THE RIGHT BOOKS

Perhaps because all other arguments concerning South Africa lead by one route or another to Götterdämmerung, Leon Louw and Frances Kendall’s plan to transform an apocalyptic situation into the quietude of Switzerland has gone virtually unnoticed—at least in the U.S., where their eminently reasonable and original little book, South Africa: The Solution (Amagi Publications, P.O. Box 60, Bisho, Ciskei; P.O. Box 145, Strathavon, South Africa; U.S. distributor: The Summit, 935 Osage, P.O. Box 207, Manitou Springs, Colo. 80829; $11.95), has failed to win the attention it deserves, despite assiduous circulation by its American distributor. Whether intentionally or not, the new South Africa envisioned by critics of the National Party government is a phoenix, shriven by blood and fire, arising with wings spread from the white minority’s ashes. By contrast, Mr. Louw and Miss Kendall’s South Africa would be neither a Valhalla of black heroes nor a Marxist utopia: merely a devolution into the traditions of the South African past, regulated and preserved by a highly decentralized government of Swiss-style cantons reflective of the country’s racial, cultural, and political diversity.

No doubt such a scheme is insufficiently bloody for the community of international zealots who want nothing more than to see the hated Botha and his Boers put to the sword; just as it is insufficiently “progressive” for the socialists, oversufficiently workable for international Communism, and at once too common-sensible and too ambiguous to win many friends in the U.S. Congress. Ultimately, however, none of these interests is currently in a position to dictate to the South African people, who still have time to ponder suggestions from responsible (and concerned) observers like the authors.

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Perhaps because all other arguments concerning South Africa lead by one route or another to Götterdämmerung, Leon Louw and Frances Kendall’s plan to transform an apocalyptic situation into the quietude of Switzerland has gone virtually unnoticed—at least in the U.S., where their eminently reasonable and original little book, South Africa: The Solution (Amagi Publications, P.O. Box 60, Bisho, Ciskei; P.O. Box 145, Strathavon, South Africa; U.S. distributor: The Summit, 935 Osage, P.O. Box 207, Manitou Springs, Colo. 80829; $11.95), has failed to win the attention it deserves, despite assiduous circulation by its American distributor. Whether intentionally or not, the new South Africa envisioned by critics of the National Party government is a phoenix, shriven by blood and fire, arising with wings spread from the white minority’s ashes. By contrast, Mr. Louw and Miss Kendall’s South Africa would be neither a Valhalla of black heroes nor a Marxist utopia: merely a devolution into the traditions of the South African past, regulated and preserved by a highly decentralized government of Swiss-style cantons reflective of the country’s racial, cultural, and political diversity.

No doubt such a scheme is insufficiently bloody for the community of international zealots who want nothing more than to see the hated Botha and his Boers put to the sword; just as it is insufficiently “progressive” for the socialists, oversufficiently workable for international Communism, and at once too common-sensible and too ambiguous to win many friends in the U.S. Congress. Ultimately, however, none of these interests is currently in a position to dictate to the South African people, who still have time to ponder suggestions from responsible (and concerned) observers like the authors.