Total Strategy Defending Apartheid South Africa
The mid-1970s shook the confidence of white South Africa. Mozambique and Angola had become independent in 1975. The following year the South African Defence Force (SADF) had to leave Angola with its collective tail between its legs. The invasion of Angola killed Prime Minister B.J. Vorster’s initiative, in which he was trying to gain support from conservative African governments.
The Soweto uprising began in June 1976, followed by the first guerrilla actions of the long-dormant African National Congress (ANC). Then Jimmy Carter, newly elected president of the United States, abandoned Henry Kissinger’s famed ‘tilt’ toward white rule; instead, he pushed for changes in apartheid and a settlement in Namibia.
There was an economic crisis too. The early 1970s saw a wave of strikes, particularly in Duban. The economy was in decline from 1974 up to 1978, and there was a substantial outflow of foreign capital following the Soweto uprising and the Steve Biko murder.
The new government argued that white South Africa faced a ‘total onslaught’ from beyond its borders and that it must respond with a ‘total national strategy’. This was to be a ‘comprehensive plan to utilize all the means available to the state according to an integrated pattern,’ according to the 1977 Defence White Paper, which first articulated the concept. The total onslaught was seen as a specifically communist plot to overthrow white rule in South Africa.
Agents of the Soviet Union were acting ‘internally by instigating discontent among the country’s black people through the exploitation of real and trumped-up grievances, and externally by orchestrating a worldwide isolation campaign against South Africa. Behind the meticulously planned and executed campaign is the Soviet KGB’, which is also organizing ‘a cleverly planned disinvestment campaign’.
The concept of total onslaught equates the ‘red peril’ with the ‘black peril’, and defense of apartheid with the defense of Western Christian values. This formulation of the problem has two important advantages for white South Africa. On the one hand, all criticisms of apartheid can be dismissed as communist-inspired. On the other hand, it allows South Africa to demand that the West support it as a defense against communism, despite any distaste for apartheid; when the West attacks apartheid it only aids Moscow.
The 1977 Defence White Paper explained that the ‘total strategy should encompass the state, the private sector, diplomacy, commerce, industry, and organizations like Armscor [and] the Council for Scientific Research’ Defence Minister Magnus Malan talks of the ‘four power bases’ of the state as political/ diplomatic, economic, social/psychological, and security. These must be coordinated by a new ‘national security management system’, with the State Security Council (SSC) at its heart. The SSC takes the key decisions in South Africa, and thus it holds real power. Its decisions are sometimes referred later to the cabinet or parliament for ratification, but they are now subsidiary bodies.
One of the most important aspects of the ‘total strategy’ was its attempt to bridge some of the sharp tribal and class divisions within the ruling white elite. At various times, particularly in 1979 and 1984, the government did seem to be having some success in building a white consensus. At other times, it was at least able to channel the conflicts into the SSC and other official organs for resolution. For the most part, however, the total strategy has singularly failed to unify white South Africa to defend its own control.
The business community plays a central role in continued white control of South Africa, although it has largely been excluded from formal political power. The South African economy is highly monopolized, in two different senses. First of all the production of many key commodities (ranging from beer to fertilizer) is controlled by one firm or by a small cartel. Second, the entire economy is dominated by a handful of conglomerates. On paper, there seem to be hundreds of large companies operating in South Africa, but in fact, most are either direct subsidiaries of (or are at least controlled by) one of the groups. Thus this handful of conglomerates are usually referred to as ‘monopoly groups’.
There are two major divisions within the business community, English versus Afrikaner and big versus small. Historically, mining companies such as Anglo were English. But now Afrikaners are playing an increasing economic role three of the six smaller monopoly groups are Afrikaner — so the first split is decreasing in importance. But the growing monopolization and the deepening recession are worsening the second split. Over the past decade, the monopoly groups have taken control of many medium-sized firms — often in the face of some resistance.
The second important group is the largely Afrikaner National Party (NP), which came to power in 1948 and has governed ever since. During that period of more than 35 years, it has wrested control of the government and the military from the English-speakers, while institutionalizing and reinforcing apartheid. Through the use of government contracts, bank accounts, and the like it was able to boost Afrikaner business. The resulting expansion, as well as changing economic conditions in general, led to political divisions. A central issue was the two-fold need of business to draw non-whites more directly into the economy. First, it was essential to expand beyond an increasingly saturated white market.
Second was the changing demand for labor, toward a better paid, more highly skilled, permanent black workforce and away from the pool of interchangeable, poorly paid, unskilled hands organized under various internal and international migrant systems. The traditional apartheid system had been the foundation stone of rapid capitalist accumulation, but an increasingly technologically advanced and capital-intensive industry required some modifications and modernizations of the apartheid system. Also, the business had a more international outlook and was sensitive to threats of sanctions.
The total strategy required four critical and interrelated changes. These were, in part, intended to support the three interest groups and bring them closer together; this they partly did, although they also widened the splits within those groups. These four changes were: streamlining apartheid, strengthening the military, supporting business and bringing it into partnership, and creating a new regional policy.
Apartheid needed to be streamlined. In the late 1970s, the military recognized more than many NP leaders the need to try to co-opt some of the non-white population, for example with the two new parliaments and to try to head off future Soweto-style uprisings. Petty apartheid regulations needed to be abolished to satisfy international critics. And changes were required to satisfy the changing needs of business.
The total strategy required a massive strengthening of the military. The military budget had already increased sevenfold between P.W. Botha’s appointment as Defence Minister in 1966 and his becoming Prime Minister in 1978; it nearly doubled again in the next five years. Armscor (the Armaments Development and Manufacturing Corporation) was set up in 1968 and is among the 25 largest corporations in the country. It has been critical in thwarting the arms embargo; only one-quarter of South African arms are not now produced locally, compared to more than half in the mid-1970s.
In the new total strategy, the economy was one of the four power bases which had to be included. Furthermore, much of the total onslaught was said to be economic, while the ideological basis of the total strategy was the defense of capitalism.
The 1977 Defence White Paper also saw an important regional component to the total strategy. It identified the need ‘to maintain a solid military balance relative to neighboring states and other states in southern Africa’. And it called for ‘economic action’ and ‘action in relation to transport services, distribution and telecommunications’ to promote ‘political and economic collaboration among the states of southern Africa’.
A Development Bank of Southern Africa was to be an integral part of Consas, and it was formally established in 1983 — with only South Africa and the bantustans as members. This was to give some new money to the neighboring state9s as a carrot for participating in Consas. But there was also talk of including customs union revenue as a way of forcing Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland to join.
Business was to be an integral part of Consas, and the proposal was formally launched by P.W. Botha at the Carlton Conference with 300 business executives in November 1979. For business, Consas was to be the main gain from the total strategy, because it offered dominance over a much larger market. On the other hand, the government saw business as an advance guard which would build bridges across ideological divides, thus increasing the central pull towards South Africa.
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Adapted from the Book: Beggar Your Neighbours by Joseph Hanlon
