A Future South Africa: Visions, Strategies And Realities
An American sociologist and the industrial relations director of the Anglo-American Corporation assemble an articulate group of mostly white "moderates" to argue the plausibility of nonviolent evolution toward a democratic future in South Africa. Longer on theory than facts and trends, they make a credible case for a democratic socialist option (particularly in the chapter by Pieter Le Roux). Nonetheless, their strategy has a fundamental problem: the only existing black group that fits into their near-term scenarios is the largely tribal Inkatha movement of Chief Gatsha Buthelezi.
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For much of Africa this year, immediate threats to survival dominated national agendas. In the extreme north and south, Libya and South Africa attacked the territory of weaker neighbors. Less noticed but far more widely devastating, a harsh drought destroyed crops across the continent, confronting more than 20 million people with the prospect of starvation. Declining rates of per capita food production over the last decade, coupled with escalating debt and falling returns on exports, left many African states at the margins of existence--at least according to Western calculations. And at year's end, a military coup abruptly ended four years of American-style democratic government in Africa's largest nation, Nigeria, renewing fears about political upheaval throughout the continent.

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