Book Description

After centuries of white domination and decades of increasingly savage repression, freedom came to South Africa far later than elsewhere in the continent- and yet was marked by a commitment to non-racialism. Nelson Mandela's cabinet and government were made up of women and men of all races and many spoke of the birth of a new "Rainbow Nation." How did this come about? How did an African nationalist liberation movement resisting apartheid- a universally denounced violent expression of white supremacy- open its doors to other races, and whites in particular? And what did non-racialism mean? This is the real 'miracle' of South Africa: that at the height of white supremacy and repression, black and white democrats- in their different organisations, coming from vastly different backgrounds and traditions- agreed on one thing: that the future for South Africa would be non-racial. This book is a path-breaking study of the emergence of non-racialism in South Africa. It tells some of the stories and hidden histories that help explain South Africa's past. It focuses on a talented, brave, but tiny minority of whites, liberals, radicals, communists, Trotskyists, humanists, Christians, and idealists who rejected the growing racism of post-war South Africa and worked to breach the dividing line between black and white. From the Torch Commando that could mobilize tens of thousands of whites at the beginning of the 1950s to the Liberal Party and Congress of Democrats that could only boast a few hundred members by the end of the decade, white activists fought to maintain the vision of racial equality in an increasingly divided society. Their African nationalist allies fought a harder battle within the ANC and other organizations in order to keep alive the notion that black and white could struggle together and live peacefully. Together, black and white activists developed a theory of struggle and ways of mobilizing that maintained the ideal of a non-racial South Africa. The democratic state ushered in after 1994 can be traced back directly to the work that activists undertook in the 1950s and after.