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EDITORIAL

THE NEWESTSUPERPOWERIts true that there s no stopping German unifi-cation , nor should there be. Germans, no lessthan Lithuanians, South Africans, Palestinians

or Quebecois, have a right to political an d socialself-determination that is based on internationallaw and equity. But an increasingly interdepend-ent, and vulnerable, world community has theresponsibility to see th at he process of self-determ ination is as free and fair as possible, andthat the consequences do no t mperil the peace.

Those duties are political in nature, and usuallyhighly ambiguous. One persons free and fairformula is anothers stacked deck, and peace isalways condition al. In the case of the two Ger-manys, self-determination is likely to lead tothe creation of a bona fide superpower with theability, and maybe the will, to throw its weightaround in a way tha t deprives others of fullyautonomous self-rule.

That is what superpowers do, whether theyare American, Soviet or, in the old ays, British,French or Dutch. Its bigoted to believe tha t theGermans, because of some volkisch characterquirk, are more prone o he abuse of superpower than anyone else. Hlstory holds too manynightmares all around . But it I S only realistic,and now imperative, for those who still havesome say in the matter to evise democratic struc-

tures that may keep new superpowers In check.Imagine how much better the world would be ifthe United States had been more bridled in its ar-rogant exploitation of power for the past forty-five years.

President Gorbachev has the right idea withhis plan for n all-European effort o contain theContinents nascent tltan. Such a project mustentail the transformation of NATO and the War-saw Pact into a new community t ha t will protectboundaries, safeguard minorities an d vanquishfears of any bully on the block.

SOUTH AFRICAS FUTURE

NEGOTIATINGA NONRACIALDEMOCRACY

s the struggle or South African reedom movedto a new stage, The Nation asked two prominentblack South Africans to comment on the pros-pects for a negotrated settlement. Both FatimaMeer and Joe Thloloe have been writing andfighting for decades, and although both havepaid a price for their commitments-detention,assassination attempts, bannings-both have con-tinued to contribute to the battle against apart-held as activrsts and as commentators.

-The Editors

FATIMA MEER

It took my breath away, was Archbishop Des-mond Tutus spontaneous response to the Na-tionalist governments unbanning of the AfricanNational Congress and other organizations, andhe danced for joy when Nelson Mandela was re-leased. In this he shared he response of the gen-erality of black So uth Africans.

Negotiations are in the interests of both blacksand whites, and there is relief all aro und that n-lightened Afrikaners have realized his in the nickof time. Apartheid has run the country to isas-ter, almost to a point of no return. The rognosis

is bleak. A dwindling, alrnost disappearing race,constituting 14 percent of the population todayand do omed to be reduced to half that propor -tion in the coming century, the whites have nei-ther the numbers, the political stamina nor theeconomic capacity to generate the inco me eces-sary to keep the hungry black masses at bay. In -deed, as F.W. de Klerk states,a future without power shar-ing is a future of escalatingviolence.

Contmued on Page 346) 3 7 7 5 3 5

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March 12 2990 The Nation since l865. 331

CONTENTS. Volume 250, Number 10LETTERS

EDITORI LS329 The Newest Superpower331 The Yen Menace332 Past Tense333 Czeching Murdoch

330337 Legal Lynching in Louisiana:

341 mazon Gold Rush:

342 Public Interest Power G a m e s

The Case That Refuses to Die Adorn N w i t e

Brazils Military Stakes Its Claim Lindo Rabben

Turf Wars at the Fund for Peace

348 On Mandelas LeftStephen 8 CohenCOLUMNS BOOKS THE RTS334 Beat theDevil Alexander Cockburn 35 The Mostublimevent:336 Beltwayandits Dawd Corn Recent Books on the

ARTICLES329 South Africas Future:

French Revolution358 Countdown poem)

Negotiating a Nonracial Democracy Fatimu M e e r Illustrations by Jonathan Shapiro

Benjamin R . BarbePeter Cooley

Edrtor, Vlctor Navasky

Executrve Edrtor, Rlchard Lingeman; Assocrate Edrtors, George Black,Andrew Kopklnd; ssrstant Edrlor. Micah L. Slfry. Lrterary Edrtor, ElsaDlxler; Assocrate Literary Eiirtor. Art Wlnslow, Poetry Edrtor. GraceSchulrnan; Managrng Edrlor, loAnn Wypilewsk~; opy Chref, Roane Carey;Copy Editor, Judlth L o n gAssrstant Copy Edrtor, Anne-Marie Otey; Assut-an t to the Edrtor, Dennls Selby; Interns, Jody Berger Washlngton), LauraBrownstone, Gldeon Forman, Christopher Johnson, Peter Rothberg, MarkSchlmrnoeller, Deborah Schwartz, Laurle Stuhlbarg

