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Unlock This CourseIn September 1978 Vorster resigned and P.W. Botha became prime minister. Botha had been Minister of Defence since 1966. He was a tough, short-tempered man, and he thought like a soldier. He was no friend of black majority rule. But he could see that the apartheid of Verwoerd's day could not last, and in 1979 he warned white South Africans that they must 'adapt or die'.
Key terms:
Total Strategy was worked out with General Magnus Malan, the head of the armed forces, who became Minister of Defence in 1980. It had two sides.
Defence spending kept rising, and from 1977 young white men had to do two years of army service. The army struck at ANC bases in neighbouring countries, with raids into Mozambique (1981) and Lesotho (1982). South Africa also backed rebel groups fighting the governments of Angola and Mozambique. In 1984 Mozambique signed the Nkomati Accord, promising to stop sheltering ANC fighters.
Botha's generals told him that force alone could not win. The government also had to win over part of the black population. The aim was to remove the worst grievances and build up a black middle class with jobs, houses and something to lose, so that it would not back revolution. Reform was a weapon for defending white power. It was never meant to end it.
Four pressures pushed Botha towards reform. The exam can ask about any of them, so learn how each one led to change.
In the 1960s the economy had grown by around 6 per cent a year. In the 1970s growth slowed. Oil prices shot up after 1973, prices in the shops rose fast, and investors took money out after Soweto. Apartheid itself was costly: an army, a huge police force and separate offices, schools and homelands for each group all had to be paid for.
South Africa now depended on factories as well as mines and farms. Factories needed trained mechanics, technicians and clerks, and there were not enough white people to fill these jobs. Job reservation and poor Bantu Education kept black workers unskilled. Business leaders, including Afrikaners, told the government that apartheid was now holding the economy back.
In the Durban strikes of 1973, tens of thousands of black workers walked out, although strikes by Africans were against the law. Black trade unions kept growing without legal rights. Then Soweto showed that a new generation could not be frightened into silence. Botha feared that if nothing changed, unrest would grow into revolution.
The compulsory arms embargo and the sports boycotts had left South Africa isolated. In 1980 Rhodesia became Zimbabwe under a black government, so the last independent white-ruled country on South Africa's borders had gone. Campaigners abroad pressed companies and banks to pull out. Botha hoped that reform would win back friends in the West, especially Britain and the USA.
Botha inherited the Wiehahn Commission, which reported in 1979. Following its advice, a law of 1979 let African workers join registered trade unions for the first time. Their unions could now bargain with employers and strike legally. Most job reservation was scrapped too. The government's thinking was that legal unions could be watched and controlled, while illegal ones could not.
White voters approved it in a referendum in November 1983, with about two thirds voting yes. It began in September 1984. Parliament now had three chambers: the House of Assembly for whites (178 seats), the House of Representatives for Coloureds (85) and the House of Delegates for Indians (45). Botha became State President, with wide powers.
The pass laws had failed to stop Africans moving to the towns, and enforcing them filled the courts and prisons. They were abolished from 1 July 1986. Africans no longer had to carry a reference book, and one identity document was planned for all races. In 1985 the bans on mixed marriages and on sex across the colour line had also been lifted.
Smaller changes came too. From 1978 Africans could take 99-year leases on township houses, more money was spent on black schools, and some hotels, restaurants and parks were opened to all races.
Look closely at the three-chamber parliament. Each chamber ran its 'own affairs', such as its group's schools and housing. Matters for the whole country needed agreement, and the seats were fixed at four white to two Coloured to one Indian, so whites could always outvote the other two together. Above all, Africans, about 70 per cent of the population, had no chamber at all. They were told their political rights lay in the homelands and in township councils.
The laws at the heart of apartheid also stayed: the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act and the homelands. Botha was changing how apartheid worked in order to keep white rule safe. He was not sharing real power.
Don't write that the 1983 constitution gave black Africans the vote. It added new chambers for Coloured and Indian people only, and Africans got none. Don't describe Total Strategy as only military: reform was one half of it. And don't say Botha reformed because he wanted to end apartheid. He reformed in order to save white rule, so always link each reform to the pressure behind it.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history textbook)
Botha liked to boast that he was changing South Africa, but his so-called reforms were little more than a fresh coat of paint on an old prison. The new parliament of 1984 handed Coloured and Indian people seats in chambers that whites could always outvote, and offered the African majority nothing at all. The pass laws were dropped only because they had stopped working. Behind every concession lay the same cold aim: to keep power firmly in white hands.
What impression does the author give about the reforms of PW Botha? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that Botha's reforms were a sham that changed how apartheid looked without changing who held power. The language is scornful: calling them 'so-called reforms' suggests they were not real reforms at all, and the image of 'a fresh coat of paint on an old prison' suggests the surface was smartened up while people stayed trapped inside. Words such as 'boast' and 'cold aim' make Botha sound dishonest and calculating. The author also selects only the limits of the reforms, such as chambers 'whites could always outvote' and 'nothing at all' for Africans, and explains away the end of the pass laws with 'only because'. Nothing is said about gains such as legal trade unions for African workers, which shows the author has chosen material to make the reforms look empty.
What lifts this to the top level: it names one clear impression, then proves it from the author's choice of words, tone and selection of points, including what has been left out.
Start with 'The author gives the impression that...' and finish the sentence with a describing word, here 'a sham'. Then quote short phrases, such as 'so-called', and say what each one suggests. Don't retell what the parliament was. For more on this question type, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 1 Question (a): What Impression Does the Author Give?