The confronting heading is inspired by content and style that Black is putting forward in the section of Power Of Human Rights where he examines apartheid and human rights on the basis of spiral model. There are major differences between the argument that Black puts forward and the ideas of this study. Black argues that apartheid responded affirmatively to the criticism and consequently Black claims there was a connection between the human rights norms and apartheid state. To affirm the communicational connections depends largely what is considered as adequate experience to demonstrate that there was a connection between
90 Eades 1999, 87.
91 Beck 2000, 156.
apartheid state and international norms. Black claims that: apartheid state displayed
“sensitivity to international criticism and isolation”92 and as empirical proofs he uses the establishment of Bantustan system and some other concessions. Bantustan system was a response to de-colonisation and this system was designed to simultaneously cherish two aims.
To grant the majority of people with self-determination and to separate undesirable people from the Republic of South Africa that was thereby reserved for ‘Europeans’. Another question is that how valid were the norms and if the agreement on adequate foreign relations was adequate enough to foster human rights. The basic problem is that spiral model claims that communicational connection can be created on the conditions of normative context, but does this method create a tangible encounter between the human rights violating States and proponents of human rights? To approach communication from perspective of norms inevitably rules the preconditions for the encounter and even what should happen after the encounter. According to this logic the dissenter is brought back to normative consensus.
Spiral model focus on encountering the opposition movements (this will be examined in the 2 chapter) and the importance of encountering the human rights violating State is underestimated and it is seen as target of pressure rather than source of knowledge and comprehension. How is it possible to investigate and advance human right if there is no willingness to learn more about the phenomenon and roots and reason that have contributed the appearance of human rights violations? The normative approach trusts that the normative objectifications are universally valid and therefore they can bypass the human rights violating State. The starting point for the encounter should be much more humble and modest and instead of predefining the encounter the phenomenon should be encountered as it is and by doing that the path to foster the norms or some other mean can appear and open. Solely norms do not have power capture entities such as apartheid state.
Bantustan system on the level of idea was suppose to create pure and separated African communities based on ethnicity. The vision was based on scientific worldview, not on human experience and whereas there were ‘separate’ communities they had been intermingling and there were no clear cuts between people as apartheid claimed. Bantustan system created an ethnoterritorial federal State dominated by apartheid state and instead of granting these areas with autonomy they remained under indirect and often direct authority of the State. Apartheid administration encouraged irresponsible leadership in Bantustan and where the colonial
92 Black 1999, 88.
system had been based on direct intervention in 1900s now apartheid state adopted the popular strategy of indirect control. This policy was based on controlling and weakening the African communities and bringing them to sphere of apartheids power whereas before the colonial State had sought to destroy the ‘tribal’ structures.93
The problem with Black’s interpretation from normative perspective is that there is no vindication for his argument that could be found by logic or thinking or from historical or any other type study. It is a generally agreed fact that Bantustan system was apartheid state’s extension and to attach positive qualities to this development is extremely difficult. Besides suppressing the citizenships and human rights of the Black population group Bantustan system justified the homogenization of White population group and whereas the South African society had been characterized by strife between Afrikaners and British colonialism now all the people ‘European’ ethnicity were declared as the property of apartheid management. Apartheid has been mostly viewed as system that defends Whites and rejects Black but when such interpretation is made it discreetly justifies that such categories are logical. Apartheid and Bantustan system denied rights from all the population groups and these rights were handed over or usurped by the apartheid state. It is undeniable that the majority of White people were content that their rights were managed by the apartheid state but that does not make any less wrong the way how apartheid state controlled rights by monopolizing them for the use of the State. It was not an option for a member of White population group to resign for the racial duty. White as well all the other population groups were dominated by White tyranny.
Amnesty reported about Bantustans in following way:
“For those Africans who are released at the end of a political sentence, the pattern seems also to have set. In the Cape, as prisoners leave the prison they are now served with an order endorsing them out of their home areas; they are sent from prison, under armed guard, to Transkei, without being able to return to their homes even to collect their possessions. This has happened even where a man had a family in Cape Town, or had worked there for 20 or 25 years.” 94
