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South Africa's deepening crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Extract

Two points can be made at the outset. South Africa will not go away. South Africa is not about to engage in a transfer of power to its opponents. It is necessary to say this because for a decade or so (at least since the Soweto uprising of 1976) much contemporary scholarly literature and most popular journalism has concerned itself with two basic questions: when will the revolution take place and what happens after it? The assumption is that South Africa is now in the classic pre-revolutionary stage and therefore the most important field of political analysis is the economic and social character of the post-apartheid state, be it socialist, nationalist or multiracial capitalist.

Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1989

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References

1. Davies, James C., ‘The J curve of rising and declining satisfactions as a cause of some great revolutions and a contained rebellion’Google Scholar, in Graham, H. D. and Gurr, T. R. (eds.), The history of violence in America (New York, 1969).Google Scholar Quoted by Frankel, Philip in State, Resistance and Change, p. 286.Google Scholar

2. State, Resistance and Change, p. 2.Google Scholar

3. Ibid., pp. 229–59.

4. See Karis, T. G., ‘South African Liberation: the Communist Factor’, Foreign Affairs, 65 (19861987), p. 267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. In this connection Martin Meredith quotes Professor John Barrat: ‘The ‘swart gevaar‘, the ‘rooi gevaar’, the ‘buitlandse gevaar’ [the Black danger, the red danger, the foreign danger] were combined into one really big ‘gevaar’ by P. W. Botha in the May 1987 election campaign.’ In the Name of Apartheid, p. 220.

6. State, Resistance and Change, p. 146.Google Scholar

7. The cover of An Appetite for Power indicates that Buthelezi's sartorial style may be as ambiguous as his politics and may even be a conscious reflection of them. He is pictured wearing a Chinese-looking military jacket, a cravat, Zulu beads in ANC colours and a Harrods scarf. For Mare and Hamilton, clothes really do maketh the man. Buthelezi, of course, is entitled to reply that one should not judge a book by its cover.

8. Cape Town, Purnell, 1976.

9. ‘Pathways for Transition’, in State, Resistance and Change, p. 294.Google Scholar

10. See Kitchen, H. and Clough, M., ‘The United States and South Africa: Realities and Red Herrings’, Significant Issue Series, Vol. VI, No. 6Google Scholar, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown.

11. Jorre, John de St., ‘South Africa Embattled’, Foreign Affairs, 65 (19861987), p. 552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar