The Mind of South Africa

Former editor of the Johannesburg Rand Daily Mail , and now a correspondent for U.S. and U.K. newspapers, Sparks here writes one of the most sensitive and best balanced histories of relationships among South Africa's Dutch, English, Indian and indigenous peoples. In this hopeful assessment of the transition period, he points out that ``no ideology on earth, no politician, no guns, no army, no regional superpower strategy'' can stem the ``blackening'' of South Africa, as the country at last begins to move out of its ``capsule of illusion.'' Although industrialization and urbanization render apartheid ideology unworkable, only political action can shift South Africa to a pan-tribal, nonracial, mixed economy and society, stresses Sparks. There will be no revolutionary transfer of power; instead, there will be an incremental process, with whites yielding ground reluctantly, inch by inch, trench by trench. (Apr.)