Mandela and the last Afrikaner leaders: A shift in power relations
Abstract
The stability of the apartheid system and the Afrikaners’ monopoly of power
have been the subject of exhaustive scholarly analyses; by contrast, there have
been few in-depth analyses of the unexpected transfer of power by the National
Party government between 1989 and 1994.There is a strong tendency to
present the Afrikaner leadership from Hendrik Verwoerd to PW Botha as being
so beholden to the apartheid ideology and so intransigent that they missed all
opportunities to negotiate a more balanced political settlement. Virtually no
attention has been given to the informal attempts the leadership on both sides
made to initiate talks about an alternative to white supremacy. The treatment
of Nelson Mandela in the literature represents almost the complete opposite to
that of the NP leaders. He has been presented as strongly committed to a nonracial
democracy and a market-oriented economy. A reassessment of Nelson
Mandela’s career has only just begun.