SOUTH AFRICA: Loneliness Is an Enemy

Embargoes may sting, but they may not really hurt

"To be isolated and ostracized will mean loneliness. Loneliness is an enemy of a person and of a nation. It makes you do funny things, stupid things—this we will have to guard against. But we can hibernate—and fairly long too. All of us, black and white, will suffer. But we will not be the only ones."

So said Willem de Klerk, editor of Die Transvaler, the country's influential Afrikaans-language newspaper. And that was the reaction of many white South Africans, as they faced the all...