Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

by Van Kessel, Ineke

• ISBN13: 9780813918686
• ISBN10: 0813918685
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

As anyone who lived through that decade knows, the 1980s in South Africa were marked by protest, violent confrontation, and international sanctions. Internally, the country saw a bewildering growth of grassroots organizations--including trade unions, civic associations in the black townships, student and other youth organizations, church-based groups, and women's movements--many of which operated under the umbrella of the United Democratic Front (UDF). "Beyond Our Wildest Dreams" explores the often conflicted relationship between the UDF's large-scale resistance to apartheid and its everyday struggles at the local level.In hindsight, the UDF can be seen as a transitional front, preparing the ground for leaders of the liberation movement to return from exile or prison and take over power. But the founding fathers of the UDF initially had far more modest ambitions. As Azhar Cachalia, one of its core activists, later explained: "Look, when we founded the UDF, we had never in our wildest dreams expected that events would take off in the way they did. What happened was beyond everybody's expectations."Interviews with Cachalia and other leading personalities in the UDF examine the organization's workings at the national level, while stories of ordinary people, collected by the author, illuminate the grassroots activism so important to the UDF's success. Even in South Africa, writes Ineke van Kessel, who covered the anti-apartheid movement as a journalist, resistance was not the obvious option for ordinary citizens. Van Kessel shows how these people were mobilized into forming a radical social movement that developed a highly flexible and innovative form of resistance that ultimately ended apartheid.

Author Biography

Ineke van Kessel is a researcher at the African Studies Centre in Leiden, The Netherlands.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Abbreviations	xiii
Chronology	xvii
Introduction	1	(14)
Part One Redrawing the Boundaries: Changing the Terms of Exclusion and Incorporation
The UDF and South Africa in the 1980s: The Events	15	(33)
Making Sense of Events: Interpreting the 1980s	48	(27)
Part Two The Struggles behind the Struggle: Three Case Studies
``From Confusion to Lusaka'': The UDF in Sekhukhuneland	75	(75)
``Yah, God Is on Our Side'': The Krugersdorp Residents Organisation and Township Revolt	150	(74)
Grassroots: From Community Paper to Activist Playground	224	(85)
Conclusion	288	(21)
Note on Methodology and Sources	309	(6)
Notes	315	(28)
Bibliography	343	(16)
Index	359