THE SUBSTANCE AND POLITICS OF NELSON MANDELA’S RECONCILIATION EFFORTS DURING THE MANDELAN DECADE

Abstract

The history of the first ten years of post-apartheid South Africa is essentially the history of the numerous efforts that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela made to achieve reconciliation between the beneficiaries and victims of apartheid. His historic inauguration on 10 May, 1994 as the first-ever fully democratically elected president of South Africa closed the darkest period in that country’s history. Apartheid, which came to an end with his presidential inauguration, was a state policy of racial segregation, and has existed only in South Africa. Racial segregation, of course, has existed in other countries such as the United States, but not as a state policy. Interestingly, the abolition of apartheid created another serious problem---how to navigate the deeply-divided country through the tricky, treacherous terrain of transition from white minority rule to black majority rule. Mandela, upon whose shoulders this task fell, faced certain difficulties as he tried to help the country come over its unpleasant past. The major difficulty was how to appease the victims, without alarming the beneficiaries, of apartheid. Those ten years of his centrality in his country’s politics viz. 1990-1999 are referred to in this paper as the “Mandelan Decade”. This study, through the intricate application of fact, sympathy and understanding took time to gather and garner evidential facts made bare by quantitative and qualitative information. In the light of this, the paper duly, exemplarily upholds Mandela’s political attributes, but recommends it for global emulation for peaceful coexistence in racially-divided societies. The Mandelan Decade in South African annals remain a good referral.