In the 1990s, when I was just a teenager, South Africa embarked upon a remarkable process to end apartheid, draft a new constitution and establish a society based on equality and justice. Nelson Mandela had been released from Robben Island after almost three decades, exiles were beginning to return, and political negotiations had begun to determine how decades of white minority rule would be ended without a massive loss of life.
Those negotiations were tense and difficult, continually undermined by rightwingers who were hellbent on holding on to apartheid. Each time there was progress, the Conservative party and a range of white supremacist groups would question the authority and the legitimacy of FW de Klerk, the then president of the country.
They caricatured him as an elitist, arguing that “ordinary” white people – those working on farms and far away from the big cities – had not been consulted on these changes. They insisted that De Klerk was acting on his personal beliefs, but had no mandate to negotiate away white minority rule.
In order to address these charges, De Klerk decided to hold a referendum, in which he would ask white South Africans whether they gave his government permission to continue on the path of ending apartheid. The question white voters had to decide on was: “Do you support the continuation of the reform process that the state president started on 2 February 1990 and which is aimed at a new constitution through negotiation?”
The stakes were high. De Klerk needed the space to negotiate with the African National Congress (ANC) and other liberation forces in good faith. If he won, and the country voted “yes,” De Klerk would neutralise his rightwing opponents and be free to sit at the table and work out the details of a new constitution.
On the other hand, if he lost on the basis of the “no” campaign winning, De Klerk promised he would resign as president and new elections would be called.
The ANC was in a difficult position. A whites-only vote flew in the face of the principles it had fought for since it was founded in 1912. Asking white people to vote to determine the future of a Black population that did not have the right to vote felt counterintuitive and morally questionable.
And yet, as Mandela and others argued, a “no” vote would reverse the entire negotiation process and plunge the country into chaos. If Black and white could not sit at a table and craft a new future together, they would be forced to do battle in the streets. The time had come for change, and the choices were stark. Even racists recognised that white minority rule was no longer tenable.
And so, a broad coalition of future-minded realists began the task of campaigning hard for a “yes” vote. Big business, including companies like Standard Bank, Anglo American and others, formed an alliance and supported the yes campaign. They took out ads in the papers arguing that after years of international condemnation, since Mandela’s release in February 1991, capital was finally flowing back into the country and sanctions were being lifted. A “No” vote would threaten these gains.
Their arguments were reinforced by the international community, which made it clear that if white South Africans voted “yes,” the remaining economic and sporting sanctions would fall away almost immediately. If they wanted to turn back the clock and cling to their ways, the world would respond accordingly.
In March 1992, the results of the referendum were made public. White people had voted yes, giving De Klerk the mandate to go back to the negotiating table with Mandela.
A mere two years later, South Africans of all races voted in a historic set of elections. That jubilant day would not have been possible without that yes campaign.
White South Africans who voted “yes” did so for many reasons. Some did it out of a sense of human connection, others for more pragmatic reasons – a South Africa shackled to its past would never address the massive problems of Black unemployment and poverty.
Regardless of their reasons, the outcomes were undeniably positive. A single sentence allowed the country to move on to address much bigger systemic problems.
South Africa is not a perfect country, but its story of transition offers many lessons. And yes, there are many differences, but the similarities between my home country and the one in which I now live, are too obvious to dismiss.
In October this year, a largely non-Indigenous electorate will vote on an amendment to the Australian constitution that has profound implications for the relationship Indigenous people have with the state. This is precisely what was at stake – in dramatic form – in South Africa.
Thirty years ago, as a young woman, I raged against the notion that white people held my future in their hands. I found the idea appalling. Over time, I have come to realise how wrong I was. The power to change South Africa was never in white hands. The power to shift the conversation lay in the hands of all those who understood the necessity of change.
The power to change South Africa lay with Black South Africans and their allies, who were the architects of the soaring constitution that remains an inspiration to so many today.
Voting Yes affirms this country’s willingness to recognise – permanently and irrevocably – that what was done to Aboriginal people cannot be addressed in piecemeal and ad hoc ways that are subject to the whims of politicians.
At the moment there is much attention focused on those who scream “no” when all around them others are quietly saying yes. Voting “yes” offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove that the voices of the naysayers may be loud, but their numbers are smaller than we might imagine.
Sisonke Msimang is a Guardian Australia columnist, a public speaker and storyteller. She is the author of Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home (2017) and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela (2018)
This article was amended on 8 May 2022 to correctly state the ANC was founded in 1912
