Chronicle of South Africa is insightful...but pessimistic

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Move Your Shadow, by Joseph Lelyveld, Penguin Publishers, $7.95.

The quick-paced tread of youths in the streets, the thud of shotguns—these are the images of struggle and suffering that have become almost commonplace in newspaper stories datelined "South Africa."

Joseph Lelyveld, in his book "Move Your Shadow," has succeeded in penetrating this newsreel-like footage and translating it into personal terms for non-South African readers. His book of interviews, anecdotes, and commentary has just come out in paperback.

Lelyveld was the South Africa correspondent for The New York Times in the mid-1960s (until he was expelled from the country) and again 14 years later. His badge as a reporter for. the leading American daily enabled BOOK REVIEW Lelyveld to interview South Africans on all sides of the various political divides and throughout the spectrum of colors, tribes, and "nations" catalogued by the apartheid government.

"I was regularly surprised and often astonished by South Africa," Lelyveld states, as he descends, like Gulliver, into apartheid's "political rituals."

"The people in the shanties I was passing," he remarks, "were there not because they were poor but because they were Black." But he found that whites, despite their privileges, were also chained to apartheid's "willful denial of reality."

Lelyveld seems to have begun his enquiries more to satisfy his reporter's sense of curiosity than out of any prior convictions. But he does not hide his opinions. He surmounts the limitations on what's "fit to print," claimed by his employer, and frankly endorses the goal of "majority rule" expressed by most Black leaders.

However, Lelyveld cannot help wondering, at what cost will freedom be bought? "The thought of an inevitable catastrophe was frightening,' " he says. And the thought that Black freedom "could be indefinitely deferred" was even more alarming. This paradox, real or imagined, injects a note of pessimism-and even cynicism-throughout the book.

The most-influential Black liberation group, the African National Congress (ANC), has been ineffective in its "armed-struggle" approach, Lelyveld states. After 70 years, the ANC "has little to celebrate beyond its survival." Other militant Black organizations, he points out, "tend to be reduced to debating societies."

To be sure, Lelyveld left South Africa in 1983—just at the beginning of organizing activities that led up to the present mass upsurge. The South African political scene has changed in three years. But recent events confirm that Lelyveld exaggerates very little when he writes, "Only in the new Black trade unions is there a chance to build real organizational strength." =.Aquino/U.S.

(continued from in Washington, the governmental marriage of convenience forged during the "February revolution" has begun to fall apart. The center of the dispute lies over the attitude the government should take toward the CPP-NPA insurrection.

Both Enrile and Laurel have also demanded that several "left-oriented" ministers in Aquino's cabinet be dismissed. The issue of how far the regime should go Free Holiday offer!

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Socialist Action, 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, CA. 94110 10 SOCIALIST ACTION in purging the state and economy of proMarcos holdovers is in dispute as well.

Enrile has successfully opposed any "outside" investigation of army abuses under the dictatorship. Meanwhile, Vice President Laurel sees a potential base for his UNIDO party among the localgovernment officials held over from the Marcos regime.

Enrile—perhaps one of those who most enriched themselves under Marcos-was incensed when the Commission on Good Government ended the coconut monopoly he controlled and froze his stock in the monopoly. The defense minister ultimately forced the commission to back down. Unlike other cronies of Marcos, his property remains untouched.

Ánxious to limit Aquino's political base, both Enrile and Laurel opposed the Constitutional Commission's proposal that Aquino remain president until 1992. UNIDO and Enrile's Nacionalista Party are seeking an alliance with the ex-Marcos politicians led by Blas Ople to compete with the Aquino bloc in the upcoming May local elections.

The People's Party The Philippine left, meanwhile, has not dropped its illusions in Aquino and the liberal wing of her government.

A new Partido ng Bayan (People's Party) has been formed independent of the government by forces including CPP founder Jose Maria Sison and ex-NPA leader Bernardo Buscayno.

The new organization hopes to recruit from the workers, peasants, and urban lower middle class. Its nationalist program is centered around the dismantlement of U.S. bases, ending foreign control of the economy, and land reform.

IOVEMBER 1986

S. AFRICA

Unfortunately, he fails to pursue the point. Tradeunion leaders are interviewed in only one very brief section of the book. He likewise gives short shrift to the slogan of "worker's control," which the 650,000-member Congress of South African Trade Unions has now taken for its own.

In a recent interview on radio station KPFA in Berkeley, Calif., Lelyveld described apartheid succinctly as "paternalism gone out of control." Thus, in the author's estimation, apartheid—and racial oppression in general—appear to have grown like Topsy, with no apparent reason.

According to Sison, the new party "must also be ready for a realignment of forces in case the Aquino government capitulates to U.S. imperialism and local reaction" (Philippine News, Sept. 3-9, 1986).

The People's Party has a potential ready-made base in such formations as the May First Movement labor federation and the Peasant Movement of the Philippines.

Since the overthrow of Marcos, there has been a tremendous growth of the trade unions and of community-based groups representing the poor. On Oct. 21, some 20,000 peasants rallied outside the presidential palace and the U.S. Embassy demanding land reform.

But by giving "support and principled criticism" to Aquino, the People's Party fails to understand the pressing need for the mass movement to • maintain its independence from a ruling class that is incapable of ending land hunger, unemployment, and poverty.

Military obstructs Meanwhile, the hopes that the CPP-NPA pinned on the liberal wing of the government have dampened. "The prospects of political settlement are getting narrower," one of the NPA's spokespersons, Saturnino Ocampo, told the Sept. 25 New York Times. "The president has been drawn to rely on the military for support," Ocampo pointed out, "and it seems the liberals in her government are losing by default. Such a drift does not work in favor of a comprehensive political settlement."

According to Ocampo, such a settlement would have to address "land reform, human rights, economic development, and the American bases.

The prospects for a ceasefire were further SAFRI #03723886 TosSeNet The analysis put forth by Marxists that apartheid was instituted to safeguard the profits of the capitalist class is not considered. "I'm not a Marxist," this New York Times reporter states briefly, ignoring the question of which class shall rule in a "free" South Africa-workers or capitalists.

Lelyveld is left with a reluctant prognosis, expressed in his radio interview, that "chaos will prevail." But despite its overly pessimistic and incomplete analysis, "Move Your Shadow" contains great insights. It is both compassionate and surprisingly lyrical. I would highly recommend the book.

obstructed on Oct. 1, when the government captured Rudolfo Salas, alleged head of the NPA and former CPP chairman—who was removed from that post for backing a CPP boycott of the February elections.

Salas' arrest appeared to have been deliberately plotted by the armed forces to scuttle the peace talks. Military heads have expressed fear that "Communist-backed" candidates could win 20 percent of local offices during the elections scheduled for next spring. They hope to gain a major armed victory over the NPA before the Aquino herself congratulated those responsible for apprehending Salas for their "commendable achievement." This prompted the NPA to comment that Salas' arrest "brings to the fore the inability of the civilian authority to make the military toe the official government line" (Philippine News, October 8-14, 1986).

The stalemate over a ceasefire parallels the unstable political equilibrium in the country as a whole. The government's negotiators cannot satisfy the NPA without meaningful reforms they cannot deliver, and they cannot appease the armed forces without eliminating the NPA.

This seemingly untenable situation can persist only because of the widespread popular support enjoyed by Aquino, a factor which has drawn the NPA to the bargaining table and forced the army to acquiesce to the talks.

But as the political threads binding together the government factions wear thin, as mass illusions born of the euphoria of "people power" begin to wilt-and hence, as the usefulness to the U.S. government of Aquino's mild "independence" wanes —the Philippine balancing act will be difficult to sustain.