porges@inmet.UUCP (08/07/85)
I'd like to address a couple of recent postings from Gene Mutschler, a.k.a. batman!gene, on the subject of South Africa. Mr. Mutschler spends most of the articles making various points against some of the anti-apartheid forces, but then veers off into some remarks that I think should be challenged: >It is a never-ceasing source of amazement to me that when the propaganda >switch is thrown in Moscow, left-wingers all over the world start >dancing to the tune. Last year it was the freeze, now its Apartheid. >What's it going to be next year? >Gene Mutschler {ihnp4 seismo ctvax}!ut-sally!batman!gene >Burroughs Corp. >Austin Research Center cmp.barc@utexas-20.ARPA >(512) 258-2495 This attack is interesting to me because I heard this exact thought expressed in the exact same words by Robert Novak on this weekend's "McLaughlin Group" on TV. I'd like to know why Mr. Mutschler is so quick to dance to the tune of Novak's propaganda switch? Or perhaps Mutschler did not see that program or read those words in Novak's column, in which case how is it that both Novak and Mutchsler are dancing to the same tune? (By the way, when was the propaganda switch thrown in Moscow? Was it a public ceremony, and were there witnesses?) Now I suppose Mr. Mutschler believes his point of view for his own good reasons, and the fact that Novak agrees with him is irrelevant to the validity of his views. In which case I hope he will grant that by the same token, the validity of anti-apartheid sentiment has nothing to do with what the Soviet propaganda line is right now. It's true that Soviet propaganda capitalizes on racism as evident in many Western countries, our own included. Their propaganda will inevitably concentrate on the most dramatic wrongs in western society. That doesn't make those wrongs any less wrong (or any more wrong), and it doesn't then follow that attempts to redress those wrongs are always playing into Soviet hands. Furthermore, unless we now have to define opposition to apartheid as proof of left-wing-ness -- and I'd like to hear from libertarians, among others, on that one -- the epithet "left-wingers" does not shed any light on the subject. The argument that the fall of the white government in South Africa could have bad strategic effects on the US, as well as general effects not taken into account by those against whom Mr. Mutschler argues, can be reasonably argued (as he does in most of the posting from which I excerpt) without resorting to assuming that nobody could rationally disagree with his point of view. The second excerpt, below, is from a different posting by Mr. Mutschler. >You will please note that 1) I was responding to the original question >regarding living standards; you are just looking for an excuse to >throw this year's trendy phrase: "racism". 2) Your evasion of the >original question implicitly excuses a bunch of tinpot despots all >over black Africa. Not holding black rulers to the same standards >as their white counterparts is just as racist as the KKK. I think the above paragraph complements the first one nicely. In Mr. Mutschler's view, not only is apartheid not as terrible as as "left-wingers" say, compared to what may follow -- a point of view that can be rationally argued, as he does in the rest of his comments -- but the opposition to racism is "this year's trendy phrase". If you think that it's this year's trendy issue, maybe you weren't around in the 1960's, when as I recall being against racism became "trendy", as it has been since then. Racism has been a particularly tough problem for the United States in its history, as a legacy of slavery, and the achievements of the last twenty years don't mean that this has been forgotten. Further, there are over 20 million black Americans who identify to some extent with black Africans both in South Africa and the rest of the continent. For these reasons, Americans are going to perk up a bit more when they hear about anti-black racism in other countries than they might against various other wrongs against various other ethnic/national groups. The point about "holding black rulers to the same standards as their white counterparts" does raise a serious issue. The reason that there is more attention focused on some countries' internal evils than on others is partly because we, the USA, are supporting those countries. It won't do a whole lot of good for the US body politic to protest against most communist atrocities, because those countries aren't going to do anything based on US protests, as I think you would agree. It is precisely our heavy strategic and economic investment in South Africa that leads Americans to feel that they have some standing to be against apartheid. The argument is not, as I think you are saying, that "white rulers should be able to act better than their black counterparts"; such a claim would indeed have a condescending racist component (which in any event would not be "just as racist as the KKK", unless you see no difference between condescension on the one hand and lynchings and firebombings on the other). The argument is that governments conspicuously allied with the US should behave substantially better than the bad governments against whom we are protecting those allies. Finally, I especially enjoyed this excerpt from one of Mr. Mutschler's postings: >While it is certainly true that the Soviet Union has been supplying >the ANC with guns for the armed struggle, it is also true that >60% of the white population of SA is Afrikaaner (Boer). They have a >lot more guns than the ANC and the willingness to use them. They are >not a bunch of British wimps like the Rhodesians (and the other 40% >of the white South Africans). Ah, the real heart of the issue! No wimps! These people have guns, they're willing to use them, and that makes them right. Perhaps you don't mean to mean this, but it sure sounded like it. -- Don Porges ...harpo!inmet!porges ...sri-unix!cca!ima!inmet!porges