Saturday, 26 July 86: Walking an Indian Ocean Beach & Speculating about Politics

Riversdale, 90 kms west of Mossel Bay, en route to Cape Town at long last! 

This is not exactly the best time of the year to visit Cape Town.  It’s the dead of winter, after all.  And that means a good chance of cold rainy weather in the southwestern Cape.  But I figured I might as well get there now in case I get thrown out of the country, the revolution comes, or if for some reason, I can’t get there for Christmas.  Besides, if I do plan to come back with friends, it wouldn’t hurt to do a little recon work now.

In contrast to yesterday, today was beautiful.  Sunny, high around 70°F.  Took a long walk with cameras along the beach from Hartenbos to Mossel Bay.  Uneventful but I had some nice photo opportunities.

July 26, 1986:  Sunrise over the Indian Ocean from the beach at Hartenbos.

Mossel Bay, a small city with a lovely setting on the Indian Ocean.

Another spectacular train ride this afternoon.  There was a rugged mountain range on the northern horizon with lovely green rolling farmland in between.  The railway line snaked its way up from the Indian Ocean coast at Hartenbos and then across the deeply incised Gourits River.  

I found out that the most scenic train ride in this part of South Africa is from George to Knysna.  It’s a mixed (goods and passenger) train not even listed in the SAR timetable.  Leaves George early in the morning and returns from Knysna in late afternoon.  It follows the coast and is pulled by a steam loco.  Certainly sounds worth taking if I get back to this area again.

This morning I was reading the Cape Town Argus, a liberal English-language daily newspaper.  It appears that Reagan will go for some kind of sanctions as he’s coming under increasing pressure from within the Republican Party.  The speculation is that American sanctions will come in time for the EEC Parliament meeting in September and will be coordinated with the European allies.  That is, IF South Africa doesn’t make some dramatic reforms moves before then. 

So here’s my prediction – The Group Areas Act will go away by September.  Sure, P.W. Botha is worried about the South African right wing splitting up the “Volk”.  At the same time, what will scrapping Group Areas really cost the government?  Most people I talk to (admittedly moderate to liberal) agree that it will have little effect.  A few well-off, non-white business and professionals will be able to afford to move into upscale white neighborhoods, and most people won’t even notice it.  And, non-white kids living in white neighborhoods will be allowed to attend the local white government (public) schools.

Of course, real problems will develop if non-whites try to move into working class Afrikaner neighborhoods.  Then you’ll have a replay of the panic that hit inner city ethnic neighborhood in the US about 20 years ago.  The right wing would really capitalize on this sort of thing.  It could get really nasty.  For example, a coloured friend joked (or was he serious?) that he has a plan to make a killing in real estate as soon as the Group Areas Act goes away.  He’ll buy a property in a nice white middle class neighborhood.  Then he’ll rent it out for practically nothing to a bunch of black hell-raisers.  They’ll party all night, every night, and trash the place up.  The white neighbors will panic and sell out to him at a loss.  After he’s bought up several surrounding properties like this for peanuts, he’ll throw out his obnoxious renters, do some cosmetic fix-ups, and resell the properties for a killing.

I’d say that if P.W. & Co. aren’t actively negotiating with the blacks about majority rule within a year, Ronbo Reagan and Iron Lady Thatcher will impose strict sanctions on the RSA.  With an election year coming up in the U.S. and U.K. in ’88, South Africa is going to be an embarrassment for them if their constructive engagement policies haven’t worked.  True, American elections aren’t won or lost on foreign policy issues unless they directly affect us at home, and this issue doesn’t.  I imagine that it works the same way in the U.K. But the failure of constructive engagement to bring about change in South Africa can be used effectively by the Democrats and Labour as a sign of weakness in the policies of the incumbents.  Constructive engagement can also be pointed at as a sign of moral lassitude.

I must acknowledge that there are those who say that South Africa doesn’t worry about outside pressures.  But as one commentator said in the Argus today:  If the government is so unconcerned about foreign pressures, why is it so opposed to sanctions?  Why does it go after South Africans who make statements in favor of sanctions?  Yes, South Africa will survive under sanctions, but it’s going to fuck up the economy here is a big way. 

The momentum for change here is already underway.  You can’t argue that P.W. has initiated all the reforms he has in recent months, and now he’s going to stop.  I don’t buy the South African government rhetoric that certain issues are non-negotiable.  They may be non-negotiable all right (like Group Areas) because the government has already decided how and when it will scrap these laws.  And the “when” is anytime between tomorrow and a year from now on everything except one man-one vote.

All the reactionary crap I hear from some people here is said in ignorance or in desperation.  The times, they are a changin’.  Remember, you heard it first from ol’ Will.