Departments Archrlecture, Jane Holtz Kay, Art, Arthur C Danto, Dance,Mmdy Aloft hctron. John Leonard, Lingo, Jlm Qulnn, MUSIC. avldHarmlton, Edward W d ,ene Santoro; Theater. Thomas M Ihsch, Mo mHodgson, Bureaux Washmgton. efferson Morley and Dawd Corn, edrtors,Europe, Dame1 Smger, Unrted Krngdorn. E P Thompson, Purrs, ClaudeBourdet; Corporolrons, Robert Shernll; Defense, Mlchaet T Klare; Colurnnrsts and Regular Contrrbutors: Calvln Trrllin Uncrvrl Lrbertres), StephenF Cohen Sovretrcus), Alexander Cockburn Beat the Devd) , ChrlstopherHltchens Mrnorrty Report), Stuart Klawans The Small Trme ,Edward Sorel,Contrrbutrng Edrtors K ~ Ilrd, Thomas Ferguson, Doug Henwood, MaxHolland, Molly Ivlns, Katha Polhtt, Joel Rogers, Klrkpatrlck Sale, Herman

Schwartz, Mlchael Thomas, Gore Vldal. Jon Wlener, Edrlorral Board.Norman Blrnbaum, Bchard Falk, Frances FluGerald, Phlllp Green, EllnorLanger. Mlchael Pertschuk, Ellzabeth Pochoda, Marcus G Raskln.A W Singham, Roger Wllk~ns. Edlfors ot Large, Rlchard Pollak. Katrlnavanden Heuvel.

Munuscrrpts: The rnagazlne cannot be responslble for the return of unso-llclted manuscripts unless accornpanled by addressed, stamped envelopes

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990 In the U A by The Natlon Company, Inc., 72 Fifth Avenue, NewYork, NY 10011. (212) 242-8400. Washrngton B u w u : Su~te 08, 11 MarylandAvenue N.E , Washlngton, DC 20002. (202) 546-2239. Second-class postagep a d at New York, NY, and at addmonal maihng offices. International Telex.667 155 NATION. Subscrlptlon orders, changes of address and all subscnp-tlon Inqumes: The Natron, Box 1953, Manon OH 3305. Subscrrptron Price:

One year, 36. two years, 64. Add 514 for surface mad postage outside U SCl am s for mlssed issues must be made wlthin 60 days (120 days foreign) ofpubllcatron date. Please allow 4-6 weeks for receipt of your fimt issue anfor all subscription transactions. Back Issues 3 prepad 9 oreign) from:The Natron, 72 Fl fth Avenue, New York, NY 10011 TheNutrorr S availableon rnlcrofilm from: Unlverslty Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 8106. POSTMASTER. Send address changes to TheNution, Box1953, Manon, OH 3305 Thls lssue went to press on February 22

EDITORIALS.

The Yen Menace

Now that weve lost the Evil Empire, it seems evequickly found a replacement: Japan. As feelingstoward the Soviet Union have mellowed, thosetoward Japan have turned more poisonous.

Even the language is getting McCarthyish. As an uniden-tified Senator recently told The Economzst, In a couple ofyears it will be as hard to be pro-Japanese in public as it wasto be pro-Russian in the early 1950s. That may seem a bitextreme, but the Japan-bashing fraternity s planning a majorescalation of hostilities by spring. And theyre starting tobring the war home.

Like other McCarthyite manias, this one is powered by

fear of the enemy within as well as without. Todays borersfrom within are paid lobbyists, who will be unmasked thisspring with the publication of a book by Pat Choate, an

economist and all-round neoliberal idea merchant in theemploy of an arms contractor called TRW.The Japanese have learned to work Washington as skill-

fully as US. multinational corporations do. They changetheir yen into dollars and buy influence in think tanks, inCongress and in the press, just like TRW and its colleagues,not to mention British and West German multinationals.Bashers may well ascribe this to the supposed Japanese pen-chant for imitation, as if there is something underhandedor racially inferior) about surpassing a teacher.

Having done our best to transform the entire world intoan open market for absolutely everything, the United States

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332 The Nation. March 12, 199

is now suffering the con sequence o f the economicnd socialwar of all against all. The ideaof an o pen world-trade sys-tem was ours; it was the product of the immediate postwarera, when our principal economic competitors ad been de-stroyed, and free trade meant trade onU.S. erms. We gotthe world we wanted, butit turned on us.

O ne reason t urned is tha t we takeour free-marketpreaching more han half-seriously. So does Britain, which

also suffers from a huge trade deficit, deindustrializationan d social decay. Japan and the other Asianxport power-houses dont.They realize that as thecale of competition inworld m arkets gets ever grander, being a mere multin ation alcorp oratio n is hardly enough; the state haso assumea lead-ing role. This is the key to Japanese and South Korean suc-cess, and its foolish to insist that they should become m orelike us.

