Beyond oil and metals

With oscillations about a downward trend, the era of inflated oil prices is ending. The winner is the King of Capitalism: the consumer. Among the losers, the most important is the Soviet Union. The Soviets are ending a decade of unprecedented expansion, their far-flung empire financed by sale of their own oil, and by resale of Arab and other Third World oil which they bartered for arms.

With their top export commodity devalued, what else do the Soviets have for export besides arms, terrorism, and propaganda?

Gold and other minerals: chromium, manganese, and above all, the platinum group metals (PGM, AtE Apr 85). The USSR produces half the worlds PGM. These metals are vital for metallurgy, petroleum refining, and other industries, but the US does not produce any. All but 7% of the other half comes from a single country: South Africa.

This has been used as an argument against sanctions by Reagan's administration of unprincipled weaklings, who are afraid to point out the real reasons why sanctions are morally wrong. If it were really necessary, the PMGs could, after a period of readjustment, be replaced by substitution, conservation and domestic exploration.

The real reason why the contemporary Boer-bashing is opposed by decent and thinking men is that it is despicable and hypocritical in its selectivity. If Sen. Lugar does not wish to buy platinum and gold from South Africa, where full human rights are granted only to whites, he will have to buy it from the USSR, where human rights are granted to nobody; indeed, he will help to fuel a machine of oppression and colonialism compared with which Apartheid is benign.

If Sen. Kennedy is so disturbed about human rights in South Africa, why does he yawn as genocide is practiced in Afghanistan? If Madam Schroeder grows hysterical about South African racism, why does she support the Nicaraguan Stalinistas who murder the Miskito Indians? When Ms. Gloria Steinem has herself "arrested" in front of the South African embassy to protest women's rights, why does she not stop on the way to protest at the Saudi embassy, representing a country where women may not show their faces, are flogged for drinking alcohol and stoned for love affairs? Why do all posturing opponents of terrorism (such as George Shultz's State Department) ask for Mandela to be freed, knowing that he has been offered freedom many times if he renounces violence?

But there is a more sinister side to their posturing. When the great anti-racist impostors condemn the remnants of racism in South Africa while accepting the virulent racism, sometimes coupled with genocide, in Burundi, Uganda or Zimbabwe, when they gloss over the "necklaces" and other barbaric outrages encouraged by the African National Congress, they are, in effect, saying that such conduct is all right for what deep down they consider black animals; but the white man, in their collectivist minds, must be held to higher standards.

Kennedy or Schroeder no longer use words like "nigger;" but judged by their actions rather than words, it is mainly their sanctimonious grandstanding that distinguishes their mentality from that of an old-time Alabama redneck.