Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Date: 12-15-12
Topic: Apartheid
Questions/Main Ideas:
Notes:
Apartheid
Segregation
ended
unemployed blacks, a shrinking white minority, continued black
resistance, and an economy suffering from international sanctions
finally convinced many South Africans that something had to change.
F.W. De Klerk was elected in 1989 and promised to seek a compromise
between the majority and the minority.
Further, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 removed the
specter of an ANC supported by the Soviets, which had to many
justified the government's oppressive policies. The time was right for
change.
1964: Nelson
Mandela was arrested
Nelson Mandela, a leader of the ANC, had been arrested in 1964 and
sentenced to life imprisonment. Behind bars on Robben Island he
Questions/Main Ideas:
Nelson Mandela
Notes:
Nelson Mandela is a South African politician who served as President
of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully
representative democratic election. Before being elected President,
Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and cofounder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African
National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of
sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these
years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11
February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the
establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave
priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at
combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.
Summary:
The final stage of apartheid's demise happened so quickly as to have taken many people in South
Africa and throughout the world by surprise. The release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990 and the
lifting of the ban of the African National Congress (ANC) and other liberation movements led to a
protracted series of negotiations out of which emerged a democratic constitution and the first free
election in the country's history. Democracy did not emerge spontaneously; it had to be built
laboriously, brick by brick. This was a complex process, following years of multifaceted struggle and
accompanied in the 1990-1994 period by convulsive violence as vested interests resisted change.
Probably unique in the history of colonialism, white settlers voluntarily gave up their monopoly of
political power. The final transfer of power was remarkably peaceful; it is often is described as a
"miracle" because many thought that South Africa would erupt into violent civil war.