Introduction

    In his essay, "The basis and challenges of transition in South Africa: a review and a preview," Frederik van Zyl Slabbert informs that by the early 1990s the South African government under F. W. de Klerk and the National Party (NP) leadership had already decided on transition to majority rule. Having made the choice that white political control would have to go, De Klerk decided not to partition the land or mend relations with the right. De Klerk yielded to mostly internal pressures to transfer rule to the majority which meant African National Congress (ANC) control (1991).
    The unplanned internal forces included the black birth rate vs. the white birth rate, the continuing urbanization of the black population, the buildup of civil disobedience of these urban blacks, separate development had not been made to work in the rural areas, and the economy would not let the political goals of apartheid be carry out. In deciding to allow majority rule, the NP under De Klerk undermined its political base and divided the whites into two camps. But it also changed the ANC to a party that would negotiate rather that fight for social revolution. External developments also helped in making the decision to majority rule, including the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, the lessening of the South African near monopoly in gold production, the cost of maintaining white rule in Nambia and economic sanctions on South Africa by the United Nations (Slabbert 1991: 22-3).
    To Lawrence Schlemmer, "South Africa was a society of divided identity," and by 1990 the NP government had decided if South Africa was to hold together it must deal with the ANC and other black groups (1991).

South Africa, at the southern tip of Africa, holds many strategic minerals needed by the West for use in modern products. The percentages of the world's strategic minerals that are in this country are as follows :

Vanadium 50%

Platinum Group 90%

Chromium 85%

Manganese 75%

Gold 50%

Mining produces 50% of South Africa's exports and 17% more of its exports is in processed metals (South Africa-Mining Industry Profile). What would happen if there is a major political crisis in this region (and if Russia, where most of the rest of strategic minerals lie, is also closed off to the West how would the West react)?
   South Africa is a land of much internal disagreements between the tribal nations that live within it. The country of 473,000 square miles, is a state of nine provinces and much culture diversity. Will South Africa be the federal state it needs to be or will the African National Congress (ANC) Party tried and make the government to be centralized (South Africa).
    Will the South African government allow ethnic minority groups the necessary participation in the social arena to satisfy their need for group identity or will the national groups have to find other ways to achieve this need such as parties that seek separate homelands or even revolution? Will the ANC allow enough proportional representation to reflect the culture groups' (nations) need to be themselves? Will the ANC allow enough diversity to maintain a united South Africa? Ethnic representation is now based in the heterogenous areas in the provinces of South Africa. Will the ANC maintain this? Will the ANC allow enough federalism through provincial autonomy to each group to maintain their culture or will they try to force an integrated South Africa (Rothchild, 1997: 51-4).
    The 1993 Constitution allowed some of the necessay political autonomy to satisfied the Zulu and Afrikaner for the moment (Rothchild, 1997: 244).   Will the ANC allow enough group identity or will they push to hard against the Afrikaners and Zulus to satisfy its program for centralized control in the new constitution?   So far the ANC and others see (or so they say) federalism as a means for cooperation between the groups that can keep a united South Africa (Rothchild, 1997: 57).   Let us look at politics in the new South Africa.

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