By: Mary Mostert, Editor Reagan Monitor
February 29, 1996
"LOUIS Farrakhan, the leader of America's black nationalist Nation of Islam movement, lost no time in rekindling racial feelings when he arrived in South Africa yesterday for a four-day visit." the London Telegraph recently reported.
He had accepted an invitation from the Pan African Congress (PAC), the group which made its slogan "one settler, one bullet" and promised to "drive the whites into the sea." Since the election of Nelson Mandela as president, with F.W. de Klerk vice-president, in a transition government seeking to rebuild an economy reeling from years of violence, strikes and racial strife. Most South Africans, black and white, have realized that continued violence and conflict will scare off investors from abroad. Farrakhan's much-publicized visit stirred bitter debate for two weeks before his arrival.
Nelson Mandela met with him in his private home in plush Houghton, one of Johannesburg's most elite northern suburbs. He defended his meeting with Farrakhan by saying, "I meet many people whose views I don't agree with. For instance, I have met many apartheid leaders and members of extreme white organizations." Farrakhan made little attempt to hide the fact that the pictures of him greeting Mandela would be used to further his a quest for power in America.
"For a black man to become a racist he must first have power" Farrakhan said. He used the word "power" at his press conference when challenged about his views on race. "I have been wrongly accused of being a racist," he said. "For a black man to become a racist he must first have power.
He attacked South African whites for "failing to denounce apartheid" while apparently failing to notice that such an attack in a nation where whites are a minority and blacks now exercise "power" would, by his own definition, be as "racist" as the apartheid he said he was condemning."
Johannesburg's Jewish community protested Farrakhan's easy access to Nelson Mandela, and objected to his anti-Semitic message. Resentment towards his divisive message was also expressed by many black people in Soweto who resented his "arrogant assumption that, because he is black, he somehow represents us. He knows nothing about us." Many, of all races, felt that South Africa's reeling economy has had all the