L'Afrique du Sud après l'apartheid by Jean-Claude BarbierReview by: Sérgio VieiraCanadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol. 27, No. 3(1993), pp. 496-498Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian Association of African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/485697 .

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Book Reviews / Comptes rendus

Jean-Claude Barbier. L'Afrique du Sud apr~s 1'apartheid. Paris: Editions

Kimrn, 1991. 300oo pp.

The eighteen chapters of this book (preceded by a prologue and introduction) are thematically divided into five parts. The first part, "The Major Outlines of the South African Context," focuses in four chapters on sharp ethnic divisions, institutional unity, extreme inequalities, the illegitimacy of the government, and the cycle of repression and resistance (18-58). The second part, "Apartheid Seen from France," ana- lyzes in a single chapter the function of discourse about South Africa (58-78). The third and most lengthy part of the book, "The Decisive Decade," analyzes in seven chapters the economic transformations, the interplay among reform, the constitution and repression, the power bloc, the moderates and conservatives as an intermediary zone, the radical opposition, the Mandela and de Klerk initiatives, and international devel- opments, with a focus on sanctions and on the changes in Soviet policy (78-2oo). The fourth part, "The Fundamental Debates," deals in three chapters with issues of the nation and democracy in South Africa, capitalism, socialism and apartheid, and finally asks questions about the unity of the South African nation and people (2oo-44). In the final part, "The Democracy of the Future," Jean-Claude Barbier, in two chapters, tries to envisage a short-term timetable and the challenges of the future (244-71).

Barbier presents the work as a profound reflection, resorting to a multi-disciplinary treatment (which, in the prologue, he describes, rather curiously, as non-academic), and as one taking a position on apartheid. In the first part, he joins in the debate over whether the southern-most part of Africa was "empty" land or reserved for Africans. The debate is obsolete, since the consensus of all significant social and political forces is that all have equal rights to the country; the debate is now around the degree of equality among citizens, when some are white and others are not.

Barbier establishes the limits of ethno-linguistic differences among the black strata of the population. These were always maximized by colonialism, promoting the myth that the "white man" was the guarantor of harmony among the non-whites. In the South African case, both the discourse and Barbier ignore the fact that differences among the various components of the white population (Afrikaner, English, Portu- guese, Italian, Greek, and Jewish) are at least as important. Omitted too, is the fact that so-called white power is exclusively Afrikaner. The Afrikaners, at the level of the state and of the important sector of the economy constituted by state-owned companies, exclude other whites from any participation.

The causes of apartheid are not analyzed, nor is its function in the strategy of

496

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497 Book Reviews / Comptes rendus

capitalist accumulation for the poor strata of Dutch and Huguenot immigrants. Bar- bier also does not analyze the strangulation that apartheid came-to signify for the capi- talist development of the country, because three-quarters of the population were relegated to a condition where they were scarcely able to be consumers.

The second part of the book, analyzing the discourses on apartheid held in France, is original. It conveys an interesting vision of the perception of apartheid. The fact that these discourses are based on factual errors adds weight to Barbier's belief that the southern cone of the African continent is of secondary importance to France.

The economic analysis in the third part stresses the extreme vulnerability of the South African economy since, despite all appearances, South Africa remains essen- tially a country of the periphery. Barbier notes that the cost of producing gold is higher than the income from its sale. This is a structural phenomenon which will not disap- pear, and points to an extremely fragile future for the economy. Revenue from gold is the principal source of foreign exchange for the country, with decisive effects for imported inputs for industry, agriculture, transport, and services. Rather than the hesi- tation of those in power, the events of the past decade, like those of the present, show a search for a strategic alternative to preserve the hegemony of the current elite, once the legal framework of apartheid has disappeared.

