Book Description:
This publication explains in detail why apartheid was abandoned by South Africa's ruling white National Party and why the National Party was brought to the negotiating table with the African National Congress and other black political organizations. Until 1970, those white interest groups which perceived themselves to be adversely affected by a market economy successfully used apartheid to control 'color blind' social and economic forces to their advantage. From 1970, however, power shifted, first to other white groups with interests in the erosion or abolition of apartheid and later from whites to blacks, who also undermined apartheid. In this way, anti apartheid market forces were directed initially by whites, then by blacks. The author examines the underlying conditions for these shifts of power and the Nationalist Party's failure to maintain apartheid. It is argued that the revolutionary attempts by black political organizations to influence or initiate change through armed struggle, education boycotts, sanctions and 'mass mobilization' proved disastrous in consequence. The author suggests that political action was not necessary to end apartheid, since apartheid's dismantling displayed key characteristics: apartheid legislation was already unenforced or unenforceable before its repeal; the decisive pressure on apartheid came from people, not political activists or organizations; and people defied apartheid for socio economic rather than political reasons. In this publication, written in the early years of South Africa's democracy, apartheid's decline is examined under three categories, that of occupational, geographical and political apartheid. It is thus of great historical and sociological interest to researchers and theorists.
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