Listening to the silent majority

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The Chief Minister of KaNgwane also expressed serious reservations about the National Forum to me. ‘Real leaders,’ he said, ‘do not have to use controlled news media to reach their constituants. Real leaders should have a solid base among the people themselves. With due respect, if you look at the black leaders who have joined the Black Forum engineered by Mr Chris Heunis and evaluate the authenticity of their leadership, you will realise they hardly represent the black people at all.’

From all the conversations I held in South Africa over the past three years with blacks and whites alike, I have concluded that the collision between black and white mindsets centres in the fact that any move the government makes that smacks of colonial exclusivity, where only those blacks who have co-operated with it are included, will not do in the decade ahead. Mr FW de Klerk has already described the coming ten years as crucial for determining the future of South Africa. They obviously are.

In a flurry of statements De Klerk most energetically set forth his ideas for a new South Africa. ‘There is a new dynamic in the negotiation process,’ he told parliament on May 12, 1989. ‘The np is on course to build a new South Africa with a reasonable dispensation and safe way of life for all. What is necessary is a real breakthrough towards a workable and just system offering fair opportunities, meaningful participation and security to all people of this country. That is what we are work-

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ing for. It is for the building of such a South Africa that we will ask a mandate.’^85.

FW de Klerk: ‘Excluding the majority from full participation, as the Conservative Party wants to do, is unjust. It will inevitably lead to conflict and finally to revolution. Including all South Africans on the basis of one man, one vote on a common voters' roll at all levels, in a unitary type of state, in the terms of a Democratic Party policy, will inevitably lead to majority rule and domination. That is unjust towards the electorate of this House of Assembly^86. and certain other groups, and therefore totally unacceptable.’ The np leader apparently feels that the mere protection of language, cultural and religious rights, is insufficient. ‘It offers no safeguards against domination in all other spheres.’ The Nationalist Party, in short, stands for:

... Everyone participating in decision-making.

... Where decisions have to be made jointly within the same institutions, the basis has got to be consensus. A mere majority decision would be domination and failure of consensus should be settle by fair referee.

... The diversity of the population demands the recognition of distinctive interests for which power bases should be created within which control over these interests could be exercised.

‘The contrast is clear,’ said Mr de Klerk. ‘The cp stands for a minority government in a South Africa that will, by their own admission, in perpetuity be populated by a majority of people of colour. It is unfair and does not pass the test of justice. The dp stands for a majority government (by blacks). In a country with such a massive and wide diversity as ours, this is unfair towards the smaller peoples and population groups. The dp policy too fails the test of justice.’ The np leader stressed that his party stood for co-government on matters of common interest in a manner which eliminated domination. ‘We also stand for self-government on matters of intimate interest for the individual groups.’ Together this is just because it ensures a fair say and security for all.^87.

85. He was obviously referring to the September 6, 1989 elections

86. Here Mr de Klerk meant, of course, the whites, coloureds and Indians

87. These notes were deduced from an extensive report on Mr FW de Klerk's speech reported in The Citizen, May 13, 1989