Word: klerk
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...Klerk counts himself an optimist. Last week he went home to the Transvaal to see his newborn first grandson, and expressed his hope for the future. "I think he's going to be part of a country on its way to greatness," said the State President. A country on its way to something, yes, but no one knows precisely what. That newborn baby is among the first generation of Afrikaners whose future is not assured. While the past in South Africa appears to be dying, the future is yet to be born...
...forever to dominate 26 million blacks politically, economically and socially. Blacks, who have fought so ineffectually for almost 80 years, have come to feel that their long struggle has not been in vain. In the climate of flexibility fostered by the reform-minded government of State President F.W. de Klerk, the vast majority of South Africans expect a new kind of country to emerge. But the races are still far, far apart on what kind of country that will...
...implementing the government's promises of reform. It is believed that if anyone can bridge the vast divides between whites and blacks, and among the blacks themselves, Mandela can. The white government looks on him as a born- again moderate, a "man you can negotiate with," as De Klerk himself decided. For blacks, Mandela may be the one who, as the personification of their long suffering, can help them transcend the disagreements over strategy and allegiance that have splintered their strength, and bargain on equal terms with the whites...
...Botha's warning in 1979 that whites must "adapt or die," the idea of changing national institutions and the realization that power should be shared with the black majority have moved into the mainstream. That change of attitude has been given real impetus in the five months since De Klerk was elected to succeed Botha. With a speed that surprised almost everyone, the new and little-known President made a series of conciliatory moves, unofficially lifting a 30-year restriction on mass protests, releasing several prominent political prisoners and giving restricted antiapartheid groups some leeway to operate...
...Klerk's most important step was to begin a personal dialogue with Mandela, a revered leader of the African National Congress. The government wanted to speed up the "talks about talks," designed to get formal negotiations under way. On Dec. 13, at the presidential residence in Cape Town known as Tuynhuys, the two men held the first of a planned series of meetings on ways to convene an indaba (Zulu for "negotiations") that would write a new constitution granting blacks the right to vote for a national government. The meeting signaled that De Klerk, unlike his predecessors, was willing...