The daily newspapers are regularly filled with the latest violence in long-standing seemingly intractable political conflicts across the world. Three of the most prominent since 1945 have been those in northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and South Africa. It may be illuminating to compare their trajectories. If anyone had asked me (or most people) in say 1980 which of the three was the least likely to find a political solution, I would have said South Africa. Yet such a solution was in fact found in the early 1990s, whereas the violence and conflict is ongoing and continuing in the other two regions. How can we explain this?

Each of the situations of course has its own history and its own particularities, and none is a clone of the other. Still, the three situations have shared some common features. In each case, there was one group - the Ulster Protestants, the Israeli Jews, and the South African Whites - which was dominant, in the sense that it controlled the political machinery, was strong militarily, and had clear economic advantage. In each case, the other group - the Ulster Catholics, the Palestinians, the South African Blacks - considered themselves colonized and oppressed (arguing they were the original inhabitants of the area). In each case, the dominant group claimed that it had legitimate historic rights to the area, and that in the past they had been themselves the victims of oppression, and were therefore now primarily defending themselves against further oppression. In each case, the division between the two groups was exacerbated by an overlay of religious justification for the political positions, an argument more emphasized on the side of the dominant group than on the side of the dominated group.

In each case, the dominated group was demographically larger than the dominant group. The dominated groups formed organizations to secure their rights and win power, and eventually these organizations entered into insurrection. In each case, the dominant group regarded the organizations of the other group as terrorist groups, and refused for a long time even to consider the idea of political negotiations. In each case, there was a prolonged, albeit intermittent, civil war. In each case, there was international pressure to arrive at political negotiations, which eventually took place with mixed results.

Yet the outcomes have been different. The civil war now seems to be over in South Africa, where the Whites have ceded political power to the majority of the population. On the other hand, a political solution to the Israeli/Palestinian dispute - the most discussed formula is that of two sovereign states - seems further away than ever. In northern Ireland, the halfway house to a permanent political solution, which was finally agreed upon in 1998, seems about to collapse. Are the latter two conflicts intractable, whereas somehow the one in South Africa was not?

In general, one can say that there is no such thing as an intractable conflict. A few (not many) of such conflicts end by one side getting most of what it wants by outright force, thereby stabilizing the political situation for a very long time. In most cases, however, a one-sided victory is not possible. Because of this, most such conflicts end by some sort of political compromise which is grudgingly accepted by the generations in power at the time of the compromise, one however that may come to seem "normal" by later generations. A few such conflicts drag on and on for a very long time, with neither a military nor a political solution. Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine seem to be in this last category. South Africa somehow moved into the category of grudging political compromise. What happened?

There were several features in the South African situation that were different from the other two. The dominant group was demographically a much smaller percentage of the population (at most 20%). The political system that the dominant group had installed was openly and unashamedly undemocratic, denying all political rights to the dominated group. The dominant group was itself divided, ethnically, and the Afrikaner group which held the political power was contested by a White Anglophone group whose politics were ambivalent and which had better links to powerful forces in Europe and North America. The ideologically "extreme" position of the dominant group - the open espousal of apartheid - made it ideologically illegitimate on the world scene.

The main organization of the oppressed - the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) - had a very long history of advocating non-violent resistance, and had only turned to insurrection when all other doors seemed definitively closed. The ANC hewed to a strong universalist line, calling for majority rule but insisting that White South Africans were part of the nation. The ANC implemented this policy by having White members, including in very high positions in the organization. The ANC therefore appealed to the international legitimacy that adherence to universalist norms normally merits.

Still, this was not enough to achieve its objectives. For one thing, the ANC always found it difficult to pose a serious military threat to the apartheid regime, which gave the regime less motive to compromise. For another, the ANC's internal alliance with the South African Communist Party (and therefore the fact that it received political support from the U.S.S.R.) was used by the regime to turn Western governments away from any active support, if not indeed the contrary.

What then turned the tide? Two things basically. The extreme international illegitimacy of the apartheid regime meant that organized support for the ANC cause was far more organized, far more extensive, and far more effective than anything either the Irish Catholics or the Palestinians have ever been able to obtain. As just one example, opponents of apartheid were able to get the U.S. Congress to vote for economic sanctions against the apartheid regime in 1986, against the wishes of then President Ronald Reagan. It is inconceivable that the U.S. Congress would do anything similar in the other two situations. The result was that the economic sanctions did in fact begin to hurt the dominant group in South Africa. So did the cultural boycott which kept artists, sportspersons, and scholars from visiting, but which also worked the other way: South African artists, sportspersons, and scholars found it very difficult to participate in ordinary international meetings.

The negative economic effects was felt in particular by very large corporations, some based in South Africa itself and some based elsewhere but with large investments in South Africa. These groups began to fear not only the short-run effects but the long-run effects on their economic interests. It was such groups that began to take initiatives in the 1980s to bring about a political compromise. Without reviewing the details, a compromise was indeed reached. The apartheid regime was dismantled, but White citizens retained their political rights. More importantly, the ANC worked to maintain intact, with no fundamental changes, the economic structures of the previous governments. There was essentially no retribution for the past. (See our discussion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Commentary No. 66, June 15, 2001.)

The key difference with the other two situations is the degree of international illegitimacy of the apartheid regime and the strong economic interests of powerful corporations in a political settlement. There are no powerful corporations equally anxious for a political settlement in northern Ireland or Israel/Palestine. And world sentiment is more mixed concerning the legitimacy of the two sides in the conflict. Few people know much about, or care much about, northern Ireland. And in Israel/Palestine, support for the Palestinian cause is muted in public opinion by continuing Western guilt over the Nazi Holocaust.
 

Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

Email this Commentary to a colleague

______________________________________________

Go to List of Commentaries

Go to Fernand Braudel Center Homepage