New at Reason: Jesse Walker on the Death of Apartheid

February 11, 2010

Twenty years ago today, the South African government freed Nelson Mandela, the leading symbol of resistance to apartheid. Within four years apartheid was dead and Mandela's group, the African National Congress, was in control of the country. Its decades of armed struggle finally seemed to have paid off.

Or had they? Managing Editor Jesse Walker interviews Howard Barrell, a journalist, historian, and former ANC operative with a more nuanced view of the South African revolt. The activism that eliminated apartheid was largely accomplished by other organizers working autonomously and nonviolently, he argues; the ANC's armed assaults were a series of failures. But in just one of the many paradoxes that make up South African history, those high-profile operations gave the ANC a formidable reputation among the regime's opponents, making the group popular enough to negotiate a settlement with the white government.

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