Apartheid

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murderers are being given amnesty for the purpose of national reconciliation, stolen goods
must also be returned to the rightful owners, for the purposes of both justice and
reconciliation. Private property laws, in particular, have been treated in a disturbing way as
vastly more important than economic justice.
Apocalyptic scenarios for South Africa abound today, not least because there is a
widespread perception that apartheid has by no means disappeared from the scene. Wealth,
especially, and power have largely remained in white hands. Much resentment related to this
state of affairs persists, and frustration may be mounting. For Chomsky, liberation from
apartheid in the narrow sense:
…is an extremely partial victory. For most of the people of South
Africa, it’s not much of a victory, if any. . . .Take a look at the
townships outside of Cape Town and the slums of Johannesburg. The
people there didn’t have any victory, and they know it. There’s
probably a blow-up coming there. 760
Legal responsibility cannot simply be assigned to each South African White for this,
due to the fact that some resisted apartheid, and others were simply not responsible. Yet, there
is much that Whites could do as a collective to ameliorate the situation. After all, most of the
few Whites who did fight apartheid were still richer, and all of them were much more
privileged than their black brothers and sisters at the end of the day. Nonetheless, the climate
of impunity for crimes against humanity has been developed by even more powerful forces, as
Chomsky again reminds us in his bitterly ironic style.
In fact, if minimal honesty were even imaginable among US and
European elites, they would not be talking about debt reduction and
economic aid (and doing virtually nothing), but rather about massive
reparations for what they did to Africa, Central America, and other
regions subjected to the kind tutelage of European imperialism and its
offshoots... 761
Not only the US and European corporations and other private initiatives that profited
or still profit from apartheid in South Africa and Israel owe reparations to the victims, but the
states and governments do, as well. Those corporations brought home their illicit profits in the
forms of investment capital as well as tax money to their home countries, who thus profited as
wholes, albeit indirectly. In consideration of the fact that the US and European elites today
claim payments from the victims, for instance in the forms of high tariffs slapped on goods
imported from developing countries, and debt repayment regimes, rather than the other way
760 Chomsky, March 4, 2001. Chomsky does not elaborate on the possible nature of, or point of no return for the
‘blow-up’. The increase in killings of white farmers by frustrated, poor, and landless Blacks is one indicator of
worse things to come. 145 farmers were killed in 1,000 attacks in 2001, compared to 84 murders in 433 attacks
in 1997, according to South Africa’s main farmers’ organisation, Agri SA. See Thomas: S.African Farmers Warn
of Zimbabwe-Style Crisis, 2002. Another disturbing indication of patience running out for some of those who
suffered most under apartheid was the lawsuit filed against TRC Chairperson, Desmond Tutu, as well as several
top government officials, including President Thabo Mbeki, over reparation delays and downright failure to pay
victims after the TRC in its Final Report had recommended the government to pay compensation of over $282
million to more than 21,000 victims of apartheid. By the time of the lawsuit, many of the victims, destitute and in
poor health, had been waiting for reparations in vain for nearly four years since it was first promised to them.
Analysts predicted a coming avalanche of lawsuits against the state as well as against the many local and foreign
businesses that profited from apartheid. See Schuettler: S.Africa Victims’ Group Files Suit against Tutu, 2002,
and footnote 738, above.
761 Chomsky, September 2001, quoted in N.N.: Reparations, no date. The former US Congresswoman, Cynthia
McKinney, has pointed out that the wide proliferation of small arms in Africa today, a considerable factor in the
continent’s numerous civil and international conflicts, goes back to the number one and number two small arms
exporters to Africa: The EU and the USA. See Medina: Cynthia The Great, 2004: 66.