Essau Reviewr vSouth Africa's Foreign Policy and the WorldA. M. CfaambatlDepartment of Political Science, University of RhodesiaSouth Africa's relations with the rest ofthe world have been a subject of more intensedebate at the United Nations and the O.A.U.than any other international problem; but thecontinuing debate is also about the Republic'sinternal race policies subsumed in the termapartheid. Recent works on the subject* agreethat South Africa's foreign policy is the directproduct of the Republic's internal race policies.The least satisfactory of these is Cockram'sexamination of Vorster's foreign policy. UnlikeBarber and Vandenbosch, who analyse SouthAfrica's foreign policy in the context of theworld at large, Cock ram does attempt to givea comprehensive outline of South Africa's con-cern with its immediate neighbours in SouthernAfrica and other black African states in thecontinent at large. This, however, is done rathersuperficially and in a somewhat disjointed way;after a discussion of South West Africa, shedeals with Israel, and when she returns to SouthAfrica's relationships with neighbouring states,Rhodesia and Portugal are kept separate. Theresult is a series of essays hardly linked to-gether; indeed there is little real discussion ofapartheid which, after all, is the cause of theunifying element in South Africa's rather* J. Barber, South Africa's Foreign Policy 1945-1970, London, Oxford Univ. Press,* 1973, 325 pp.R.I0,20. G. M. Cockram, Vorster's Foreign Policy,Pretoria. Academica, 1970, 222 pp. R3.75, A Van-denbosch, South Africa and the World: The ForeignPolicy of Apartheid, Lexington, Univ. Press of Ken-tucky, 1970, 303 pp. no price indicated.defensive foreign policy.Nevertheless, Cockram's discussion ofIsrael and America are of interest. South Afri-ca's special relationship with Israel is partlybased upon the fact that South Africa has theninth largest Jewish community in the worldand several former South Africans hold or haveheld prominent positions in Israel, such as Mr.Eban, the former Israeli Foreign Minister whowas born in Cape Town. South Africa hasalways taken great interest in Israel and shehas likened her own position in SouthernAfrica to that of Israel in the Middle East.South Africa has always supported Israel, bothin and outside the U.N. Cockram points outhow this special link between South Africa andIsrael has been complicated by the fact thatIsrael has worked hard to have good relationswith black African states, which South Africaregards as her enemies.In order to improve its image in blackAfrica Israel withdrew its diplomatic repre-sentation in South Africa, an action whichwas considered 'a slap in the face of SouthAfrica'. Reacting to Israel's withdrawal of itsrepresentatives from the Republic, the SouthAfrican Prime Minister, Dr Verwoerd, pointedout that in the past, 'South Africa and parti-cularly the Jews of South Africa had donemuch for Israel as a young state'. Verwoerdaccused Israel of attacking South Africa inthe hope of currying favour with the non-whitestates in Africa. Cockram tries to show how89difficult it was for Israel to seek to spread herinfluence in black Africa without showing herdisapproval of apartheid. Thus in the UnitedNations Special Political Committee on Apar-theid in October 1967, the Israeli representative,Mr. Barromi, spoke of 'the suffering andmartyrdom of the people of South Africa', andappealed to the U.N. to stop the strife. Israelhas repeatedly supported the U.N. on SouthWest Africa. The point that Cockram bringsout in this brief chapter is an illustration ofhow the Republic's race policies summarizedas apartheid, have been a source of embarrass-ment and discomfort to even those countriesthat have certain admiration for South Africa'sachievements.South Africa's relations with the UnitedStates are traced through a long history offriendship which was 'forged in battle' in thedays of 'the military alliance during WorldWar I. followed by the cooperation of Presid-ent Wilson and General Smuts in drafting theCovenant of the League of Nations. During theSecond World War the two countries were onceagain allies and at the conclusion of the War,'General Smuts once again took part with theUnited States leaders in the drafting of theCharter of the United Nations'. To illustratethe development of good relations betweenthe two countries, Cockram refers to GeneralSmuts' statement in which he said, 'The UnitedStates is rapidly becoming the hub of generalworld interests, and our relations with theUnited States arc increasing on a tremendousscale'. Cockram illustrates how this relationship,too, began to change with the independence ofGhana and other black African states, and withgrowing American criticism of apartheid atthe U.N.Nevertheless America has maintained econo-mic and cultural links and also generally sup-ports the Republic's attitude towards Commu-nism. Cockram sees this as a contradiction inAmerican policy, but this is perhaps becauseshe underestimates the role played by AmericanNegroes in exerting pressure upon theirGovernment to condemn apartheid as a policywhich violated the Charter of the U.N. onHuman Rights.Cockram pays special attention to SouthAfrica's relations with Malawi which was thefirst black African country to establish formaldiplomatic relations with the Republic; andthis came at a time when South Africa wastrying desperately to get out of isolation. ThusMalawi's role and her persistent call for