Jap an is a tou gh place for foreigners to do business, forb ot h expo rters and investors. But if tha t were the extentof things, J ap an would be an irritant, not an obsession.Th e real problem is that Japanese industry does so manythings so well. In the face of that, our multinationals, w hohardly lack for resources, have ceded whole industries totheir Japanese competitors.Wh ere they havent ceded , theyfrequently lag.

The samenstinct that sees dom estic social ecay and triesto purge it by budding jails and invading Pan am a purgesfear of econo mic decay by getting tough with the Japanese.It may g et the juices flowing to wave a big stick over T okyoand ferret ou t yensymps in W ashington, bu t the real busi-ness at hand is social and economic reconstruction after adecade of avarice an d imperial swagger.

Past Tensethe front cover of its January /February issue,Present Tense proclaims in bold red type, Agrowing number of American Jews, includingmany inside the Jewish establishm ent, are fed up

with the h ard-line views of Jewish leaders who m they didnot elect an d who, in any case, d o not speak for hem. Thequ ota tion is extracted from he magazines lead article,Speak ing for the ews, w hich asserts, in thirteen carefullydocumented pages, that prominent Jewish organizationsand their umbrella group, the Conferenceof Presidents ofMa jor Am erican Jewish Organizations, lend blind suppo rtto t heharsh stance of the Israeli government despite reli-able polls showing th at the majority of American Jewseither are un sure abo ut tha t policyor disagree with it.

r

COMING U P

Katha Pollitt on Fetal RightsJohn Hess on Social Security and

Its Enemies

Auth or Robert Spero, a contributing editor ofPresentTense, goes o n to uggest that by projecting a falsemage omono lithic Jewish opinion, he organizations comm it aserious deception when peddIed to the non-Jewish m eand to high Government officials in the United Statessraand elsewhere. Th is is hardly a remark able conten tionASpero pointsout, opinion surveys conducted among Ameca n Jews have long shown disenchantment with theoffi

cial Israeli line, an d disaffection has significantly ncreasince the beginning of the Palestinianintifada. What is rmarkab le is thatPresenf Tense is published by on eof the organizations the article takes to task, the Am erican JewCom mittee. Too remarkable, apparently, for he A.JEarly inFebruary, shortly after Speaking or the ews peared, the committee announcedhat Present Tense will permitted to pu t ou t only one more issue.

For seventeen years,Present Tense has been published mo dest, soft-spoken cou nterp oint o he A.J.C.s betknown publishing venture,Commentary. As Norman Pohoretz led his rebarbative neoconservative journal furthand furtherto the nasty right, Murray Polner, the editorPment Tense, did his best to sustain an alternative liberaby n o m eans radical-vision. Present Tense was sometimirksomely balanced, b ut t wasalways decent. AdaSimm s, the magazines publisher, toldThe New York Timesthat theSpero article might ave been the straw hat brthe camels back. Sholo m Com ay, president of th e A.J.said the decision to shut downPresent Tense was strictbudgetary, absolutely nonpolitical. Th e magazine had blosing money-but it has always lost money.So has Commentary, which will continue to be sustained by the A.J

With thedemise of Present Tense, he message emanatifrom those w ho claim to speak for A merican Jews will

come even more lopsidedly reactionary than it has beSperos article reports a numberof instances in which dsenting views have been suppressed even within the tihierarchy of the leadingJewish organizations. AndTikkun,a liberal magazine founded in1986 apparen tly has ailedreach the readership and fun ding it hoped for; m recem on ths it has issued urgent appeals for financial suppo

Th e Jewish leaders,in their determination to speak won e voice where Israel is concern ed, are rendering heirorganizations irrelevant to growing numbersof AmericaJews. Com ay, attempting t o explain the decision to clPresent Tense, said his organization faces an an nua l defof more than 1 million. Small wonder:For decades a strcom mitm ent to social justice wasa bond th at united secuand religious Jews ina trongorganizational networMindless su pp ort for Israels garrison-state policies has solved that bon d, and the Jewish commu nity, the UniStates and Israel are worseoff for It.

Each issue of Presenf Tense includes a statement of pupose, signed by Comay, which is partboast ndpartdisclaimer:

In sponsoringPresen f Tense, he Amerlcan Jewish Commit-tee aims to broaden understanding of conditions n the U n ~ ted States and abroad that affect J e w s and the societies Inwhich they live. .

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The opinions and iews expressed by the contributors andeditors of Present Tense are their own and do not necessarilyexpress the vlewpolnt and position of the American JewlshCommittee. The sponsorship of Present Tense by the Com-mittee is in furtherance of Its commitment to promote J e wIsh life and culture, protect Jewish security and advancehuman rights.

Not anymore. ERWIN NOLL

Erwin Knoll is the editor of The Progressive.

