(6 of 10)
But no matter. The first homeland to be granted its "independence," Transkei, celebrated its first anniversary last month. Although invitations to the ceremonies were sent to most Western capitals, Pretoria was the only one to accept. Transkei's Prime Minister, Chief Kaiser Matanzima, took the occasion to attack "the rejection of our legitimacy" by the outside world. In December a second homeland, Bophuthatswana, will officially become independent, and three more are likely to follow within the next two years. The only one definitely holding out against such independence is KwaZulu, whose leader, Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, dismisses the whole idea as a sham.
In theory, an argument could perhaps be made for a homelands policy—but not as the South African government has designed it. If every black in South Africa were to move to his ancestral homeland, 70% of the population would be packed into 13% of the land, much of it arid and unprofitable. Only one homeland, Basotho-QwaQwa, is composed of a single piece of land. The others are broken into two or more parts, surrounded by white South Africa. KwaZulu was in 29 pieces five years ago, but eventually will be consolidated into six. Homeland leaders are demanding more land, if only to link their fragmented areas together.
The real purpose behind the homeland policy is transparent: to assure continued Afrikaner dominance. Blacks will remain in white South Africa because they must have jobs—and because they are desperately needed by industry as a source of labor. Without them, the country's economy would collapse overnight. But politically their presence is an embarrassment to the government because they outnumber the whites by so wide a margin. Now, when an urban black's theoretical homeland becomes independent, he automatically becomes a citizen of that homeland—and is even dropped from the South African census figures. In reality, of course, his life is utterly unchanged.
That leaves the coloreds and the Asians to be shoehorned into the Afrikaner political system. A primary reason for Vorster's calling the election is to gain a popular consensus for a proposed new constitution, one that would abolish the present parliamentary system, based on the Westminster model. Instead, each racial group in the country except blacks—whites, coloreds and Asians—would have a separate communal "parliament." These bodies would in turn nominate representatives to a Council of Cabinets, which would choose an all-powerful President (presumably Vorster). The council would have eleven members—six whites, three coloreds and two Asians.
Thus Afrikaner control is maintained. The blacks are written out of the political system; the coloreds and Asians are given a symbolic role but no real power. And the English-speaking whites are simply outnumbered by the Afrikaners by a ratio of 60 to 40 on a white franchise that, needless to say, is based on the principle of one man, one vote.