7 ways Nelson Mandela changed South Africa

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share via Email
• Copy Link

  Link Copied

Almost two decades have passed since the end of legalized racial segregation in South Africa, yet the abolition of apartheid remains the biggest legacy of Nelson Mandela.

Anyone aged 18 or under will not have witnessed the public separation of whites and blacks enshrined in law, yet that was the daily reality in a country where races had been kept apart since colonial times.

South Africa continued to enforce racial division, denying blacks the right to vote, until Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 allowed him to begin negotiations with then-president Frederik Willem de Klerk. Apartheid ended with the arrival of multi-racial elections in 1994.

This transformation was achieved almost entirely peacefully despite the country’s long history of racial violence and a brutal police force.

On his release from captivity in 1990, Mandela’s African National Congress continued its historic commitment to an armed struggle against apartheid.

The 1993 assassination of ANC figurehead Chris Hani by right-wing white extremists heightened fears that the country was destined for a racial bloodbath, but Mandela issued an appeal: “Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who, from any quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for – the freedom of all of us.”

The renunciation of violence was one of the defining moments of the political process, and earned Mandela and de Klerk the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

The transition formally turned South Africa into a democracy, bringing in one of the world’s most progressive constitutions and allowing blacks not only into polling booths, but also into the corridors of power.

In doing so, South Africa also lost its global pariah status. Apartheid had been punished by sanctions including a trade embargo and a ban on direct flights to dozens of countries, like the United States.

In his inauguration speech in 1994, Mandela heralded the country’s re-entry onto the world stage, saying it should become “a rainbow nation” that would never again be seen as “the skunk of the world.”

Click here to read more.