Resisting or Embracing Reform? South Africa's Democratic Transition and NGK-State Relations

Abstract

The world eagerly anticipated South Africa's dramatic change in the 1990s. In May 1994, Nelson Mandela became the country's first black president, a long-awaited moment for many South Africans, a much-feared event for others. Significant events in the 1980s pre ceded the end of white minority rule in South Africa, including the effective protest of apartheid laws by the masses, the intensification of international pressure, and the initiation of political change by P.W. Botha. In 1990, President F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela ar ranged a multiparty negotiating forum that led to the first fully demo cratic election from 26 April to 29 April 1994. Although the main participants in South Africa's democratic transi tion were political institutions such as the African National Congress (ANC) and the National Party (NP), societal organizations such as the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK), otherwise known as the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), also played an important role in the democratic transition. This essay focuses on the relationship between the South African State and the NGK from 1979 to 1994.1 During that period, the NGK and the state exhibited a relationship of mutual en gagement in which the two entities held similar opinions on the major ity of policy issues. Most of the time, the NGK continued to give its