We know we live in a country of historical significance. The signature moments of South Africa’s democratic transition are captured in stories, texts, and other media available around the world. From the warning against social engineering inherent in the failure of grand apartheid, to the fires of resistance and repression in the 1970s and 1980s, the liberalisation of the early 1990s, and, hanging over all of it, the perpetual threat of violence, the key themes of our experience are difficult for the world to forget. 

All history contains moments that stand out not only for their longer-term significance but also for how unexpected they can be. The reduction of the once mighty African National Congress (ANC) to a party actively supported by just 10% of South Africa’s population is one such watershed. More than 30 years of ascendancy have vanished in what, in the bigger picture, is not much more than an instant. As recently as the 2024 general election, when the ANC first lost its overall national majority, a project to rejuvenate the party seemed possible. Not now. 

Above all, we know ourselves as a country that once stepped back from an all-out race war. Anyone who doubts that historical possibility need only consider the countervailing examples of Bosnia, Rwanda, and Chechnya, all societies riven by conflict during the same decade that South Africa made a relatively peaceful transition to democracy. The elite compromise of the early 1990s is the essence of our present social contact. 

But that same social contract is now up for renewal and renegotiation. It is not too much to suggest that there is a sense of apprehension about the possibilities. But whatever comes next will be tamed by the same constant factor that lies behind this and previous changes: the everyday choices made by ordinary people. 

The moment is reminiscent of other historic turning points that seemed to come out of nowhere. When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced a campaign of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in 1985, it was all but inconceivable that the Berlin Wall would crumble within a mere four years. The wall was intended to keep the population of communist East Berlin, and more generally East Germany, imprisoned. Those who attempted escape were often killed by landmines or shot, and the dividing wall was considered one of the most heavily fortified places on Earth. It was the defining symbol of half a continent under Soviet domination since 1945. 

Ordinary people 

It was ordinary people doing something mundane that brought down the Berlin Wall. In 1989, thousands of East Germans fled the country to communist neighbours (Czechoslovakia and Hungary) which by then had open borders with West Germany and Austria. These were, for the most part, ordinary people fleeing oppression in pursuit of a better life. 

Faced with the loss of its most enterprising citizens, the East German regime panicked. At a press conference in November, it announced that it would allow free movement. This was intended to be a ruse behind which oppression would continue but when asked when the new rules would take effect, the apparently poorly briefed government spokesperson replied, “at once, without delay”. Thousands of East Berliners rushed to border checkpoints where guards, with no orders to stop them, opened the gates. Within minutes, crowds from both sides of the wall were hacking it to pieces and 44 years of communist oppression had effectively ended. 

ANC rule in South Africa had seemed as monolithic and invulnerable as the communist bloc of Eastern Europe. In much the same way that the Cold War could be perceived as an immutable fact of life to a child growing up between 1950 and 1989, it was simply the way things were. But such conditions are usually more volatile and fragile than they appear on the surface. 

Prior to ANC rule, the apartheid state seemed as solidly in place as communism in eastern Europe. A gigantic experiment in racial social engineering, it survived 42 years, even longer than the subsequent ANC ascendancy. But in 1990, once President FW de Klerk released Nelson Mandela, unbanned the ANC, and announced his intention to negotiate a universal suffrage constitution, it was doomed. Behind De Klerk’s capitulation was a lost demographic battle. Simply, the apartheid administrative apparatus had failed to hold back a tide of rural people seeking to move to the better prospects of the city. 

It is clear, with hindsight, that all these cases (Soviet immovability, apartheid inexorability, and ANC certainty) were underpinned not by fixed foundations but by continuous and ongoing change, driven by people getting on with their lives. People “make a plan”. It is fundamental to being human. We raise families, build houses, find a way to earn a living, consume urban services and, if necessary, move to places where prospects are better. 

No coincidence 

It is no coincidence that South Africa’s urban population has grown from less than half of the total population in 1994 to about two thirds today. This movement of people in the process of seeking to improve their lives is part of what the late John Kane-Berman memorably described as “South Africa’s silent revolution”. It is ongoing. The fall of the ANC, like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the apartheid regime has been driven by ordinary people motivated by the hope of a better life. 

It has been suggested that humans have an inherent “negativity bias”, a feature which helps us anticipate and thus avoid the worst dangers. During the worst national loadshedding years (2022 and 2023), it was all too easy to believe that catastrophic decline was imminent. Yet that fraught period has rapidly receded in the rearview mirror as the South African genius for making do responded to the challenge. This negativity bias lies behind both rejection of the ANC and the movement to a more urban and modern life. People are acting to avoid the worst outcomes. 

The communist regimes of eastern Europe did not fail in every respect. The Soviets put the first human into orbit after all. But Soviet society worked against the grain of human nature. It was never able to deliver adequate consumer goods. In the early 1980s, it was reported that exploding television sets were a leading cause of death in Moscow. The defective Soviet televisions, and consumer electronics in general, suffered from catastrophic quality issues due to the structural flaws of the Soviet planned economy. Shortages and queuing for ordinary consumer goods was a daily experience in the Russian capital. 

The ANC was not an utter failure. It delivered mass housing and social protections that have raised the poorest in society. But public schooling has been weak and job creation (a product of limited growth) has been a catastrophic failure. While these problems will not be entirely solved by ordinary people doing ordinary things, it is this phenomenon that needs to be treated as a starting point. People tend to be active in the world and construct their lives as they best decide. Those who actually negotiate the new social contract need to ensure that it tends to go with the grain, not against it.