About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

On Afrikaners

But for the Afrikaner, compromise was tantamount to surrender and the next time -- some 32 years later -- Mandela made an offer, his position was considerably different. Then he demanded rule by the majority, a proposition the Afrikaner had to agree to once the negotiating process had run its course. Foresight could not be counted among the Afrikaner's virtues. Because they were a minority, Afrikaners could only assert their claim through domination. Apartheid was merely one reflection of that domination, not its quintessence. In other words, you could dismantle the apparatus of apartheid and still have White minority domination. The abolition of apartheid was a necessary condition for ending White domination but in itself not a sufficient one.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.