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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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052989
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05298900.022
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1990-09-22
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WORLD, Page 63World NotesSOUTH AFRICAA Human Being Bows Out
Great white liberals have always been a rare species in South
Africa. Their ranks, diminished by the death of author Alan Paton
at 85 a year ago, are about to be thinned again. After 36 years of
combat against the forces of apartheid in Parliament, Helen Suzman,
71, announced last week that she will not seek re-election in
September.
For 13 years Suzman, a former university lecturer in economic
history, was the only liberal opposition member of the house,
making her the Progressive Party's spokeswoman. She slashed at
purveyors of apartheid, once advising government ministers that
they could learn something about their country if they would attend
a funeral in a black township, "heavily disguised, of course, as
human beings." But she opposed foreign economic sanctions against
South Africa, arguing that they hurt blacks and drive whites into
a siege mentality.
Suzman's retirement will take some steam out of the new
Democratic Party, formed last month by the merger of three liberal
parties and still unable to agree on a leader. Liberalism has a
future in South Africa, says Suzman, but "fundamental changes will
take a lot longer than most people think."