Today in Spokane, two South African men shared their story about how they helped to end apartheid and bring peace to their homeland.
Greater Spokane hosted the men as part of its annual State of the Region meeting.
Roelf Meyer and Mohammad Bhabha were on opposite sides of South African society in the 1980s. Their country was on the verge of civil war. The white minority had ruled for decades and Blacks were angry about their standing in society.
Meyer, a white attorney and former member of the South African parliament, says, at the time, a majority of citizens believed it was time for change. But the question was how to make those changes in a way everyone in their diverse society could accept. Meyer says it was slow, tedious work that took several years.
“The essence of what I learned in that process is to say you have to engage. You have to be curious about the person on the other side. You have to find out who that person is. They have their own convictions," he said.
"The problem is that if we hold to our own, if I stayed in my own exclusive white Afrikaner conservative environment, I would never have opened up. But I had the opportunity to engage and I started to ask those questions and what I learned was to say, first of all, respect the individual on the other side. That is the basic thing.”
Mohammed Bhabha was on the same wavelength. Bhabha is of Indian descent, a negotiator, attorney and former member of parliament. He was part of the African National Congress team who realized that if reconciliation was to come about in South Africa, people needed to not let their anger control their actions.
“We understood that our enemy, our adversity, was not homogenous. Within them, there were people who may have shared values with us, similar values, we would agree. In the height of apartheid, when it was at its worst, we took the courage of approaching people like Roelf, very quietly, back channel, and said, let’s talk. If we want to save this country from what is happening in Iraq, in Syria and in Rwanda, I think we need to talk. But it was away from the spotlight," he said.
Those discussions between the two sides began, but Meyer and Bhabha had another challenge: how to communicate about the negotiations with their own constituents.
“The expectations, we had to manage them, and also create the kind of dialogue and narrative amongst our own constituency to start building the momentum. That, I think, was a very difficult task," Bhabha said.
"Unfortunately it’s hard work, but it has to be bottom up.”
Ultimately, Bhabha and Meyer say, they built enough support from the people in the political and economic middle of their society, that it led to the toppling of the apartheid government and the creation of a democracy. It isn’t perfect, but, says Bhabha, there is now a robust Black middle class in South Africa.
What are the lessons for today’s America? Meyer says recognize that you have a great country and also an important role in the world.
“It’s because you set an example to the rest of the world, in terms of democratic practices and of being a society that is largely at peace with itself. I would be worried and I see this as a threat if this is to be disturbed because that will have a damaging effect in terms of its impact on the rest of the world as American society," he said.
"The opportunities are certainly there to be a country with a message of what it means, within the democratic world, to project yourselves as a nation with good governance, with all the opportunities for every individual and to project yourselves as the leading light in the world for all those values.”
Meyer and Bhabha travel the world, partnering with the group Civic Genius, to share their stories. The Greater Spokane event was co-sponsored by the William D. Ruckelshaus Center.
Hear the entire GSI forum here,
