South Africa's Transition from Apartheid: A Conflict Resolution Analysis

Introduction: Colonization and the Path to Conflict Resolution

The world is changing around us at a rapid pace. We are moving towards a world community, and as we move in that direction, we will resolve the political, social, and economic issues that divide us and prevent us from living in peaceful coexistence. Living in peaceful coexistence within a world community is the first step towards an open world society wherein our cultural and ethnic diversities are celebrated rather than merely tolerated. This path towards a world community is one that will be paved through conflict resolution (CR) at an international level. Even after we bring about peaceful coexistence, we will need to manage the conflict that can be anticipated because of our diversities. In this endeavor, we must utilize the many disciplines upon which CR is premised, and draw on the historical tool of bringing lessons learned forward in conflict resolution. South Africa is a case in point where we can do this.

South Africa offers us a unique insight into the CR process. South Africa, like other African and Asian nations — and other places, including America — was colonized by Europeans. Colonization was a process whereby a more powerful European nation would establish colonies within an indigenous culture or cultures, and build infrastructures, legal systems, and economies that were often founded on exploiting the colonized land's natural resources, such as diamonds, gold, copper, and other minerals. One of the main problems with colonization was that the immigrant Europeans believed themselves to be socially superior to the indigenous peoples whose lands they occupied. The infrastructures that were created had little place or purpose for indigenous people except in subservient roles, or to the extent that colonizers needed them to serve as liaisons to bridge language gaps, to provide labor, or to enforce European laws. All of this stood in stark contrast to the cultural identity and traditions of the indigenous peoples.

During the post-World War II era, the people of the world began experiencing an awakening of social conscience, and the plight of colonized countries and peoples began coming into focus within the world conscience. The struggle for independence from European nations that controlled countries around the world intensified, and leaders of these movements — like Mahatma Gandhi, whose work actually began in South Africa some twenty years before he returned to his homeland of India — became symbols of the movement to decolonize third-world nations and return political control to indigenous peoples.

Decolonizing nations was no small task. It would mean bringing together the descendants of European immigrants and the indigenous people — both of whom had distinctly different cultural traditions and heritages, but who now shared a common infrastructure. The features of the situation and the relationship between the parties (Pruitt and Kim, 2004) were complicated by the new social hierarchy created within the indigenous groups, and by the presence of European descendants who were now second, third, and even fourth generation and who regarded the colonized country as their own homeland. Additionally, the various segments of indigenous society had long been treated as a single identity, but during decolonization they distinguished themselves along the lines of their distinct and multiple cultural identities within the broader society.

These complex political, social, and economic conditions are found in the case of South Africa. Using Marina Ottaway's (1993) book South Africa: The Struggle for a New Order, we have an opportunity to use South Africa as a case study in conflict resolution. South Africa is now more than twenty years into its process of conflict resolution, and we can take Ottaway's assessments of the events and processes and examine them with the value-added hindsight of history.

The Case of South Africa

In February 1990, South Africa embarked upon a historic path — one to which its white Afrikaner leaders had been steered by world opinion. Under pressure from world leaders, who were themselves under pressure from their constituents, South Africa took its first steps toward including its black majority in the country's political, social, and economic processes from which blacks had long been excluded. The first steps, though largely symbolic in nature, nonetheless reflected the white minority government's willingness to finally create a role for the country's black majority — a development that would inevitably lead to black majority control over the country, albeit with protections for the white minority Afrikaners. Each group, harboring long-standing fears and concerns about the changes beginning to take place, needed to find a balance that would best serve the country as a whole.

Symbolic of this change in direction was the release from prison of the black political leader Nelson Mandela (Ottaway, 1993). Mandela had been imprisoned for twenty-seven years, and his African National Congress (ANC) party had been banned. South Africa had banned any black freedom or opposition group, but Mandela had become an international symbol of the country's disenfranchised indigenous people and the struggle against apartheid.

In the same way that Mandela symbolized the struggle for South African liberation, State President Frederik W. de Klerk came to represent apartheid and the white minority government as its architects. The white minority government were villains in the eyes of the free world, yet their worst fears were about to manifest in reality.

Immediately upon his release from prison, Mandela — no doubt feeling empowered by the support of the world — began to make statements that demonstrated a lack of the experience and political skills needed to facilitate peace between the white minority and black majority. Mandela commented that "it might be necessary to nationalize major economic assets for the good of the entire society" (Ottaway, 1993, p. 132). Understandably, this sent a red flag throughout the South African business community. Communism was crumbling in the Soviet Union — it was a failed system, and Russia, the Eastern bloc countries, and East Germany were proof that while capitalism might not be perfect, a free-market system had proven sustainable, while communism had not. Mandela's comment was offhand, lacked forethought, and revealed an unawareness of what was happening in the wider world.

South Africa's white minority government leaders, more sophisticated and experienced than Mandela, likely understood that the inevitable outcome of the unfolding situation would be a black majority government in the near future. De Klerk met with Mandela at the first session of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). Though de Klerk and Mandela appeared together in a photo opportunity, Mandela once again demonstrated his lack of political finesse by using the occasion as a platform to launch a scathing rebuke of de Klerk, alleging that de Klerk had behaved despicably (Ottaway, 1993, p. 1). Mandela's remarks cast a dark cloud over an event that would otherwise have stood as a symbol of the coming together of minority and majority leaderships.