93 Eades 1999, 47-48.
94 Amnesty International 1968. Annual report, 13.
This experience points out how apartheid state applied the Natives management and people were torn from their roots and brought to areas that they were unfamiliar with or these areas did not have any preconditions to support rural or urban life. Amnesty presented the dimensions of Bantustan system more profoundly in the report that will be examined in the next chapter. The topic of human rights is wide and especially in the end of apartheid a question of human rights in Bophuthatswana Bantustan became urgent, however this study cannot cover this branch but how human rights were managed in Bantustans could be a vital perspective to examine human rights. Apartheid state set Tomlinson commission to examine that how much money would have to be invested in the Bantustan system that they could provide sustainable conditions for human life. The Prime Minister Verwoerd dismissed these investments as obsolete and consequently Bantustans became poverty stricken remote areas that did not have decent roads, health care, education employment and this served one of the aims of apartheid state that was to expel undesirable people from urban areas. This desire was cherished by restricting the migration to urban areas and simultaneously Bantustans functioned as labour reserves where people could be picked up in case there was need for labour. Mines and such areas of employment accepted only men as labour and these people lived away from their families in single sex hostels and when their work was over they were expelled back to Bantustans.95 Police force actively monitored these rules and regulations and thousands of people were imprisoned under the provisions of pass laws that lined the spatial segregation.96 Apartheid tackled three of its problems simultaneously by establishing the Bantustan system. It managed to continue the segregation and even deepen it by expelling people from urban areas and denying citizenship and at the same time the supply of labour was secured. Besides internal problems according to Black’s interpretation apartheid managed to ease the criticism towards its policies that recalled downright colonial exploitation. The difference between the Black’s affirmative interpretation and interpretation here is that apartheid state managed to cherish its desires through various manoeuvres and avoid its responsibilities whereas Black claims that this development was positive for human rights and it was created as a result of adequate human rights discourse.
Yet another problem with Black’s argument is when it approaches this problem from perspective of international politics and norms it rejects encountering and obtaining
95 Beck 2000, 80, 134, 152.
96 Look Amnesty International 1986. South Africa: Imprisonment under the Pass Laws. Amnesty International publications. London.
information if the norms and what they suggest is actually adequate for the particular problem. Human rights activities could be divided into two components and the view consist of particular attitude that shapes the approach towards certain issue or object and the actual human rights problems is accessed ‘through’ or ‘from’ the attitude. In Black’s interpretation there is only the attitude present and the actual problem is not encountered at all. Furthermore the problem can be divided into content and quality of attitude and how this affected the view on apartheid and then on the other hand that how well the actual problem was encountered.
Clearly the normative attitude on the international context was insufficient because it was based on flat acceptance of certain action (self-determination) for the particular problem without estimating that how adequate the solution is or if even logically corresponds to the norms. This type of international system is based on façades that each State represents towards the outside and this cover-up hides the actual construction behind the façade. This was a general non-encounter pact where States were committed to maintain the status quo of unaccountability. Spiral model suggest that key feature of rising human rights was that the unaccountable becomes accountable through entanglement which is brought about inquiries and publicity of human rights, however, Black has jumped over this phase and he goes directly approving the normative system. What comes to attitude towards human rights they were definitely inadequate and what comes to culture on encountering it was totally missing and out of proper interaction between States. The human rights politics of 1960s maintained the culture of unaccountability that efficiently prevented progress of this issue.
What about the answer to the question if human rights activities was a success or a failure?
The first remark to make is that the demand to examine affirmatively this question can lead only a methodological dead end. This is how Black argues about success of human rights activities: “National party regime never denied the validity of key international and liberal norms such as self-determination, the rule of law or representative democracy.”97 In the first part of this chapter I presented on the basis of Helen Suzman’s experience and various other sources that the Rule of Law was eradicated from South Africa and what comes to international norms and international context that is criticised above and hardly there are traces that could lead to interpretation that Black is endorsing. In the contemporary perspective human rights activities are absolutely affirmative and they aim at improving human rights immediately and as fast and efficiently as possible but in historical perspective
97 Black 1999, 87.
the strength is to detach from this demand. The rise of Amnesty could be seen as coming of human rights from one direction and unaccountability of States could be seen as remaining and perhaps waning of certain cultural layer. The initiative of human rights came from activists and ‘normal’ people whereas States ran political system still on corporation base where the facts and figures and conventions ruled the relations and actual experience based information was seen as irrelevant.. In this sense there was success because the role of civil society was rising and ‘technological state’ was fading and human rights violations did not remain solely a game of States where achieved positions and privacy are seeing as sacred virtues. There was a trend towards better. If this question would be approach by affirmative science factually human rights activities were in the 1960s a failure because there was no tangible immediate change that could be measured. However, Black by applying this logic has barely turned the facts into a teleological explanation that corresponds to the aim of improving human rights. And when this question is thought openly we can see different layers and problems that fostered and prevented the coming of human rights.