APARTHEIDIN CRISIS
percent and was expected to fall to
IO percent early in the twenty-first
century. 1
In other respects, too, the illusions of the Verwoerd era were shattered.
The "decolonization"
process, which Verwoerd had intended to assuage
foreign criticism and provide Africans with the means to "develop along
their own lines in their own areas," had failed on both counts. No foreign
government recognized the independence of the Transkei or Bophuthats-
wana, which the government had declared to be independent states in I976
and 1977, and the economic integration
of the entire country was not
arrested. The client rulers of the Homelands were becoming an embarrass-
ment. Utterly dependent on Pretoria for subsidies and protection, most of
them were corrupt, inefficient, and authoritarian.
Their territories were
decaying and their inhabitants were struggling to survive by sending family
members out to work in the white cities and on the white farms. As
workers and consumers, black people were developing economic and po-
litical muscle in the heart of "white" South Africa, and their children had
come to loathe the regime and its institutions.
Young Indians and Colo-
ureds as well as Africans regarded the regime as illegitimate. They were not