A Letter: South Africa

A Letter: South Africa

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The following is a letter written in 1986 responding to an article by Ms. Frances Kendall in Reason magazine.]

    The solution to South Africa's problem offered by Frances Kendall is interesting. If implemented, I would be surprised that her solution would work without some significant changes. Based on the information in her article, her solution contains several major flaws.
    First, she recommends drawing cantonal boundaries without regard to tribal or racial boundaries. Thus, she proposes to commit the same error that has been committed in the rest of Africa. The colonial powers drew political boundaries with little regard to tribal or ethnic boundaries. When they withdrew, the colonial boundaries remained. The result of this disregard for tribal and ethnic boundaries has led to oppression and bloodshed all over Africa. This has happened in spite of the constitutions that most of these countries have which guarantee all sorts of rights for the people. There is no reason to believe that South Africa would be any different. Besides, most Swiss cantons are racially, ethnically, and culturally homogeneous. The German-Swiss and French-Swiss have much more in common than do the Zulu and Xhosa, who are traditional enemies. They certainly have much more in common than these two tribes have with the Afrikaner.
    Another flaw is the erroneous belief that a bill of rights is compatible with democracy. A bill of rights is as antidemocratic as a true monarchy. In a democracy the majority rules. The will of the majority must prevail if democracy is to live. The purpose of a bill of rights is to limit the political power of the rulers, which in a democracy is the majority. But if the power of the majority is limited, i.e., the majority cannot change the bill of rights at its whim, then some sort of minority rule exists. Where a minority rules, a democracy cannot exist.
    Another flaw is the absurd idea that the antidiscrimination provisions of the constitution would be used only against the central and cantonal governments, but not against private companies, associations, and individuals. One needs only to look at the Second Reconstruction of the South in the United States to see how ridiculous this concept is. During the Second Reconstruction of the South, antidiscrimination laws have been aimed as much at, or perhaps even more so, the private sector as they have been aimed at the State and local governments. There is no reason to believe that the Black rulers of South Africa would allow Whites even in a totally White canton to refuse to sell, rent, or provide services to a Black who enters or tries to enter that canton.
    She also proposes to allow communists and other terrorists to participate in formulating a new government for South Africa. Unless she desires despotic socialism, which she seems to abhor, allowing communists to participate is highly questionable. Although there may be one, I know of no instance in the third world where communists have been allowed to participate in formulating a government without the communists or at least despotic socialists eventually ruling.
    In her article, she offers no method to keep the central government from becoming more powerful by usurping the rights and powers of the cantonal governments and the people as the central government has done in the United States and, to a lesser degree perhaps, in Switzerland. Most likely, the usurpation would occur more quickly and more completely in South Africa for at least two reasons. First, there is no tradition of independent cantonal government. Second, her solution seems to require the central government to antedate or be created simultaneously with the cantonal governments; thus, the cantonal governments will appear to be creations of the central government.
    The only difference between her solution and the predictions of the prophets of doom is the method by which the Afrikaner will perish and the amount of time involved. If war comes as the prophets of doom predict, the Afrikaner may perish. But he will die like a man fighting for his race, culture, and homeland. (Oh, if only the rest of the West had this courage!) If her solution is implemented, the Afrikaner will surely perish. But he will die like a wimp as he is bred out of existence. (To die like wimps seems to be the insatiable desire of the West, not only for the Afrikaner, but for all that is European in race and culture.)
    There is, I believe, a better solution to the South Africa problem than the cantonal solution offered by Kendall, and that is, what I would term, the States’ rights’ solution, which, unlike her cantonal solution, requires true decentralization and dispersal of political power.
    First, the boundaries of the cantons should be drawn along tribal, ethnic, racial, cultural lines. This would ensure that the inhabitants of a given canton would have a common language, tradition, culture, heritage, etc. It would greatly reduce internal conflict within a canton.
    Next, instead of adopting a democratic form of government for the central and cantonal governments where rule is by the will of the majority, a republican form of government where rule is by law and where each important political faction and segment of society can be guaranteed some degree of representation should be adopted. The principle of “one man, one vote” should be abandoned. Representation should be proportioned primarily on the basis of the tax base and not on the basis of population. Voting should be weighted in accordance with the amount of taxes paid. The more taxes a person pays, the more votes he should have. This is the market concept of the more wealth a person has, the more “votes” he has in the market, applied to the political process.
    Perhaps the reason that Switzerland is among the freest of countries is that it was one of the last (maybe the last) in the non-Islamic world to grant suffrage to women. In the United States, the rapid acceleration in the growth of government and the decline of liberty began within a decade after women gained the “right” to vote. With few, if any, exceptions, as the franchise has expanded, the government has grown and liberty has declined. With political equality, democracy, has come economic equality, socialism. If liberty is one of Kendall’s objectives, democracy is not the panacea that she believes it to be. As John Randolph of Roanoke proclaimed “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty; I hate equality.” In other words, one can have liberty; one can have equality; one can have neither; but one can never have both.
    Perhaps the most important principle that needs adopting is Calhoun’s doctrine of concurrent majority. Under this principle, each canton would have the right and power to veto acts of the central government, as far as that canton is concerned, that are, in the opinion of the canton, unconstitutional or unduly infringe upon the rights of the canton and its citizens. This principle could be applied at the cantonal level where important segments of society could have the power to veto acts of the canton as far as the acts apply to that segment. Likewise, each canton should possess the ultimate veto and have the right to secede without molestation or armed conflict.
    To protect the cantons from the central government and to preserve their rights and the rights of their citizens, the cantonal governments should have control of a significant part of the armed forces.
    The plan proposed by Kendall probably will not solve South Africa’s problems. It will surely not save the Afrikaner. The plan that I have briefly outlined above may not solve South Africa’s problems either. However, it does offer the Afrikaner a much better chance of surviving. (I am convinced that the West will accept no solution short of turning South Africa into a Soviet colony with a Black-led puppet government.)
    As an unreconstructed Southerner, my sympathy and empathy are with the Afrikaner. I believe that Western civilization may well live or die with him. Just as the South stood against the world and fought and died for all the nobleness of Western civilization 125 years ago, so today does the Afrikaner. I wish him victory.

Copyright © 1986 by Thomas C. Allen.

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