'Our objective,' said President Botha of South Africa on 9 September of the aims of his National Party-dominated government, 'is peaceful reform. Reform can only be retarded by outside attempts to interfere.' Both statements are false, and calculated to mislead. But they may well flow from a genuine failure on the part of South Africa's ruling oligarchy to understand the depth and breadth of that country's continuing crisis.

LRB 3 October 1985 | PDF Download