Word: swansons
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Through dozens of such interviews, Swanson evokes tensions apartheid produces both within and among South Africans, regardless of race. Irrational prejudices form the fabric of daily life, creating a host of often debilitating psychological and social distortions. According to one Afrikaner, one of the first lessons white South Africans receive in their military service is to expect Blacks guerillas to return their fire; many whites would otherwise have considered Blacks incapable of such a feat...
Perhaps more significantly, Swanson's reporting belies many of the South African government's claims about alleged reforms. He shows, for example, how government intimidation thwarts the growth of purportedly legal trade unions and the exercise of alleged journalistic freedoms...
FROM THE BOOK'S many anecdotes--some rouching, other terrifying--Swanson constructs a fairly grim mosaic of South African reality. He provides ample illustration of the humiliating laws of separation, or "petty apartheid," but is concerned foremost with stressing the broader significance of apartheid; how the minority white regime has used a theory of racial separation to maintain class domination, transforming the color line into a poverty line as well. And despite superficial reforms aimed at placating international opinion, the captains of apartheid are standing firm behind these policies...
...exposing both the structural significance of apartheid and the increasing polarization of South African politics, Swanson is able to challenge many of the assumptions of current U.S. policy toward that country. The economic significance of apartheid, white resistance to substantive reform and rising nonwhite militancy do not bode well for the prospects of a gradual erosion of apartheid. As a result, U.S. policies designed to nudge South Africa toward democratic rule through gentle persuasion are destined to fail, no matter how earnestly pursued...
Weighing U.S. links to South Africa, Swanson instead concludes that the withdrawal of Western capital provides the best means of undermining apartheid. He argues convincingly that time has disproved arguments that foreign investment can play a positive role in South Africa; far from improving the position of South African Blacks, it has provided the white regime with much-needed technology and a much-craved international respectability...