Saturday & Sunday, 3-4 May 1986: Other Countries Should Fix “Their Own Bloody Problems”

May 5, 1986, 9:15 AM, Bus from Nelspruit to Johannesburg 

Two nights ago I was staying at the High Over guest house north of White River in the eastern Transvaal.  Although White River is a small town far removed from South Africa’s large urban centers, it is not immune to the violence sweeping through black townships like Soweto and Alexandra.  There were a couple of deaths recently in White River when police fired on a group of students. 

Lionel, the innkeeper at the guest house, made it a point to set me straight about race relations in South Africa.  I did not initiate the one-sided conversation which took place after dinner.  But I sat back and listened making mental notes which I immediately copied into a notebook as soon as he was done with his rant and I had the chance to escape back to my room. 

     High Over Guest House.  Proprietors, Lionel and Lodie, speaking with Louise van Vuuren, SATOUR (center)

Lionel is around 60 and was one of the original project engineers with ARMSCOR, the South African government arms agency which was formed in the 1960s after several Western nations started boycotting arms sales to South Africa.  His hostility waxed and waned as he expressed anger at countries that try to tell South Africa how to run their personal affairs when these other countries can’t even sort out “their own bloody problems.” 

He resents people like Senator Ted Kennedy coming to South Africa for a few days on “fact-finding tours” with their eyes on the next election back home.  He claimed Kennedy had already made up his mind about South Africa before he arrived.  And blacks like Zulu Chief Buthelezi told him to get the hell out of South Africa.  Lucky for Kennedy that he wasn’t shot.

The ruling National Party is going too far, too fast with reform, Lionel said.  If you give the blacks the vote, the country will go down the tubes like Rhodesia [renamed Zimbabwe in 1980].  He claimed that members of the HNP [Herstigte Nasionale Party or Reconstituted National Party formed in 1969] hate blacks.  He doesn’t hate blacks but understands they have the mentality of an 8- to 10-year-old.  As with a child, you tell a black specifically what not to do.  If he does it, you tell him he’ll get hit the next time he does it.  Like a child, he may try to test your limits.  If he does, you hit him so he’ll know you’re not kidding.  If you don’t set limits, he’ll know he can continue to get away with his unacceptable behavior. 

Despite Lionel’s obvious conservatism, I was somewhat surprised at his attitude about corporal punishment.  But what surprised me even more was that he would make these sorts of statements to an American writer.  He is rather naïve if he doesn’t know how most Americans react to these sorts of statements.  I wonder how many South Africans of his conservative ilk feel the same way but are more cautious about what they say publically.  

I got the impression that Lionel is a Conservative Party supporter [the CP is to the right of the National Party but less extreme than the HNP].  He claimed that if an election were held today, the Nats (National Party) would go down in defeat.  I pointed out that the CP and HNP would probably split the conservative vote keeping the Nats in power.  He granted this was a problem and pointed to a recent example in Springs (an industrial city east of Johannesburg) where this happened in a special election.  However, the HNP was able to win in Sasolburg because the CP candidate bowed out.

Lionel was quick to slap a communist label on people and organizations on the political left.  The ANC, UDF, SWAPO, and black labor unions are controlled by the communists, he said.  The novelist, Alan Paton is a communist as is Helen Suzman (a member of the South African parliament who belongs to the PFP – Progressive Federal Party which is left of center).  They should have put her away long ago, but since she is an M.P., they can’t touch her.  And why should she be put in jail, I wondered.  Because she, and others like her, say things that are dangerous for blacks to hear, especially given the current situation the country finds itself in.  And how does he know that these people are communists?  It’s well known that their leaders are in close communication with Moscow.  A number of their associates are getting military and other revolutionary-useful training from the Russians.

The Nats should have listened to Prime Minister Jan Smuts whom they defeated in the 1948 elections.  Smuts had warned against letting blacks form labor unions because they would use them for political ends.  I wondered aloud if perhaps blacks had no other choice since they couldn’t legally form political parties.  He didn’t have a specific reply except to claim that South African blacks were better off than blacks anywhere else in southern Africa. 

Lionel went out to the kitchen to look for his “baas boy” (black forman) but the chap had already left for the evening.  “Ask him what he thinks of one-man, one-vote.  He’d laugh at you.”  Lionel knows blacks would starve if a black government took over.  After all, it’s only been a couple of generations since “blacks were in the trees.”

Blacks are amoral.  They breed like flies.  There is no way you can get them to use birth control.  Lionel said he has to pay high taxes to support black education and black housing as a result.  He feels that influx control laws are necessary because the government could never afford to build housing for all the blacks who would want to live in the cities otherwise.  But isn’t it destructive of family life not to allow men to bring their families with them when the go to the cities to work as migrant laborers, I wondered.  Lionel told me he has four black employees, but a total of 18 blacks live on his property.  They bring mothers, brothers, and god knows who else to live with them.  Was it fair for him to have to support 18 blacks when only four worked for him?  While that might work out okay here in a rural area, the government could never build enough housing to handle all these “family members” in the cities.  The workers would let all their relatives crowd into their cramped living spaces, and this would cause health problems.

