Talks about Talks
Before they could start negotiations on substantial issues, the parties
had to agree upon a format-who
should participate and what should the
agenda be? This took nearly two years. Leaders of the white establishment
and the black resistance had to get to know each other and create a mini-
mum of mutual trust before they could sit down together and thrash
out the terms of a new political and constitutional
order. Moreover, on
both sides of the color line there were people who wished to torpedo the
peaceful, negotiated change process. White South Africans-especially
Afrikaners-had
been molded by years of racist propaganda to abomi-
nate the very idea of black empowerment. The Conservative party, which
won 30 percent of the vote for the white legislature in a general election in
I989, as well as several organizations still further to the right, vehemently
opposed negotiations with Blacks; and so did elements in the army, the po-
lice, and the bureaucracy. Africans, too, were deeply divided on the issue.
Many, especially former guerrillas who had spent years training to seize
control of South Africa by force, were profoundly suspicious of Mandela
and shocked by his independent discussions with the government.