Word: mandelas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That brave repudiation of a regime bent on perpetuating white hegemony in South Africa earned Mandela a lifetime's incarceration, while his jailers pressed on with their megalomaniac construct called grand apartheid. At the same time, his stance just as surely launched South Africa on the road to democracy. Last week the country took an irreversible step forward when black and white political leaders declared that every citizen will be able to vote to choose the government. With that historic agreement, Mandela and South Africa's 28 million blacks will be able to savor the success of their freedom struggle...
...humiliation, injustice and injury of the past four decades and complete the dismantling of apartheid, that pervasively dysfunctional experiment in political and social engineering. The balloting will allow the pariah state to regain a place in the community of nations. And the voters will almost certainly reward Mandela's stoic struggle by conferring on him the leadership of his country...
...usher in a ready-formed New South Africa. Even as most South Africans delight in the prospect of free elections, they are beginning to sense that the immediate future holds much hardship and that the three years of turmoil following De Klerk's decision to dismantle apartheid and release Mandela is a taste of things to come. "The pattern has already been set," warns Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party. "It is going to be turbulent, no matter who is at the helm...
Frustrating too, particularly when it comes to fulfilling the expectations of a populace impatient to see political power translated into a more equitable distribution of resources. "People have suffered so much that they now expect the opposite," says Harry Gwala, a senior member of Mandela's African National Congress in strife-torn Natal province. "But we can't perform miracles...
Despite the legacy of hatred, negotiations have progressed with a smoothness that few would have predicted when Mandela was released from prison in 1990. Although many important issues remain unresolved, the blueprint for the country's political future has been drawn, and in the coming weeks negotiators hope to complete the details. The next move should be the appointment as early as this month of a multiparty Transitional Executive Council that will have no executive authority but will oversee De Klerk's government policies to ensure their nonpartisan nature. When South Africans finally go to the polls, they will elect...