Remembrance of war in South Africa

Abstract

“We in South Africa have a war going on. Those who have not realized it are foolish.” Thus spoke Frank Chikane, cleric and anti‐apartheid leader, assessing the political situation in the mid‐1980s. This view was shared not only by black opponents of apartheid but also by many white supporters of the system. Some white South Africans appeared oblivious to the history of violence in South Africa—not altogether surprising given the nation's severe censorship laws and the violence's confinement in the black townships. But as violence accelerated in the 1980s, the militarization of society became obvious to all, and South Africa was virtually a country at war with itself. In the 1980s the concept of “total war,” involving the entire population, was developed under the administration of National Party president P.W. Botha. The government argued that whites were under “total onslaught” by communist‐inspired black terrorists seeking to bring down the government, thus necessitating the total commitment of the Sout...