Word: laager
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South African folklore contains proud tales of ''going into the laager.'' During the 19th century, Afrikaner settlers under attack would form their wagons into a circle, set up a line of defense and then bravely fight off the fierce black tribesmen. Last week the South African government went into a new kind of laager. At 12:01 a.m. Thursday, thousands of gun-toting police and troops rumbled out of their stations and barracks in the armored personnel carriers that are today's covered wagons. By the time dawn broke, authorities had rousted out of bed and taken into custody hundreds...
...rule and helped move the party toward moderation. "There was always this attitude that the world can go to hell," he says. "Now Afrikaners have become aware of the outside world." De Klerk and Mandela are hoping that all white South Africans have finally, permanently come out of the laager and into the world...
...that the sanctions would hurt black workers most have come true. Black unemployment is estimated at 40% to 45%, vs. a 10% jobless rate for whites. Another prediction made by opponents of sanctions, however, has proved quite wrong. It had been widely forecast that the embargo would provoke a laager (circling the wagons) mentality among whites, a nose-thumbing determination to defy world opinion. That happened in Rhodesia in the late 1960s, but exactly the opposite seems to have occurred in South Africa: the | shock of finding themselves moral outcasts stung many of the nation's whites so deeply that...
...means nothing to dictators such as Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Deng Xiaoping of China, who are determined to maintain their power and to hell with world opinion. Some analysts suspect that even in South Africa, sanctions that devastated rather than only damaged the economy might have produced a laager backlash. For once, the U.S. and other nations imposed sanctions just strict enough to have the desired effect -- but there is no guarantee they will get the calculation right next time...
Professor Mendelsohn also agrees that disinvestment will further promote the Afrikaaner "laager mentality" but dismisses this point as unimportant. I believe he severely underestimates the stubborness that this involves, as evidenced by the state President P.W. Botha's statement to business leaders last week that he would not increase the pace of reform as it would look as if he was giving in to international pressures. The Afrikaaner desire to forcefully assert independence intensifies opposition to local reform...