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But how long will it continue to work? Never before has South Africa, the last firm bastion of white rule on a predominantly black continent, been so threatened. Nearby Angola and Mozambique, once Portuguese colonial buffer states, have become independent, leftist, black-ruled nations committed to helping the struggle against white rule in South Africa. One way or another, Ian Smith's Rhodesia, where blacks outnumber whites 22 to 1, is destined for majority rule. So is Namibia (South West Africa), the huge, mineral-rich territory that South Africa has governed (originally under a 1920 League of Nations mandate), although an independence formula is still to be agreed upon by the territory's various political groups, including the militant South West Africa People's Organization.
The main problem is South Africa itself—and the future of the Afrikaner. Since Vorster's National Party gained power in the 1948 elections, it has been committed to the oppressive policy known as apartheid (separateness). In theory, apartheid means that South Africa's 4.3 million whites, 18.6 million blacks, 2.5 million mixed-blood "coloreds" and 750,000 Asians will proceed along separate lines of development under the government's benign guidance. In practice, apartheid has meant the disfranchisement of a huge majority, which is subjected to one of the most repressive and discriminatory systems of racial laws in the world.
One unanswered question is how long the regulatory machinery of government, which many white South Africans fear is turning their country into a police state, can control unrest. In June 1976, student-inspired riots broke out in the sprawling black suburb of Soweto, outside Johannesburg; urban black unrest has continued sporadically across the country ever since, taking more than 600 lives. Two months ago, a young black leader, Stephen Biko, 30, died mysteriously in prison. An inquest is still pending, but there is widespread suspicion that prison beating contributed to his death. The Biko case produced further disorder, and on Oct. 19 the government responded by arresting or "banning"—a unique form of near-solitary confinement which can include house arrest—some 60 individuals, 18 organizations and two newspapers. Last week, during a house-to-house sweep through a township near Pretoria, police arrested 626 blacks on a variety of charges.
The Oct. 19 crackdown was South Africa's most severe act of repression in many years, and it produced a worldwide outcry. After debating more sweeping measures, which were vetoed by the U.S. and its Western allies, the U.N. Security Council voted to impose a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa. For the immediate future, that embargo will have only a limited effect, since South Africa is virtually self-sufficient in arms production—but it was a clear signal that the U.N., and particularly the West, is determined to take a firmer line with South Africa from now on.