One should stress Barbier's mistake in seeing the ANC as an extremist force, and in finding in Inkatha and in the bantustan chiefs an intermediate or moderate zone in black politics. It is not sufficient, as he would wish, to distance oneself ideologically or politically from the ANC, and above all from the South African Communist Party. Reality is stubborn, and the fact remains that the ANC is the only major non-white force with sufficient authority to present a minimum program that is still acceptable to the majority of the population. The weakening of the ANC, and of its tacit alliance with the ruling National Party, will favor radical polarisation. As for sanctions, it should be noted that those who sang out that they were ineffective and harmful for the majority in South Africa became the severest proponents of sanctions when directed against Iraq or Libya.

In the fourth part, Barbier presents, with some degree of success, some of the essen- tial data for analyzing South African society, which has pluri-national characteristics that go beyond the black/white dichotomy. The drama, however, is that in the name of the right of minorities to exist and to flourish (and every group is a minority in the country in relation to all the others), the intention of the current government is: to render void of content the power of a democratically determined majority; and to pre- serve the hegemony of an ethno-racial minority. At the core of the problem is the ques- tion whether democratizing South African society does or does not require redistribu- tion of wealth and of property. The search for minimums and limits of positive action to re-balance society in terms of power and property goes beyond the "socialism / capi- talism" debate which Barbier sees.

Two fundamental points are absent from Barbier's analysis. The first is the rela- tionship between South Africa and the southern African region as a whole. The omis- sion results in serious gaps, notably as regards the regime's "total strategy," which is an essential element for understanding the causes of the internal and regional violence throughout the I98os. The second omission is the role of the"securocrats" in society and its development; Barbier is content to describe the elite as good professionals.

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498 CJAS / RCEA 27:3 1993

Despite condemnation from the business community, would a coup such as that of the five generals (Salan, Jouhaud, Challe, Zeller, and Gardy) remain isolated in South Africa? Were the five generals bad professionals?

The omission of these factors weakens the quality of the book's predictions and conclusions, since essential cornerstones for analysis and consideration are simply not there. The bibliography, although extensive, is partial. In Angola and Mozambique in particular, a large number of authors and research centres have devoted a great deal of high quality efforts into analyzing the South African phenomenon. Perhaps because Portuguese was the tongue of an obscure colonizing power, it remains a clandestine language, but the liberation of Angola and Mozambique was a decisive factor for South Africa and for the region. Otherwise, how could one explain the fact that in South Africa they shout the slogan "A Luta Continua!" in Portuguese?

Sergio Vieira Universidade Eduardo Mondlane Maputo

James Barber and John Barratt. South Africa's Foreign Policy: The Search of Status and Security 1945-1988. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 398 pp.

Stephen Chan. Exporting Apartheid: Foreign Policies in Southern Africa

1978-I988. London: Macmillan Publishers, 1990. 374 PP. The prospect of eventual democratization in South Africa, as well as liberalization elsewhere in the region, has fuelled popular expectations of an approaching new era of cooperation in place of conflict in Southern Africa. No longer, it is said, will Pretoria devastate neighbouring states militarily, destabilize them politically, or dominate them economically. Instead, relations within the region will become non-exploitative and mutually beneficial. The reality may be a good deal less reassuring. Although South Africa's exercise of its power may be less crude, its hegemony may be as real as in the past, regardless of what regime rules in Pretoria. The new order may be charac- terized more by continuity than discontinuity. If so, the legacy left by the old order will remain highly relevant to an understanding of the future course of events.

The two books under review explore and expose that legacy. Both carry the story up to 1988 - the year of the Namibia-Angola Accord. Barber and Barratt cover the whole postwar period, primarily from the perspective of South Africa, while Chan concen- trates on the last decade, with the focus more on regional actors.

South Africa's Foreign Policy is, in a sense, a thorough revision and update of Bar- ber's earlier study of South Africa's Foreign Policy 1945-1970 (London: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1973). The present volume traces, broadly chronologically, four successive crises of the white state. The first was associated with early postwar opposition at home and abroad. Then came Sharpeville in I960, the Portuguese collapse in the mid-197os, and finally the revolt of townships in the mid-I98os. Each crisis was fol- lowed by a remarkable recovery of confidence, only to have it shattered by a further and more acute challenge to regime legitimacy, security, and even survival. The book is informed, insightful, comprehensive, and dispassionate. The authors waste little

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