--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have a question for you. It appears to me that > there were changes in > British public support for violent methods between > 1919 and 1949. If there > were not, why not run over Ghandi? From what I > understand from Neli, there > were also changes over time in South Africa. > Genocide on a massive scale > was undertaken with public (white) approval early in > the century. But, > bounds on the repression began to appear by > mid-century. And, in the end, > the white government agreed to full democracy. In a > sense, one could use > India and South Africa as indications that, when > confronting elected > governments where public opionion matters, > multi-decade passive resistance > campaigns can be sucessful...especially if a > reasonable out is given to > those in power. > > Dan M.
The short answer? Yes. I absolutely agree with everything you've written above. Democracies - even democracies that are elected by only a small fraction the public (as in South Africa) are (in my opinion) remarkably susceptible to public pressure and moral suasion. When you talk to De Klerk and other South African leaders, for example, they'll tell you that one of the principal reasons for their actions was they just felt the world was changing, and it was time to adapt to it. Britain was a decent democracy. Churchill was a horrible racist, but he was also a man of the 19th century. Few of his contemporaries shared his racial views, and in the face of determined Indian pressure, enormous American pressure (the, sadly, almost entirely forgotten role of the US in decolonization was extremely important), and the unwillingness of the mid-20th century British public to either use supremely violent measures or maintain the colony after the catastrophes of the Second World War, they were going to leave. The South African elites were actually a lot like the 1930s-1940s era British in a lot of their opinions, I think - I know the case less well, but everything I know of it reads that way to me. _But they were both democratic states_ (that is, Britain and South Africa). South Africa only amongst the whites, but democratic in the sense that their leaders were products of elections, not coups, bureaucracies, or what have you. South Africa was (eventually, and far too slowly) susceptible to nonviolent pressure from outside and inside. The ANC's occasional forays into violent attacks against civilians were probably counterproductive and delayed the end of apartheid. The British were not, in the end, willing to use enormous violence to maintain their hold on power. It's notable that Nehru spent decades in jail, sent their time after time on unjust, and often entirely specious, charges. But he wasn't killed or tortured, as he surely would have been by the French, Belgians, Germans, Japanese... Dictatorships, by contrast are (so far as I can see it) incredibly _resistant_ to public pressure. Why wouldn't they be? They don't listen to their public at home, why would they care about the World Court? There are many differences between Iraq and the Raj, and fewer, but still many, differences between Apartheid South Africa and Iraq. But the most important one is that De Klerk and Attlee were both elected leaders. Saddam Hussein took power by assasinating his predecessor. That's a big difference. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
