Democracy in South Africa

Chaliapin was singing in St. Petersburg the night of the October Revolution. Is the same kind of thing going on in South Africa? “Bestall,” reported the Cape Times after a recent cricket match, “repeatedly harassed the umpires to halt play, once hurling his sun hat to the ground in despair. If cricket is to retain a respectable image, such emotions must be more effectively controlled.” “When a member enters or leaves a Chamber or moves to another part of the Chamber,” notes the Guide for Visitors to Parliament, “he bows to the Chair as an expression of courtesy… No member may pass between the Chair and a member addressing the House. Should he do so, loud cries of ‘Order!’ are likely to remind him of his error.”

From here, the South African situation seems both difficult and doomed —a country heading inexorably toward a bloodbath, followed by some form of totalitarianism, Communist or Afro-tyrannical. After a two-week tour, courtesy of the World Media Association, two months before the white parliamentary elections, I came away feeling the situation was even more difficult than I had supposed— but not hopeless.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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Chaliapin was singing in St. Petersburg the night of the October Revolution. Is the same kind of thing going on in South Africa? “Bestall,” reported the Cape Times after a recent cricket match, “repeatedly harassed the umpires to halt play, once hurling his sun hat to the ground in despair. If cricket is to retain a respectable image, such emotions must be more effectively controlled.” “When a member enters or leaves a Chamber or moves to another part of the Chamber,” notes the Guide for Visitors to Parliament, “he bows to the Chair as an expression of courtesy… No member may pass between the Chair and a member addressing the House. Should he do so, loud cries of ‘Order!’ are likely to remind him of his error.”

From here, the South African situation seems both difficult and doomed —a country heading inexorably toward a bloodbath, followed by some form of totalitarianism, Communist or Afro-tyrannical. After a two-week tour, courtesy of the World Media Association, two months before the white parliamentary elections, I came away feeling the situation was even more difficult than I had supposed— but not hopeless.