FW de Klerk gooooooooooooooooooooooornneeee

[weegie01]

I was only a youngster but I remember how shocked people were when he announced the unbanning of the ANC and SACP . The peaceful end of apartheid in the space of a few years certainly didn't seem inevitable at the time.

I was in my 30s at the time with the advantage of having the the objectivity of being a foreigner living in SA. Despite the token reforms by Pik Botha before him, if am personally convinced that apartheid would not have ended as swiftly or as peacefully had any other prominent NP politician (with the possible exception Pik Botha) taken over as president after PW Botha's stroke. In fact there was a large faction who have fought to the bitter end proudly picking up the mantle of their forefathers.

[Calculon]

I was only a youngster but I remember how shocked people were when he announced the unbanning of the ANC and SACP . The peaceful end of apartheid in the space of a few years certainly didn't seem inevitable at the time.

I was in my 30s at the time with the advantage of having the the objectivity of being a foreigner living in SA. Despite the token reforms by Pik Botha before him, if am personally convinced that apartheid would not have ended as swiftly or as peacefully had any other prominent NP politician (with the possible exception Pik Botha) taken over as president after PW Botha's stroke. In fact there was a large faction who have fought to the bitter end proudly picking up the mantle of their forefathers.

Yeah, you meant reforms by PW Botha and they were very much token reforms. FW had a huge job of persuading enough National Party voters and politicians to go along with dismantling apartheid. Whatever hindsight we might have, and I think a large scale race war would have broken SA, it was a commonly held opinion that the security services could maintain the apartheid system for the then foreseeable future.

[Chilli]

From the outside looking in, could another leader have gone full Ian Smith and let it go as far as bloodshed to hold onto minority rule?

This is an interesting comparison, and one that I think of quite a lot. Smith is still spoken about like a saviour to white Rhodesians, but all he did in my opinion was delay the inevitable and lead thousands of young men to their deaths. If power had been handed over in the mid 1960s like all the other colonies, Zimbabwe could be in such a different place now.

The fact that Mandela and de Klerk managed to avoid a civil war is something to behold.

This

[Chilli]

Strikes me that he occupies a similar place in history to Gorbachev in that he brought about an end to a dying, unsustainable system with relatively minor bloodshed.

I think these types of leaders never quite get the credit that they deserve because people tend to take for granted that what happened under their watch was inevitable.

Very true.

[weegie01]

I was only a youngster but I remember how shocked people were when he announced the unbanning of the ANC and SACP . The peaceful end of apartheid in the space of a few years certainly didn't seem inevitable at the time.

I was in my 30s at the time with the advantage of having the the objectivity of being a foreigner living in SA. Despite the token reforms by Pik Botha before him, if am personally convinced that apartheid would not have ended as swiftly or as peacefully had any other prominent NP politician (with the possible exception Pik Botha) taken over as president after PW Botha's stroke. In fact there was a large faction who have fought to the bitter end proudly picking up the mantle of their forefathers.

Yeah, you meant reforms by PW Botha and they were very much token reforms. FW had a huge job of persuading enough National Party voters and politicians to go along with dismantling apartheid. Whatever hindsight we might have, and I think a large scale race war would have broken SA, it was a commonly held opinion that the security services could maintain the apartheid system for the then foreseeable future.

Sorry, got my Bothas mixed up there for the first Botha.

[OomStruisbaai]

The 1981 Springbok tour to NZ played an important role for FW de Klerk to get his yes votes.

Many rugby loving Saffers realize the importance of international sport.

It divided NZ.

[Kiwias]

Strikes me that he occupies a similar place in history to Gorbachev in that he brought about an end to a dying, unsustainable system with relatively minor bloodshed.

I think these types of leaders never quite get the credit that they deserve because people tend to take for granted that what happened under their watch was inevitable.

Excellent comparison.

[Gumboot]

The 1981 Springbok tour to NZ played an important role for FW de Klerk to get his yes votes.

Many rugby loving Saffers realize the importance of international sport.

It divided NZ.

To South African exiles abroad, to all political prisoners inside South Africa and to those South African political parties, civic organisations and individuals who struggled against apartheid, such protests were a source of great inspiration. As Mandela so eloquently said during his state-visit in 1995 “the sun shone into the dark cells of Robin Island and transformed the oppressive Soweto dungeons of despair into beacons of hope”

[OomStruisbaai]

The 1981 Springbok tour to NZ played an important role for FW de Klerk to get his yes votes.

Many rugby loving Saffers realize the importance of international sport.

It divided NZ.

To South African exiles abroad, to all political prisoners inside South Africa and to those South African political parties, civic organisations and individuals who struggled against apartheid, such protests were a source of great inspiration. As Mandela so eloquently said during his state-visit in 1995 “the sun shone into the dark cells of Robin Island and transformed the oppressive Soweto dungeons of despair into beacons of hope”

All good and well. Since Mandela everything turned into shite.

[Sandstorm]

The 1981 Springbok tour to NZ played an important role for FW de Klerk to get his yes votes.

Many rugby loving Saffers realize the importance of international sport.

It divided NZ.

To South African exiles abroad, to all political prisoners inside South Africa and to those South African political parties, civic organisations and individuals who struggled against apartheid, such protests were a source of great inspiration. As Mandela so eloquently said during his state-visit in 1995 “the sun shone into the dark cells of Robin Island and transformed the oppressive Soweto dungeons of despair into beacons of hope”

Spiritual Guardians of Ending Apartheid

[Blake]

The 1981 Springbok tour to NZ played an important role for FW de Klerk to get his yes votes.

Many rugby loving Saffers realize the importance of international sport.

I don't agree with this narrative. Did it have an impact, yes, probably. Did it have as big of an impact as some rugby fans would like to think it did? No, not really.
At best it created some awareness locally among some of the brainwashed South Africans about how reviled Apartheid was and might have made them more politically aware and willing to vote to end Apartheid when the time came. But beyond that the impact was minimal. The NZ Tour was in 1981 and SARU and the government still managed to organise unsactioned some tours after that to give the people their bread and circus. Real moves only started happening many years later.

The real issues that moved the needle and crushed the system were:
1. economics,
2. the change in political winds and
3. local security concerns.

Government was broke due to sanctions and lack of trade, the USSR was crumbling and the Berlin Wall fell, resulting the US and UK no longer propping us up under the table as the African bulwark against communism, and there was growing unrest and violence in the black townships spilling into white urban areas. Those were all things the Nats couldn't control and ignore. The writing was on the wall.

But keep believing the Nats put ending Apartheid up for a vote and started negotiating a transition with the ANC because we weren't invited to the 1987 Rugby World Cup if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy about how sport mad we are.

[FalseBayFC]

Yes, and unlike in Rhodesia, they probably would have won the war.

Who? The SADF? Lol. They ultimately would have bled to death. The support from Israel, the UK and USA would have evaporated as soon as the optics of white soldiers killing black people escalated. Rhodesia has support from us and Britain. No way the apartheid govt could fight and survive a war once the under the table sanction busting dried up.

Ja the SADF.

It depends on your timeframe. I think it could have continued well into the late 2000s, even with heavy sanctions. SA was very self-sufficient.

Not a chance. Once Thatcher and Reagan went it became inevitable. Economically we were fudged. The cost of protecting the borders as well as dealing with the civil unrest was unsustainable much beyond 1990. Cosatu alone would have won the war without lifting a rifle.