsidizing "inner city development." While the South Africans were going forward in this careful manner, their overseas foes focused less and less on the actual specifics; concentrating on the perception that they had already created that the procedures were inherently evil. South Africans were given much the same treatment that the Bolsheviks had given the Bourgeoisie; that the Nazis had given the Jews and Poles. Supposedly bright college students, caught up in this tide of pure hate, ran around denouncing South Africa and "Apartheid," demanding an economic boycott of all her products. But very few could have accurately described daily life in South Africa, if their entire personal futures had depended upon the exercise. Indeed, South Africa's White Settler stock, became for the International Left--and all whom they could intimidate in the last half of the Twentieth Century--precisely what the Bourgeoisie and Jews had been in the first half: The favored scapegoat for those who preferred demonizing a target to rational debate.
For those who did address the South African issue with analysis rather than fabrication, it is likely that many both in and outside the country would have seen the underlying question as involving a matter of control; the issue over how, and by whom, the country and its various peoples would be governed. While it is certainly not illogical to focus on that question, in discussing the future course of any people or any geographic entity; it is not the most clarifying approach. Control, after all, eventually comes down to a question of responsibility--who and how responsibility will be determined, and the parameters that may be placed upon it. Ultimately all politics and political arrangements come down to the allocation of responsibility.
The focus of every form of Socialism is on collectivizing responsibility; making decisions for others, solving perceived problems by Committee. The objectives for this centralized aggregation of power may vary among different movements, with some more focused on the egalitarian, others on the concept of community "solutions." All are threatened by the idea of a society where the individual is responsible for his own future--where welfare of the whole is seen as dependent upon the individual efforts of a responsible, not centrally controlled, citizenry. In terms of an interaction between peoples, no Socialist mindset can accept with equanimity, the concept that each group will be wholly responsible--without some aggregating force directing their priorities--for their side in such interaction.
Apartheid--Separate Development--was really a proposal to return responsibility to individual peoples caught up and aggregated without their volition in the Colonial era. As such it would naturally appeal to some and seem threatening to others. There are many reasons why people seek to avoid responsibility, as there are many reasons why some try to acquire responsibility and control over others. While there may be a great deal to be said for the Empire builders, once a decision is made to dismantle an Empire, the question naturally arises what should follow. If the ideal is to return to something which we know will work--something that has worked in the historic context as opposed to what never was, and therefore is less than likely ever to be; Apartheid was a far more idealistic approach to post Imperial South Africa than anything proposed by the Left. It is to our shame in the West that so few Conservatives ever bothered to understand what was actually involved there; that we allowed Socialists with an agenda to control the focus of world attention, to successfully besiege our South African cousins.
Anyway, this will give anyone who cares to study the question with more understanding, something to chew on.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site