Prof. Janet Cherry(Nelson Mandela University)

At the beginning of the 1980s, the prospects for a democratic transition in South Africa seemed remote. Nelson Mandela was in prison and the Apartheid state was a sophisticated authoritarian regime, combining limited reforms with an increasingly militarised security state. However, over the course of the decade, a powerful mass movement emerged which combined in 1983 to form the United Democratic Front. This movement engaged in a sustained strategy to render the apartheid state illegitimate, and ultimately led to the negotiations which resulted in the transition to a single, non-racial, secular and democratic state. In this paper, Professor Cherry, who was herself an activist in this movement throughout the decade of the 1980s, explores the strategy and tactics of the movement, including the ways in which the movement coped with the repressive measures of the authoritarian Apartheid regime.