Czeching Murdoch

Te first Saturday in February, the Dalai Lama,

wrapped in a purple robe with a Civic Forum but-ton, attended synagogue in Pragues old ghetto.Tibets spiritual leader, last years Nobel peace

laureate, had been invited to Czechoslovakia by PresidentVaclav Havel, who wanted o meditate with the Lama andbecome more acquainted with the Lamas Buddhism. Ru-

pert Murdoch was in Prague several days earlier trying tobuy Civic Forums newspaper, Lrdove Noviny, which cantafford to publish more than twice a week and uses hot-typepresses from the 1930s. But Lidove Noviny refused Murdochrather than risk its independence.

The Dalai Lamas welcome and Rupert Murdochs rejec-tion are signs that Civic Forum has achieved a legitimacyand self-assurance that have eluded anti-Communist forcesin the rest of Eastern Europe. In the Czechoslovak FederalAssembly, a majority of Communist Party deputies haveresigned and representatives designated by Civic Forumhave taken their place. Except for the Defense Ministry,major Cabinet departments are headed by non-Communistministers, who make policy decisions in consultation withPresident Havel.

Czechoslovaks remain nervous about a possible coup bytheir secret police, he S.T.B. At a meeting in the eastern Bo-hemia town of Pardubice, Havel was asked, Is the govern-ment paying enough attention to the S.T.B.? Will there be acoup? Yes it is. No, there will not, he answered. After Interior Minister Richard Sacher announced tha t the S.T.B.would be confined to legitimate work such as issuing pass-ports, skeptics distributed a cartoon of the S.T.B. inter-rogating a suspect handcuffed to a chair. A well-dressedgentleman, presumably Sacher, enters the interrogation

room and asks, Excuse me, would you mind stopping fora few minutes to issue passports?

In fact, a coup seems impossible, given he depth of sup-port for the new government. The only S.T.B. agents I no-ticed were those protecting the Dalai Lama. Ironically, onetask for the new government is finding work for the esti-mated 20,000 Communist Party functionaries, includingS.T.B. agents, who will lose their political jobs. It is mucheasier to retrain industrial workers, said a deputy laborminister. HOW hall I convince a professor of he history ofthe Communist Party, who knows all about what Lenin saidat which meeting, to work in a grocery?

The government faces two ther critical problems: writinga new law to govern the first democratic elections in forty-four years, and preparing the transition to a market econo-my. On the election law question, there is a split betweenHavel and other Civic Forum leaders. In Havels ideal poli-ty, there are no political parties, only active citizens. Favor-ing what he calls nonpolitical politics, the Presidentwants citizens to vote directly or individual candidates. Petr

Pithart, Civic Forums chief political theorist, believes thatCzechoslovaks, with no recent experience of free elections,need parties offering different programs from which theycan choose. He wants citizens to vote for a slate of candi-dates nominated by a political party rather than for indi-vidual candidates. The Federal Assembly is considering anelection bill that tries to combine both Havels and Pithartsviews through a complex procedure that would allow votersto choose either individual candidates or a party slate.

Because Czechoslovakias economy s n much bettershape than that of other Eastern European countries, thereis less pressure for sudden and drastic moves to a free mar-ket, as in Poland. Moreover, while the new government iscommitted to a market economy, it s uncertain how to man-age the transition and wants to proceed with caution. Forexample, the government favors privatizing industry andestablishing Western-style capital markets, but fears thatsimply selling shares to the public would allow foreignemespecially West Germans) to buy at bargain-basement prices

because of the unfavorable currency exchange rates. Whenasked to describe their ultimate objective, officials cite Swe-den-a free enterprise system empered with social con-science. Karel Dyba, a government economic adviser whospent last year in the United States, emphatically rejectedReagan-style free enterprise by paraphrasing AlexanderDubcek: What you have in the United States is certainlynot capitalism with a human face.

Jana Petrova, a Civic Forum member of the Federal As-sembly, believes that the West has seriously misunderstoodCzechoslovakias revolution. When the West found outwe overthrew the Communists, they thought wed embracethe American system. But we want neither Communism,nor American capitalism, but a third way. Social justice, amarket economy and the nonpolitical politics of Havel.When the West finally understands, it will be surprised andperhaps inspired by us.

Petrova was explaining the spiritual basis of the revolu-tion. The Communist government of Czechoslovakia had

demanded total political and cultural conformity, enforcedby the S.T.B. Even rock music was deemed subversive. Moralindignation at this lack of political and cultural freedom,rather than an economic crisis, fueled he Czechoslovak r e volution. Thus, Petrova may be right when she says thatAmericans have something o learn from the Czechoslovaks.We had our first lesson as Havel welcomed the Dalai Lamaand Lidove Novrny rejected Rupert Murdoch.

STEPHEN . COHEN

Stephen R Cohen is a professor at Georgetown Universityow Center:

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