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Prospects are not bright for a rational, peaceful solution to the problem of South Africa. Black Africa is determined that majority rule must come to the country. Sooner or later, South Africa will face guerrilla pressure, although its armed forces could easily cope with the early stages of subversion. But an all-out military threat to South Africa could also bring a threat of Soviet involvement—and a dilemma for the West. Having found their voice at last, the unfranchised blacks of urban South Africa cannot be expected to turn silent again as long as they have legitimate grievances. And their demands are bound to increase. Political and economic concessions by a Nationalist government will probably be too little and too late to satisfy these rising ambitions.
There is a ferment within Afrikanerdom that involves even a painful demythologizing of the white man's history and divine mission. Nevertheless, belief in the sanctity and racial integrity of the tribe runs deep. "An Afrikaner will not be ruled by anyone but an Afrikaner," declares a liberal student at Stellenbosch. "To preserve our culture," suggests a prominent member of the Broederbond, "we would be willing to give up large chunks of the economic and political privileges that go with it."
Other Afrikaners talk about the sacrifices that lie ahead. Implicit in these phrases may be a startling notion: that the Afrikaners, short of the long-predicted Armageddon, might conceivably be prepared to hitch up their ox wagons once again and retreat backward toward the old Boer republics and the Cape, striking some sort of bargain in power sharing or land sharing with rivaling black nationalism. Any such solution would lie in the distant future. For the moment, there is only a sense throughout the beleaguered white tribe that the present system cannot hold, but that the prescriptions decreed by the outside world so far simply will not do.