It was a moment many South Africans could not believe they would live to see. On May 10, 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president of democratic South Africa, ending the deadly and brutal white minority apartheid regime.
To commemorate 30 years since South Africa's post-apartheid transition began, The Conversation Weekly Podcast is running a special three-part podcast series. What happened to Nelson Mandela's South Africa?
In the first episode, two academics with first-hand experience of the transition reflect on the excitement of Mandela's election, the African National Congress' (ANC) priorities during the transition, and the challenges that lie ahead for South Africa as it rises to power. There is. Defining the post-apartheid future.
In the months leading up to South Africa's 1994 elections, Stephen Freedman was seconded to the monitoring division of the Independent Electoral Commission. It was a tense time, he recalls.
I think the practical experience of working on the committee was incredibly challenging and at times quite frightening for everyone involved… from the office down the street where a large number of Inkatha Freedom Party members were virtually marching. I remember looking down and wondering if we were going to storm the building to try to stop the election.
Although the Inkatha Freedom Party did not storm the building, intense violence erupted before the election, leaving an estimated 20,000 people dead.
Mr Friedman is currently a professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg and an expert on South Africa's political transition. In his book, he argues that the ANC's role in overthrowing apartheid has been exaggerated.
To be frank, the ANC didn't liberate the country…it was a combination of different factors…I'm not saying they didn't play a role at all, but among the ANC people at the time I think that was the norm, and I think that part of the ANC myth remains because we vastly overestimate the role of the ANC in internal resistance.
Friedman said it's “easy to romanticize” Mandela, but emphasizes that Mandela was crucial to the transition.
Mandela played a big role then, but he has no intention of coming back. And as long as we hope that someone like him will come back, we will remain in a dead end…The downside of the Mandela phenomenon is that we have seen many He spent his time blaming Mandela. The fact that the Messiah is no longer here.
A new kind of security
One of the biggest challenges facing the new ANC-led government after 1994 was reforming the security institutions that had enforced a brutal apartheid regime under a highly militarized state. “Violence was essential to maintaining the apartheid system,'' explains Sandy Africa, associate professor of political science at the University of Pretoria. Africa, a former student activist and ANC member, was brought into the new ANC government as director of a training facility called the Intelligence Academy.
By the 1990s, a consensus was emerging that security forces had to play a very different role in democratic societies. It was certainly not oppressive, but one in which they truly acted as protectors of the people and their rights and interests.
Africans say there was a real fear that security forces would reject the changes. “If there was a coup d'état from any direction, it would have come from that direction,” she says, but in the end “the enlightened forces won.”
The fears of those who thought they had too much to lose were overcome by sunset clauses that essentially promised a relatively soft landing, that there would be no retribution for the atrocities committed under apartheid, and that there would actually be reconciliation. Soothed. The order of the day, not anything else.
Listen to an interview with Stephen Friedman and Sandy Africa in the first episode of The Conversation Weekly. What happened to Nelson Mandela's South Africa? series.
A transcript of this episode will be available soon.
Disclosure statement
Steven Friedman and Sandy Afrika do not work for, consult, own stock in, or receive funding from any company or organization that might benefit from this article, and do not have any academic He has not disclosed any relevant affiliations other than his appointment.
credit
News clips for this episode are from SABC News and AP News.
Special thanks to Gary Oberholzer, Jabulani Sikhakhane, Caroline Southey, and Moina Spooner of The Conversation Africa for this series. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany with production assistance from Katie Flood. Gemma Ware will serve as executive producer. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens and theme music was by Neeta Sarl. Stephen Khan is the global editor-in-chief, Alice Mason runs social media, and Soraya Nandy handles transcription.
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