adialogue with South Africa was seen as thatof the 'Devil's Disciple'. Indeed, the Republic'sbreakthrough in Malawi was by the establish-ment of contact between the Republic andMadagascar and Mauritius. Cockram's conten-tion that the Republic's success in establishingcontact with Madagascar and Mauritius canbe attributed to Malawi's positive response, isof considerable doubt. These two countrieshad their own reasons for seeking to establishgood relations with the Republic. South Africanhopes that were raised as a result of thesesuccesses were soon to fade as a result ofO.A.U.'s rejection of establishing contact withSouth Africa before she showed signs of chang-ing her internal policy. The relations betweenthe Republic and Madagascar were short-livedas they were brought to an abrupt end in 1972when the army took over in that country.Cockram also discusses other aspects ofSouth Africa's foreign policy such as 'TheDefence of the Cape Sea Route', and the'Manufacturing of Weapons by South Africa'.She points out, and rightly so, how such mattersplay an important role in South African foreignpolicy and indeed constitute one of the majorsources of the Republic's strength vis-a-vistoutside pressures. It is because of its gold thatSouth Africa continues to defy the world andit is also through its gold that the economycontinues to boom and attract large numbersof immigrants from Western Europe. Geo-politics has always been an important aspectof foreign policy, and the defence of the CapeSea route has helped to draw South Africacloser to Britain. The Simonstown Agreementis an example of the importance to South Afri-ca of her geographical position, and the grow-ing presence of the Russians in the IndianOcean has greatly enhanced this.Barber and Vandenbosch examine SouthAfrica's foreign policy in a world-wide context.Both authors present a historical backgroundto the Republic's present policy and trace thecountry's foreign policy showing how it hasbeen shaped in recent years by the need toexplain apartheid to the world at large. Barbercovers the period between 1945 and 1970, anddemonstrates how, because of apartheid, SouthAfrica became a victim of the U.N. whichit helped to create. He analyses South Africa's90foreign policy by using a chronological frame-work consisting of four periods. In the author'sview each of these periods has distinct charac-teristics based on the 'changing circumstancesfaced by policy-makers and their perception ofand response to these circumstances'. Healso shows the relationship between internaland external developments; and in this theperiod between 1948 and 1959 is seen as themost important In South Africa's internationalrelations. Before the Nationalists came topower in 1948 they had been extremely criticalthat Smuts was concentrating too much of hisattention on international affairs, but in 1955they established the Ministry of ExternalAffairs, which had hitherto been part of thePrime Minister's Office; this was an admissionon their part that South Africa could not affordto ignore the impact of foreign affairs on itssociety. South Africa faced a rapidly changingworld, as decolonization in Africa was in theprocess of being effected. Barber clearly tracesthe origins of South Africa's dilemma andshows its failure to come to grips with therealities of the world situation after the SecondWorld War. Both Barber and Vandenboschmake the point that South African Nationalistleaders were convinced that their country'santi-communist stand and its subscription toWestern values, would automatically attractsupport from the Western world. In a chapterdealing with South Africa and 'a DividedWorld', Barber maintains that 'the South Afri-can Government was prone to Interpret inter-national politics as a simplistic power-cum-ideological struggle between communism andanti-communism'. Dealing with the same sub-ject, Vandenbosch discusses how the SouthAfrican Prime Ministers have all held the viewthat their country's anti-communist standshould influence the attitude and the thinkingof the West towards South Africa. Nationalistleaders have viewed their country's objectivesin the world as being the same as those of therest of the Western World. Not only did SouthAfrica regard itself as the bastion of westerncivilization in Africa, but, as Vandenboschpoints out, also 'as indispensable to the whiteworld'.All three authors fail, however, to emphasisethe fact that South Africa's view of the worldwas quite different from that of the rest of theinternational community which had emergedafter the Second World War. Thus, South Afri-ca and the rest of the world were operatingon entirely different cognitive maps. SouthAfrica saw the world in terms of anti-communist and communist blocs. She failedto recognize the realities which characterizedthe world after the Second World War. Thefirst of these realities was the establishment ofthe United Nations as an international forum,dedicated to the safeguarding of humanitythroughout the world, which inevitably includedself-determination to nationhood for all peoplesand the restoration of human rights.South Africa also failed to grasp the natureof the Afro-Asian bloc which was dismissedas but part of the communist bloc. South Africadid not seem to appreciate the fact that the pro-cess of decolonization resulting in the emergenceof new nations was a response, on the part ofthe colonial powers, to the principle of self-determination and the granting