For many years I have been publicly attempting to challenge the "conformism of the left" as regards South Africa. I had done so, in the years 1962 - 1965 for Vietnam and Cambodia, without succeeding in making myself heard, in the face of the "heroic" violent options of Communist "liberation" in those countries, and the subsequent problems which naturally led to tragedies of those peoples which were more serious than the Nazi and Stalinist periods. This does not enable me to do more than defend myself in a simple, though tricky position as a witness when faced with the risk ahead of events as frightful for the whole of Africa. It is necessary to denounce the demagogic and electorally irresponsible nature of the persistent and increasingly more serious criminalization of the whole white tribe of South Africa, and of those black tribes who are not aligned on the violent option of "liberation" yet again.

We must denounce the danger inherent in converging revolutionary positions and positions linked to the multinationals of crime and war, convergences already evident for whoever has eyes to see them.

We must denounce the irresponsibility of the maximalist and blackmailing response to the dramatically difficult policy of opening and democratization each time it is tried, a response which gives rise locally to savage killings of blacks accused of "collaboration", usually of trust in dialogue, in the silence of interational public opinion, which is systematically kept in the dark as to the complex truth of the facts.

We must determine what in South Africa is the consequence of the persistent ideology of apartheid, how much is the social and economic reality concealed behind this? The work in the mines corresponds far more, in its inhuman exploitation, to the European situation of half a century ago than to the racist and pseudo-racist code. The deaths of Marcinelle, in Belgium, were no small part of the victims of that work, with the miners cut down by the silicosis which was not recognized as a professional illness, except after generations and generations. We must admit, if we wish to be intellectually honest, that all those regimes close to South Africa over the past decades have shown a degree of mortality and sickness and the inhumanity of the denial of basic human rights which is far more serious than the events justly denounced, and unjustly distorted which are happening in South Africa today.

We must understand, responsibly, that to ban apartheid by decree risks causing worse tragedies, sparking off violence and fierce fighting which might soon reach the Horn of Africa, thus fulfilling the hopes of the international war industry ever since the "closure" of the Iran-Iraq conflict.

We must support the method and aims of as controlled and speedy a conversion plan as possible to permit the present regime to give way to full democracy. We must understand that probably in no African country do the cultural, social and economic conditions exist which will permit the "dream" of a fully democratic regime to come about, politically, culturally, economically or socially.

We must stop worshipping personalities of huge international prestige whose causes and aims may be worth defending but whose political methods are not. Their apocalyptic and maximalist approach and their manicheistic vision have nothing in common with Gandhian nonviolence which is the only force which can have any revolutionary impact today in the achievement of democracy, justice, freedom and peace in South Africa and in the whole continent.

We must say "no", firmly "no, to any organization which proposes or justifies violence as a method, as a "necessity" whether it be a part of the power structure (with all the rules and regulations, abuses and provocations this entails) or whether it be in opposition, on the side of human rights.

We must offer to the white and black tribes of South Africa, wishing to form part of a transnational, transonic, tolerant, democratic and responsible State, to them and to their ruling classes, as much immediate, offical and militant assistance as we can. We must seek to avoid what has happened before in the Far East, the Middle East and North Africa; where "liberation" meant that millions had to die, mostly farmers, through a militarization of society, the establishment of dictatorships, and the forced exodus of "white" and "black" populations with firm roots in those countries. We must keep our sights clearly on the fight against social and institutional injustice, both in Europe and everywhere in the world. We must not incriminate the heirs of unjust systems, who live their lives in fear and terror, on one side or the other, in the society they have inherited.

Finally the European Community and Italy, within its own sphere of influence, must immediately intervene by offering new signs of dialogue, of respect, of responsibility and of willingness to steer the dramatic situation in order to avoid the tragedy which seems all too imminent if support continues for the violent and vindictive policies which have been fiercely implemented in the face of any attempt at managing a rigorous, gradual and controlled evolution of the situation itself.

Only an inveterate, dominant, moralistic and lethal brand of racism can continue to attribute exclusively to Africa and the Third World in general that "realism" which has been practiced to a criminal degree of irresponsibility in dealings with the communist (and fascist) regimes of Europe.

As regards our attitude to Pretoria, it can and must no longer be ideologically different from our attitude to Moscow, Warsaw, Belgrade or even Brussels. Not to mention the shame of the de facto support being persistently offered to Beijing, Hanoi, and the Khmer Rouges in Cambodia.