Listening to the silent majority

[p. 138]

[101]

In Britain, The Economist reviewed the present state of affairs in South Africa as follows, ‘Whatever the military power of the white state, it is doomed by demography and economics. Most whites know in their hearts that black majority rule is coming, but they cannot yet face up to it. In 1980 blacks accounted for just over half of South Africa's urban population. By the year 2000 blacks will outnumber whites by nearly five to one. Blacks hold already now more than half of the country's spending power. But blacks also make up half of its secondary school leavers. Whites still hold a near-monopoly on top jobs in industry. Still, one third of middle-managers are now non-white. Sanctions and disinvestment imposed a ceiling of growth in the official economy of less than 3 per cent a year. To absorb the increasing black workforce 5 per cent is needed. One study suggests that by 1990 black unemployment will be half a million higher, and the average South African more than 10 per cent poorer, than would have been the case without sanctions and disinvestment.’ The Economist speaks of a mixture of fear and resignation amongst South African whites in view of the black ‘flood’. ‘Few will accept the idea of a black government until they have one.’ But also, ‘Some brave and thoughtful whites avoid such self-delusion, and their group is getting gradually bigger.’ The Economist identifies with this group the newly-founded Democratic Party.^77.

Reading this Economist overview in a Hillbrow apartment during the fifth month of 1989 - by the way, Hillbrow, close to the centre of Johannesburg, is now commonly accepted as a multiracial living area - my own view is that negotiation and the search for compromise and consensus is the only way out of the current racial quagmire and multiple cross-signals between South African minds. The ‘Battle of the Brains’ will be shortly put to the test. Mr FW de Klerk has said as much - the Great Indaba of the mindscapes of all South Africans is approaching. And, if it does, I am considerably more optimistic about the outcome of an acceptable solution and modus vivendi for all, regardless of ethnic origin or skin pigmentation, than the above summing-up in The Economist suggests.

77. The Economist, May 20, 1989