of full humanrights as dictated by the Charter of the UnitedNations. The new nations which constitutedthe Afro-Asian bloc were products of the directapplication by the colonial powers of the prin-ciple of self-determination, and by the verynature of their birth, these nations were boundto oppose any resistance to the granting of free-dom and independence. South Africa's foreignpolicy was, therefore, based on wrong premisesand an erroneous interpretation of the U.N.Charter and what it implied. The result is thatdespite South Africa's efforts, exercised throughthe Ministry of External Affairs, the Republic'sforeign policy has failed to change the attitudeof the world towards apartheid.In 1960 the British Prime Minister, Macmil-lan, warned in his speech to the members of theSouth African Parliament in Cape Town thatSouth Africa and the West in general had tocome to grips with 'the wind of change' whichwas blowing throughout the continent of Africa.In his reply to Mr. MacmMan's speech, DrVerwoerd said that his country shared commonobjectives with Britain: 'peace and the conti-nued existence of Western ideas and Westerncivilization'. The South African Prime Ministermade it clear that his country 'wanted to beon the side of the West in the tense divisionwhich existed in the world'. Verwoerd missedthe point. The question was not on which sideSouth Africa stood, but whether South Africawas prepared to accept the realities of the'wind of change'. The extent to which SouthAfrica misunderstood the West was underlined91when Verwoerd went on to point out that 'itwas easy to understand why South Africa wascondemned by the Communist countries', be-cause South Africa was 'unequivocally thesymbol of anti-Communism in Africa'. Headded that it was more difficult to understandwhy the Western countries, 'from whom weare descended and with whom we share suchclose cultural ties, turn against us'. The im-plication of Verwoerd's statement was that theWest should support South Africa on racialand cultural grounds'; in fact he was calling forinternational racism Š a point that all threeauthors should have emphasised.Both Barber and Vandenbosch agree thatat the heart of the difficulties between SouthAfrica and the United Nations and the worldwas the race policy pursued by the Government,of the Republic of South Africa; and Vanden-bosch, more than Barber, presents a criticalanalysis of apartheid, enumerating a multitudeof segregatory laws which characterize thispolicy. Both authors deal with the UnitedNations' attack on apartheid, and with SouthAfrica's defence of her policy, which in short,is that the question of its race policies was adomestic matter and therefore outside thejurisdiction of the United Nations in accordancewith Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter.Although Vandenbosch discusses the treat-ment of Indians in South Africa to illustratethe international implications of apartheid, allthe three authors fail to examine in detail theinternational dimensions of South Africa's racepolicies. They ought to have devoted at leasta chapter to this question as the centre ofargument in the United Nations is that apar-theid has extra-territorial implications. Apar-theid does not affect only those 600 000 alienAfricans in South Africa, but all non-whitepeople throughout the world. A book is yet tobe written on the international dimensions ofSouth Africa's race policies. However, giventhe present trend in the Republic towards re-laxation of rigid application of apartheid, sucha book may be a reflection of the past by thetime it is written.Similarly all three authors ought to havedevoted a chapter to analyzing the differencebetween apartheid and political oppression ina number of countries in the world, includingsome new nations of the Afro-Asian bloc. In-stead, Vandenbosch, for example, defendsSouth Africa by arguing that 'Verwoerd putthe world conscience to the test', for its failureto condemn political oppression in countrieslike Ghana, Ethiopia and others:When freedom was mutilated in Ghanaor remained illusory as in Liberia andEthiopia, these conditions were toleratedor ignored, but when aggression againstSouth Africa was planned openly, it wasnot condemned. The United Nations didnothing to stop these hostile manoeuvresand even associated itself with attackson South Africa.But this misses the point. Under South Africa'sapartheid, all non-white people are refused allhuman rights in white areas. In Ghana underNkrumah, to which Vandenbosch makes refer-ence as a country where political freedom wasmutilated, any citizen had human rights whichguaranteed him social justice, to ensure thatan individual could live where he or she choseto live, could enter any hotel for a meal pro-vided he could pay for it.The main difference is that political dis-crimination is based on ideology and not on thecolour of one's skin. One can change one'spolitical ideologies and indeed political ideo-logies change very fast, particularly in Africa.The Ghana that Vandenbosch described nolonger exists because, with the emergence ofnew leadership, a new Ghana where politicalrights have been restored has also emerged.The pigmentation of one's skin does not changeand to condemn a man because of the colourof skin is to condemn his creation. That is howthe Afro-Asian views apartheid. But this isnot to suggest that political oppression isacceptable. The question of comparing apar-theid to a political system that