This book reflects on the life and politics of Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) and his efforts to broker peace and reconciliation in a deeply divided country. Through examples from apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, it explores conflict and methods for realising peace, social justice, and democracy.
The book looks at the festering of animosity and racial bitterness between the white Afrikaner community and the black community during years of racial violence, injustices, and authoritarianism in South Africa. In the most violent phase of the country’s history, Mandela offered to both communities peaceful means to ensure equality, justice, and inclusivity. The author highlights the extraordinary challenges which Mandela faced in mobilising consent and persuading both the black and the Afrikaner community to acquiesce to a peaceful transfer of power. The volume further details the socio-political contexts and negotiations which resulted in the swift transfer of power, Mandela’s insistence on crafting inclusive systems of nationhood, his multi-cultural cabinet, and the institutionalisation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address challenges facing the two communities in the post-conflict period.
An accessible introduction to one of the greatest leaders in contemporary history, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of peace and conflict studies, social exclusion and discrimination, critical race theory, human rights, politics, decolonisation and post-colonial studies, sociology, and history.
Acknowledgements. Part I Violence and Peace. Part II Historical Injustice and Resistance. Part III Towards an Inclusive Democracy. Part IV Peace through Reconciliation Conclusion: Nelson Mandela Contribution to Peace. References. Index
Biography
Neera Chandhoke is Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi. Prior to this, she was Professor of Political Science at the University of Delhi and Director of Developing Countries Research Centre at the University of Delhi. Her recent publications include Rethinking Pluralism, Secularism, Tolerance: Anxieties of Co- Existence, 2019; Democracy and Revolutionary Politics, 2015; and Contested Secessions, 2012. Her forthcoming work is titled Violence in Our Bones.
