[foldr]

That's all fine, I just don't think it really refutes the point that "It takes a lot of people contributing to uphold it [Apartheid]."

>An the 1992 referendum proved their suspicions to be correct!

Well, sort of, except the National Party was campaigning for a 'Yes' [to end apartheid] vote.

[throwaway210222]

> Well, sort of, except the National Party was campaigning for a 'Yes' [to end apartheid] vote.

I'm not sure how that minimised anyone who then voted "yes, I'm glad you are finally proposing that - its what I want"? Odd line to take.

But the Apartheid National Party did a lot stranger things than that - after a quick rebrand - they decided to merge with the ANC!

As I said - a complicated place.

[foldr]

As you’ve noted yourself, the government had a large amount of control over the media and the political system as a whole. It would be disingenuous to identify this as the primary factor in the maintenance of the apartheid system (as you have in several of your posts) and yet deny that it had any meaningful influence on the referendum result. The striking fact is that even with the party that introduced apartheid campaigning to repeal it, almost a third of whites voted to keep the system. And as others have pointed out, this was at a point in time where SA had become a pariah state and it was abundantly clear that apartheid could not continue – even to many dyed-in-the-wool racists who had no objection to it in principle.

[throwaway210222]

I never know what the next step in these conversations is meant to be: a nation of people did a really bad thing. They - or their children their grandchildren clearly changed their mind when first given a real, unrigged vote.

Now it only happened because the evil party told them to and the world was forcing them to? So what ? They haven't really changed deep down? And the proof is somehow the absolute strangers in the minority who didn't change their mind?

I am going to have to call a halt to my participation here as: to quote teachrdan - is absurd.

[foldr]

The motivations behind people’s votes rather obviously do matter if your are attempting to use these votes as evidence of a particular attitude towards the apartheid system.

The best that can be said is that once the imminent collapse of apartheid became obvious to almost everyone, a clear (but not overwhelming) majority of white people voted to get rid of it.

To me these facts are obviously inconsistent with the narrative that apartheid was an unpopular policy that persisted only because of gerrymandering and other electoral shenanigans. One can also look at polling and surveys to reach the same conclusion.

[mdpm]

I was a child of that transition, and part of a family that worked and fought for that transition. Don't decry the efforts that led to it having the broad support it did. Did some people want to remain in the past they'd been conditioned to? Sure. Some East Germans did too. They're victims alike, but not in proportion. Wanting to consider the nature of the people as evil, we end up applying the fundamental attribution error, but on a group, which is far worse.

[foldr]

The point is not that no progress had been made by the 90s. The point is simply that we must acknowledge the complicity of large numbers of white South Africans in the apartheid system, and acknowledge that many crucial components of apartheid (such as a the ban on interracial marriage) were popular policies. Outside of revisionist historical circles, this isn't a remotely controversial point.

Ultimately I defer to the comprehensive TRC report. Here is an apt quote from the introduction to volume 4:

>An important debate with which the Commission had to wrestle was, as has been fully discussed in the chapter on The Mandate, how to paint the backdrop against which such human rights violations occurred. Without some sense of the “antecedents, circumstances, factors and context” within which gross violations of human rights occurred, it is almost impossible to understand how, over the years, people who considered themselves ordinary, decent and God-fearing found themselves turning a blind eye to a system which impoverished, oppressed and violated the lives and very existence of so many of their fellow citizens.

>It is an old question: one that is asked of any country that undertakes acts so foul that the world openly condemns it. It is a question that has been answered in different ways, for such is the nature of historical debate. However, what is clear is that apartheid could only have happened if large numbers of enfranchised, relatively privileged South Africans either condoned or simply allowed it to continue.