enforces regi-mentation of political thought deserves a de-tailed examination. Also discussion of SouthAfrica's foreign policy must include a carefulanalysis of what apartheid is in practical termsand how it is viewed by the non-white people,inside and outside South Africa. For it is im-portant, to remember that Separate Develop-ment and the Bantustan policy means that 'theAfricans were never to have South Africancitizenship but were to be assumed to have thenationality of their 'homelands' and the Bantu-stans were not to have independence at leastfor a considerable number of years'.Vandenbosch rightly concludes that theRepublic had clearly become a colonial powerand placed itself subject to the provisions of92-^ aArticles 73 and 74 of the Charter, which laydown the obligations of members with respectto non-self-governing territories; and this madeit increasingly difficult for a number of westerncountries to accept South Africa's argumentthat apartheid was an internal matter. Previous-ly the western great powers had maintainedthat Chapter VII of the Charter did not apply tothe situation in South Africa as it did notthreaten 'any foreign state or government withhostile action'. But, the African States arguedthat if their pressures did not succeed, thenthey would fight. It is in this context that theAfrican states in particular see the relevance ofChapter VII of the Charter to the situation inSouth Africa. This point, an important one, isnot discussed fully; it is barely mentioned byVandenbosch in passing.Another problem that formulators of theRepublic's foreign policy have had to face hasbeen the question of South West Africa (Nami-bia) which the South African Government hasrefused to hand over to the United Nations'Commission for Namibia. Cockram and Van-denbosch devote a chapter in their respectivebooks to this question and analyse how theSouth West African issue has been a sourceof confrontation between the Republic andthe United Nations, with the result that SouthAfrica has increasingly embarassed some of itssympathisers in the west.The whole question of South Africa'sforeign policy as a subject of intense study ininternational politics, reveals as these threeauthors demonstrate, the complexities of theRepublic's race policies. It also illustrates thatin this century, more than in the past, eventsin one part of the world can easily involveother parts of the world. But the three authorsunder review have failed to enlighten theirreaders on the question why the world, throughthe U.N., has become increasingly critical ofSouth Africa's apartheid policy. Even countrieslike France, which is generally regarded asa friend of South Africa, has said some harshthings about South Africa's race policies.Speaking in the United Nations General As-sembly recently, the French Foreign Minister,Sanvagnargues said: 'The situation in Africaremains troubled by tensions and the injusticeswhich persist in the Southern part'. The FrenchForeign Minister recorded once again France's'complete disapproval of the policy of apar-theid'. During the same debate the BrazilianForeign Minister said that South Africa's racepolicies were ethically 'against the universalvalues of human conscience'. On the otherhand South Africa has argued that the worldbody applies a double standard in its handlingof the issue of apartheid at the United Nations;and this too, is an aspect of the problem thatthese three authors neglect.Another question which deserves moreattention than it received in these books is thatof South Africa's Outward Movement andDialogue as part of its foreign policy, designedto explain to the world, particularly the ThirdWorld, apartheid in favourable terms. In re-cent years, particularly between 1966 and 1971,there was a great deal of interest among politi-cal observers about South Africa's desire tohave dialogue with black African States. Barberin a couple of pages, deals with the subjectsuperficially. Vandenbosch devotes severalpages to the discussion of the subject and hisanalysis is more detailed; but even his fulleranalysis does not seem to do justice to thesubject which for several years provoked greatdebate among the African states at O.A.U.Conferences, and even threatened to split theO.A.U. between those for and those againstDialogue. It is true that since 1971 Dialoguehas ceased to be an issue at O.A.U. Confer-ences, but the subject is by no means dead.South Africa is merely assuming a low profilewhile thinking deeply about the best way topromote Dialogue. The Outward-LookingPolicy, as an aspect of South Africa's overallforeign policy, demonstrates dearly that coun-try's efforts to present an intellectual ration-alization of its apartheid policy.All three authors in their analysis of SouthAfrica's foreign policy show that the Republic,in spite of rigid race policies, is a dynamicnation which responds to world pressures. Thatits positive response to those pressures falls farshort of the expectations of the internationalcommunity on the principle of self-determina-tion and the concept of full human rights,cannot be doubted. Both the Outward-LookingPolicy and Dialogue as its appendage, are amanifestation of the Republic's effort to im-prove South Africa's image abroad. These threebooks are therefore, despite their short-comings,an important contribution towards an attemptto analyse South Africa's foreign policy, whichis largely a reflection of that country's domesticpolicy, apartheid.93A