The white minority — because they held the reins of power — and Mandela with the ANC were perhaps the major players in the transitioning change, but certainly not the only players. Other organizations already existed, including the Zulus (Ottaway, 1993, p. 164), who constituted a large segment of the black population. Yet CODESA, and the ensuing negotiations, would be dominated by de Klerk, Mandela, and their respective supporters. The unspoken agenda of the white minority was in some ways obvious, and in light of Mandela's comments, even more so with respect to the ANC's goals. These dynamics created an ideal situation in which to employ conflict resolution theory and techniques.

Resolving Conflict in South Africa's Transition from Apartheid

If we apply Mitchell's conflict pyramid (Pruitt and Kim, 2004, pp. 28–29) to the problems requiring CR attention in South Africa, the top point — from which all other problems emanate — would be goal incompatibility. The goals of the white Afrikaners, the Zulu population (whose cultural traditions are distinctly different from those of the black population represented by the ANC), and the ANC itself were fundamentally at odds. The top of the pyramid, then, is goal incompatibility; the second point represents the primary power bases — the white National Party and Mandela's ANC; and the third point encompasses all other parties whose power bases were less strong than the first two, but whose goals must nonetheless be considered in order to arrive at lasting peace.

We can also examine the pyramid through the instrumental approach, because it quickly becomes clear that the main underlying issue — the commonality between all parties that could merge their goals — is resource-oriented. Specifically, it concerns the allocation of economic wealth and the opportunity to acquire wealth, so that the disenfranchised population can move beyond poverty. The instrumental approach is sound because it incorporates the psychological and cultural considerations that are integral to South Africa's successful transition. Resolving the conflict from these perspectives would move the transition toward success, making it possible to address the more technical economic problems thereafter.

The instrumental approach is also appropriate because the conflicting agendas of the parties were unspoken and covert, preventing those goals from being consciously recognized by all sides. The white minority's agenda was, almost certainly, to maintain as much control as possible over the functions and decisions of government — in part because they distrusted the ANC's capacity for sound governance, given Mandela's careless statement about nationalizing businesses and his public rebuke of de Klerk. These goals were, however, recognized by outside observers of the process.

As it turned out, the two major players — the white National Party and the ANC — ultimately succumbed to the pressures of the multi-faceted third point on the pyramid, which encompassed all other interests. That third point included the interests of white South Africans who were tired of civil unrest and violence, and who wanted to feel secure in their homes and to go about the business of rebuilding their lives, businesses, and farms. For these reasons, the CODESA meetings became the key platform on which to pursue the interests of all parties — but also the platform that revealed how both major players, the National Party and the ANC, had failed by not forging strong bonds with the other interests (Ottaway, 1993, p. 164). This meant that CODESA was, in important respects, a failure (p. 167) — though not entirely.

CODESA became the vehicle upon which the two major players came together with unspoken, self-interested agendas, and it broke down under the weight of those interests. Had the emphasis been less on self-interest and vying for power and more on sharing and distributing interests and power, it might have succeeded. Nevertheless, CODESA defined the conflict in broader terms and identified points for potential resolution, including the possibility of bringing the disenfranchised into the political process as genuine partners and participants.

South Africa reflects the cultural paradigm: conflict is caused by competing interests, and indeed the interests at CODESA were varied, but dominated by the two stronger parties. The interests of the National Party and the ANC prevented a constitution from being adopted at CODESA II — a document that might have transcended self-interest and created sustainable constitutional rights for the broader population and lesser-powerful entities in the country.

Conclusion: The Opportunity South Africa Presents for Conflict Resolution

Employment is the avenue by which the masses can begin to realize full partnership in a black majority government. Opportunities for employment must include resources for entrepreneurial endeavors. Small business opportunities must be created for those whose life circumstances were impaired by apartheid and who did not have the education or opportunities to engage economically in a post-apartheid environment.

Healthcare must be a priority, both because it brings the masses into full partnership as members of the black majority, and because the country suffers from an HIV/AIDS epidemic (CIA World Factbook, 2010) that continues to threaten not just individual health, but the broader economy as well.

Education must be a primary area of focus. Under the apartheid system, the education of the black majority was neither a focus nor a primary concern, and as a result few members of the black majority were adequately educated or prepared to become full partners in post-apartheid politics or the economy. The CIA World Factbook (2010), however, reports that the country has made progress: the percentage of South Africans over the age of 15 who can read and write stands at 86.4% — higher than might have been anticipated given the apartheid legacy.

Finally, it would be in the ANC's best interest to build bonds and establish working relationships with the white political minority that created and maintained the original infrastructure of the country — the infrastructure the ANC more or less inherited. By now, people are, if not entirely free of racism, at least less overt about such views, as open racism does not further anyone's goals in a post-apartheid environment. The experience and expertise of the white minority should not be discounted or disregarded by the ANC. Creating such a partnership could, in the long term, prove to be the bond that saves both the ANC and South Africa itself.