Watching the Wind: Conflict Resolution During South Africa's Transition to Democracy

Rating:
Summary: Between the lines
Review: Here at last is a look at how social change happens at the street level, literally. As her native South Africa struggled violently toward the end of apartheid, Susan Collin Marks was a peace committee volunteer on the streets of Cape Town area communities.

Most of the attention on South Africa in the early 1990s was focused on President DeKlerk and Nelson Mandela, but both men knew they could not build any lasting solution if the people were not ready. Through Marks, we learn what really happened on the local level, such as the police who had to learn a whole new way of law enforcement, and the bitter youths who slowly came to realize that talk could bring more change than chants and threats. Of course, this is no fairy tale--there are plenty of setbacks and brutalism along the way of this story. Yet as heartbreaking as the violence Marks relates is, she also reveals many quiet and refreshing successes. Indeed, no one was more surprised to discover the effectiveness of conflict resolution that the contestants themselves.

By the time the new constitution was in place, the people were ready to give it a fighting chance, instead of fighting. The ad- hoc resolutions effected by local peace workers like Marks bought time and space, and often something more -- aggrieved parties learning to forge their own nonviolent solutions. Given the very real possibility of the entire country otherwise exploding, that was no small achievement.

Rating:
Summary: Between the lines
Review: Here at last is a look at how social change happens at the street level, literally. As her native South Africa struggled violently toward the end of apartheid, Susan Collin Marks was a peace committee volunteer on the streets of Cape Town area communities.

Most of the attention on South Africa in the early 1990s was focused on President DeKlerk and Nelson Mandela, but both men knew they could not build any lasting solution if the people were not ready. Through Marks, we learn what really happened on the local level, such as the police who had to learn a whole new way of law enforcement, and the bitter youths who slowly came to realize that talk could bring more change than chants and threats. Of course, this is no fairy tale--there are plenty of setbacks and brutalism along the way of this story. Yet as heartbreaking as the violence Marks relates is, she also reveals many quiet and refreshing successes. Indeed, no one was more surprised to discover the effectiveness of conflict resolution that the contestants themselves.

By the time the new constitution was in place, the people were ready to give it a fighting chance, instead of fighting. The ad- hoc resolutions effected by local peace workers like Marks bought time and space, and often something more -- aggrieved parties learning to forge their own nonviolent solutions. Given the very real possibility of the entire country otherwise exploding, that was no small achievement.