The two of them, plus Terre’Blanche, claimed that they represented the majority of Afrikaners who wanted a Volkstaat. On the other hand, President de Klerk insisted that only he represented the majority of Afrikaners, all of whom rejected the demand.

‘The first condition was, therefore, that Afrikaners should have a referendum to determine whether or not they wanted a Volkstaat. Second, the result of the referendum would not necessarily bind the ANC, but would be an important factor to take into account when considering their demand. Finally, they should answer the question: Who was an Afrikaner? Was it a white person who spoke Afrikaans? Or was it any person – [including] black, that is African, Coloured or Indian – who spoke the language? On compliance with these conditions, I would then report to my organisation, leaving it to its members to review the matter as they deemed fit.

‘The general,’ Mandela writes, ‘was satisfied that I had given him something to present to his force, but Hartzenberg sharply differed and insisted that I should there and then make an unequivocal undertaking that I would give them the Volkstaat. I told him that I was a mere servant of the ANC, subject to their authority and discipline; that if I acted unilaterally on a principle of such fundamental importance the organisation would summarily dismiss me, rendering me useless to the right wing. He retorted quite firmly that if I did not accept his demand, the plan would be carried out. I said: “So be it,” and that was the end of our discussion.

‘That same day, I telephoned former President Botha and briefed him on the General’s decision. I requested the former president to persuade the General to join the negotiations at the World Trade Centre.

‘A few days later,’ Mandela continues, ‘the General [Viljoen] pulled out of the conspiracy of the right wing and joined the negotiating parties. His colleagues heavily vilified him for saving South Africa from such a calamity. Hartzenberg did not have any military capacity at all, and Terre’Blanche relied on a collection of undisciplined amateurs who had no idea whatsoever of what war involved.’46

General Viljoen, who knew exactly what war entailed, reached an agreement with the ANC negotiators on 12 April 1994, having registered his own newly formed political party, the Freedom Front, on 4 March 1994. But Mandela’s signature was still needed to secure the Freedom Front’s participation in the forthcoming elections. As days passed, a restive Viljoen decided to act. He knew that war was not actually an option, but he believed he could mobilise enough people to seriously disrupt the elections, and resolved to do so. Before taking the final decision, however, he confided his plans to the US ambassador, Princeton Lyman, who had maintained contact with Viljoen since late 1993, and with Mandela.47 The latter had phoned President Bill Clinton in February 1994, asking him to persuade Viljoen and others to take part in the elections.48 Lyman informed the ANC of the situation, and the Afrikaner Accord on Self-Determination was signed on 23 April 1994, three days before the start of the elections, by the Freedom Front, ANC and the National Party. It was an agreement for the parties ‘to address, through a process of negotiations, the idea of Afrikaner self-determination, including the concept of a Volkstaat.’49

The rejection of the right-wingers’ demands precipitated mayhem. Mandela writes that ‘on the eve of the elections, bombs exploded, especially in Johannesburg, and killed about twenty innocent civilians. It was a matter for police action, and the culprits were arrested and convicted. The situation would have imposed formidable difficulties if Viljoen was still part of the plot.’50

The media at home and abroad, which had been watching the unfolding drama with interest, reported how the elements of the right wing made good on their threat to try to disrupt the elections. The explosions, according to Bill Keller in the New York Times:

most minor, but ominous in their message, led some panicky residents to stockpile household goods but seemed only to harden the resolve of black voters to exercise their first franchise.

Bolstered by the united condemnation of politicians and by their own lifetimes of being denied, even blacks in the line of fire said they would not be frightened from voting.

‘Someone is trying to scare us away from the election,’ said Zole Msenti, who was sitting in his baby-blue minibus chatting with a friend when the Germiston blast suddenly lofted his vehicle into the air and smashed all the windows. Scores of vehicles gather each morning at suburban taxi parks to bring commuters into the city to work.

Bandaged but unbowed, he returned from the hospital to retrieve his taxi and accept the condolences of whites who stopped to commiserate.

‘They are wasting their time,’ he said of the spoilers. ‘We are going.’51

Mr Msenti’s three words – ‘we are going’ – almost certainly meant that he, his colleagues and their families were going to vote, come hell or high water. A few decades earlier, such determination might not even have been there, but now that the resistance had gained a foothold in every corner of the country, it had started to become a reality. As a taxi driver he might have ferried thousands of passengers and heard their tales of woe, which reflected the reality of what he and his peers had endured. And then one day, change began to seem possible. In 1976, the youth in schools had revolted against the imposition of Afrikaans as a language of instruction; in response the regime had tightened its chokehold around the necks of the people and declared States of Emergency. To many this was a sign that the apartheid government was losing its grip. In the words of American writer James Baldwin on the decline of a kingdom, ‘Force does not work the way its advocates seem to think it does. It does not, for example, reveal to the victim the strength of his adversary. On the contrary, it reveals the weakness, even the panic of his adversary, and this revelation invests the victim with patience. Furthermore, it is ultimately fatal to create too many victims.’52

*   *   *

When eight men were released from prison on 15 October 1989, it heralded the end of a system that had led to so much pain, and signalled that the walls were coming down.