It is the most realistic and reasonable approach. One has to take into consideration the nature of the transition in this country, which is through negotiations with an enemy which we haven’t defeated. Given the polarization, the instability, the reality of a white population of almost 5 million in full control of the civil service and the army, we would need to lay down a foundation of stability, unity and reconciliation. . . . It was not easy to accept this, and it’s not the deal I would have wanted. But given the objective conditions and the balance of forces, this deal takes us somewhere…. We have been criticized by other groups who say this is a sell-out. But I don’t believe that. It’s not possible to get democracy in this country with one stroke. We can go to the polls and win power … but we’ll be a weak government that will not have the full support of the civil service and the army.
Communism as we understood it and as it was practiced prior to its collapse in Eastern Europe was antidemocratic. Because we belonged to that past of an authoritarian kind of socialism, we are very sensitive now to the needs for democracy. We now have been converted to multiparty democracy. And I don’t think Americans should still be prisoners of the cold-war period. … We [Communists] have been part of a tradition of fighting apartheid from the very beginning. Secondly, people in this country are grateful that we, even more than the ANC, were the champions of nonracialism. We never believed in a black party, we believed in a nonracial party. Thirdly, Communists have always played a prominent role in all the difficult phases of the struggle. Our party deals with the everyday problems of Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary, and that’s why we are very popular among workers in the rural areas.
Whether we like it or not, whites are South Africans like ourselves. They took power away from us and oppressed us, but we didn’t get into the struggle to destroy the white group. We want to convince whites that democracy is better than apartheid, that … they will continue having a better life and a more normal life. They won’t fear the blacks they’ve feared for years. Whites are beginning to realize that changes are inevitable, and they are learning to live with changes. I stay in a conservative part of Johannesburg called Boksburg, and my kids have not been harassed. I’ve had no problems. I’m an optimist, and it may take some time, but political democracy will triumph.
