Hazardous Courses in Southern Africa

George F. Kennan

From Foreign Affairs, October 1970

George F. Kennan was a career officer in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1926 to 1953, retiring as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. He was later a Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study.

The situation in the great Portuguese territories of Angola and Mozambique differs fundamentally from that prevailing in South and South West Africa in that the central issue here is not that of race. Members of the insurgent movements now operating against the Portuguese administrations like to insinuate that Portuguese rule is really a concealed form of white supremacy; and such allegations find ready credence in Western-liberal, not to mention Afro-Asian, circles. Neither the personal observations of a detached visitor nor the literature of unbiased scholars who have addressed themselves to Portuguese African affairs afford much confirmation for such allegations. There have no doubt been periods of racial prejudice in the past; and there are no doubt individual manifestations of it here and there today; there always are some such manifestations when great numbers of people of different racial origin reside side by side. But there is no legal discrimination in residence, education or employment; and there is ample evidence that the absence of such discrimination is not just a formality. The tenor of everyday life in these Portuguese territories reflects less racial tension than can at times be observed in certain of the independent black African countries. It is useful to reflect that if one were able to have today in South Africa not only the legal basis but the living reality of what now exists in the Portuguese territories in the sense of interracial relationships, even the most sanguine liberal would surely feel that at least 95 percent of the problem of South African apartheid had been solved.

To say that the racial factor is not the issue is not to say that there are not other disparities and deficiencies in the Portuguese administration which have not been, and could not be today, the objects of more serious and legitimate challenge. It is also not to say that the material and social situation of the African portion of the population is equal, or anywhere near equal, to that of the European and the mixed elements. The differences that exist in this respect are primarily the reflection of educational and economic, not racial, disparities. The average black African Angolan or Mozambiquan, starting as he does from a lower economic and social level, tends to get off the educational ladder -- with a view to beginning to earn his living -- at a lower point than does the average youngster of European-Portuguese origin; and this finds its reflection in position and income. But this is a problem not peculiar to Angola and Mozambique.

This disparity in living standards and social position is the real focal point of much of the criticism of the Portuguese administrations. The demand is, in reality, for a greater degree of social egalitarianism -- for a curtailment of the privileges and prerogatives of the rich, most of whom happen to be European-Portuguese, and for a more rapid elevation of the poor, most of whom are still black.

But this situation is now in a state of rapid evolution and change. This is not generally realized abroad. Members of the Portuguese administration in these territories make no bones of the fact that the armed challenge with which they have been confronted in recent years has stirred them, and, more importantly, has stirred the Lisbon authorities, to reforms and improvements that might otherwise have taken decades to complete. Nowhere have the changes been greater than in the educational field. The number of persons embraced in the primary school system in Angola has increased by some 500 percent in the last 15 years, and in the secondary school system by as much as 850 percent. In 1963, a university was established in Angola, where none existed before. The proportion of black Africans among the university students in Angola was, by 1970, up to 30 percent and growing. In a country where education, rather than race, is truly the key to position and prosperity, this represents no insignificant change.

It is difficult, furthermore, to believe that a triumph of the present insurgent pressures would produce any more rapid progress in educational opportunities and living standards for the African. In both of these respects the Portuguese territories are already well ahead of most of the black-ruled countries of Africa. The existence of privileged élites, after all, is not a peculiarity just of the white-ruled countries of Africa.

The reproach most commonly leveled against the Portuguese administrations of Angola and Mozambique is that they represent a colonial relationship. For those -- and their number is not few -- to whom the term "colonialism" is a negative semantic absolute, there can be no defense against this charge. The same will be true of those whose criteria are more than just semantic but who view as uniquely iniquitous any relationship of dependence that operates across a body of water or any in which a West European country, or the United States, figures as the metropolitan power. But these are subjective distinctions. They have no sanction, as yet, in any formal international determinations. In the absence of such determinations, the well-meaning foreign observer has no choice but to focus his judgment not on semantic distinctions but on the real interests of the peoples most immediately involved.

To what extent there is genuine popular discontent with Portuguese rule, as distinct from the restlessness of individual intellectuals ambitious to replace the Portuguese in the seats of power, is hard to judge. Even a plebiscite would not throw much light on this question. Self-determination, as the present Portuguese premier has pointed out, is not a matter of thrusting square pieces of paper into the hands of the man in the bush. Prior to the insurgent attack in 1961 (in which, incidentally, far more black Africans than Portuguese were killed), the vast territory of Angola, larger than Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico combined, was garrisoned by no more than two regimental combat units of 1,000 men each. This does not suggest great discontent with Portuguese rule. Militant insurgency, provoking as it always does punitive measures, making its own martyrs and causing people to hedge their statements as well as their bets, has a tendency of course to evoke discontent, or at least the semblance of it, even where there was none before. But this is something else again.

However that may be, it is hard to picture a happier future for the people of these territories being brought about by the further successful pursuit of those military pressures that have been brought to bear against the Portuguese since 1961. One has only to consider the likely consequences. The white population, in Angola in particular, is the greatest, proportionately, of any country in Africa after South Africa. Its numbers are heightened, in effect, by the fact that tens of thousands of people of mixed blood consider themselves, and are accepted as, Portuguese. This strong and vigorous element would not bow out of the picture. In addition to that, the insurgent forces operating against the régime in Angola are split into three competing factions, the differences running in some instances along tribal lines.

Finally, one must reckon with the South Africans, They have a keen interest in what takes place in the southern part of Angola where some of the border tribes are related to their neighbors, the Ovambos, not to mention in the southern part of Mozambique, which is important to South Africa from a number of standpoints. In the event of a disruption of the authority of the present Portuguese administrations, all of these various elements could be expected to compete for the heritage. The likelihood would be for a partition of both territories, certain portions falling to the South Africans, and the strong European factions, whose roots of residence and experience go back for hundreds of years, digging in for one form or another of a "Rhodesian" solution. It is possible to imagine that one or another of the insurgent leaders might find a partial satisfaction of his ambitions in such a state of affairs, though even this is not certain. It is harder to see how the mass of the African population would be benefited.

As things now stand, these two Portuguese territories serve -- with their relatively tolerant racial policies -- to break the bi-polarity between the north and south of the African continent. In the event of a removal of Portuguese authority and the triumph, even on limited portions of their territory, of the existing guerrilla-insurgent elements, the territories would cease to play this role. Quite the contrary. Bitterness, fear, and violence of feeling would be heightened on both sides. The area of South African control -- the area of real racism, that is -- would almost certainly be geographically increased. Not only that but the fires of racial discrimination in South Africa itself would be importantly fed. The reactionaries there would say: "You see what comes of the attempt to pursue moderate racial policies. The Portuguese pursued such policies. Did that save them? Is it not evident from their experience that the real motive behind the guerrilla pressures in southern Africa generally is not race at all -- that this is merely the pretext? What reason is there to suppose that more moderate and tolerant racial policies on our part would have any effect in preserving us from the same sort of attack?" It is in this spirit, and under the influence of such arguments, that the South Africans would move to secure, if forced to, such areas in the countries north and east of them as they consider essential to the security of their own territory.