Lionel talked about foreign boycotts of South Africa.  The country never has any difficulty getting around them.  The Saudis and other Arab countries sell oil under the table to South Africa.  How can they resist when South Africa pays in gold?  Other African countries can’t even pay their bills much of the time.  After Britain and the U.S. stopped supplying South Africa with military aircraft, they got Mirages from the French.  Technically, the French are now also boycotting them, but they seem to have no problem getting spare parts for their aircraft. 

Lionel was on the original ARMSCOR team that went to Europe to acquire the technical know-how to produce their own sophisticated weaponry.  He pointed out that when it comes to foreign trade, the bottom line is not morality but money.  It’s a known fact, he said, that the African nations south of the equator would starve were it not for South Africa selling them food.

We spoke about current conditions in neighboring Mozambique.  Lionel said that the Italians had built irrigation dams in Mozambique but they are now standing empty.  He claimed that the blacks there don’t want to help themselves.  They only want handouts.   

Lionel thought it was unfair for everyone to pick on South Africa given the discrimination problems abroad in places like the U.S. and Britain.  South Africa was doing just fine improving the lot of the black man until other countries started interfering.  I granted that economic situation for South African blacks seemed to be improving but the country has an image problem.  He agreed saying that South Africa, like most other countries, had always practiced social segregation.  The problem developed when Hendrik Verwoerd [former Prime Minister and President of South Africa] gave it a name:  apartheid.

We also talked about tourism.  I questioned whether a foreign tourist gets a true picture of the country because there are few opportunities to interface with non-white South Africans.  How could one, therefore, expect to understand them and their lives.  Lionel said that the government has made provisions for tourists to visit townships and homelands.  Nonetheless, there are social barriers to doing this.  The blacks have their own customs and way of life, he noted, and aren’t interested in socializing with white tourists.  He felt it would be difficult for me to get to know any blacks in a meaningful way. 

During our conversation, Lionel made several references to the racial situation in the United States.  I been trying to avoid arguing with South Africans about their internal politics but ask questions to get them to reveal their inner feelings.  However, when it comes to U.S. race relations, I’m not about to let them explain the situation in my country to me!  So, I told Lionel that the racial situation in the USA is far from perfect.  Nevertheless, within my lifetime, we have made great strides toward equal opportunity for all races.  However, you can’t make people slaves for 200+ years; then make them second class citizens for the next 100 years; and then expect them to excel as well as the rest of us.  If my ancestors and I been told since childhood that we were lazy and dumb, I might well act like I was!  You can’t expect black Americans to change overnight.

Lionel seized on my last statement to draw an analogy with South Africa.  Yes, change takes time, he said.  But the whole world expects us to change immediately.  I pointed out an obvious difference:  In the U.S. we have laws against segregation and discrimination.  In South Africa, segregation is still enforced by law. 

Sunday morning, May 4

Yesterday morning at breakfast, Lionel and his wife, Lodie, were talking about all the guests they have had from various countries.  I asked if they felt Americans could understand the REAL South Africa if they traveled here.  And would American visitors bring back a favorable image of South Africa with them to the States?  Definitely, Lionel replied.  Nearly everyone who comes here as a tourist leaves with a more positive image.  They’ve had tourists tell them they had expected to find blacks running around in chains given all the unfavorable press South Africa was getting back home in their countries. They left feeling that the press was not fair to South Africa.  He said that Americans from the South have been particularly sympathetic.  “We understand your problems,” they often say. 

When I left, Lionel’s parting message was, “We’re not asking for people to paint a rosy picture of South Africa.  Sure, we have our problems.  All we ask for is a fair shake.”     

As a reward for being a good listener, I suppose, Lionel refused to let me pay for my room.  I’m sure he hopes I will say nice things about the country and send American tourists his way.  I appreciate his hospitality and frank honesty, hard though it was to listen to.  One could certainly question the ethics of taking a “free lunch”, then bad-mouthing the host.  However, I don’t feel I’m slamming Lionel by reporting our conversations.  He did not say that his statements were confidential, and I’m reporting them as accurately as I can remember.  One could argue that it would be more appropriate to tape a conversation like this one or take notes while he was actually talking.  It was my judgment that he would not have wanted to be taped or would have toned down his comments if I did.  I think that even had I brought up the subject of taping or taking notes, it would have put him on guard.  Certainly, it would have been ideal to have gotten this conversation on tape.  I didn’t come out and tell him I would be reporting our conversation.  At the same time, I told him I was writing about my impressions about life in South Africa.  Why should he not assume he would be part of the story?  It’s not easy knowing how to handle this as I’m not an experienced professional journalist.

I don’t discount everything that Lionel said.  As with any racially-biased rant, there is some truth to some of it.  What bothers me is his implied white cultural superiority and the lack of empathy for the plight of non-whites which has been evolving over the more than 300 years since the Dutch first started settling southern Africa.