On October 30 nine bombs exploded in Soweto, a Johannesburg township of more than 1 million people, the great majority of whom are black. The blasts hit a mosque and several sections of railroad track. Shrapnel from one bomb killed Claudina Mokane, who was sleeping in her nearby shack.

A day later, a bomb exploded at a Buddhist temple in the rural town of Bronkhorstspruit.

At the end of November, bombs put the main bridge linking the provinces of Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal out of commission. The Boeremag subsequently sent an e-mail to local newspapers saying it would begin to target people over the Christmas holidays.

Police raided more than 90 farms on November 29, arresting 12 people for illegal possession of weapons or explosives and seizing a range of military equipment. All those arrested were released on bail. Separately over the past several months, the police have arrested 18 men who are charged with a right-wing plot to topple the government. None of them have been charged for the recent blasts. A document discovered on the computer of one of those arrested outlined a scenario of escalating military actions culminating in forcing "Blacks and Indians" out of the country.

An editorial in the October 31 Sowetan newspaper remarked that some right-wingers "still believe, rather foolishly, that a white-led government is a distinct possibility. Only in their twisted minds." Responding to the bombing of the bridge, S’bu Ndebele, an official of the African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal, said, "The bridge was destroyed by forces who are thoroughly frustrated by the successes we have achieved in nation building, reconciliation, and democratic transformation."  
 
Grieving for endangered privileges
Right-wing currents have used the publicity around the bombings to press their claim that Afrikaner identity is endangered by the policies of the post-apartheid government led by the ANC, including steps to put Afrikaans--the language of the apartheid state--onto an equal footing with African languages as well as English.

The Group of 63, a group of academics and authors campaigning for Afrikaner "cultural rights," suggested the bombings were the result of "Afrikaner alienation."

In an op-ed article in Business Day, published in Johannesburg, Dan Roodt, described as "a former head of derivatives at Citibank" and member of various Afrikaner groups, was more specific in his complaints. "What nation-building really means in SA, is the complete destruction of Afrikaans culture and the Afrikaner identity," he wrote.

During the early 1990s, with millions of workers and peasants mobilizing in the revolutionary democratic struggle to bring down the white-minority regime, sections of the apartheid apparatus divided politically. Among them were several prominent rightist figures who could not agree on what steps to take to hold back this movement.

For example, Gen. Constand Viljoen, the former head of the army, and prominent exponent of a "volkstaat"--an apartheid mini-state for Afrikaners--contested the 1994 elections as the standard bearer of the Freedom Front. Others, by contrast, advocated taking up arms against the new government. One of those--the paramilitary Afrikaner Resistance Movement--is today almost nowhere to be seen.

While South Africa remains riven by inequalities, integration of aspects of social and economic life is slowly becoming a reality, particularly in workplaces and schools in urban areas. That reality exists alongside another one: the frequent racist brutality meted out by, in particular, some white farmers and the cops.

Sections of the police collaborate with the ultraright. This is also true of the army officer corps. Among those arrested for allegedly plotting against the government are several army officers, along with at least one former cop and several farmers. The makeup of the military ranks, meanwhile, is undergoing a relatively rapid transformation: the army now consists of 45,300 blacks and 15,000 whites.
 
 
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