The story of South Africa’s transition provides powerful lessons that Americans can apply to find common ground, re-humanize the “other” and safeguard democracy.
“Everybody in the world, including ourselves, thought it was insurmountable.” - Roelf Meyer
Just over 30 years ago, South Africa was at a tipping point. Nelson Mandela and his party, the African National Congress, were in tense negotiations with the ruling National Party to bring an end to the brutal Apartheid system. In 1994, the two sides emerged with a new constitution that established equal rights for all citizens, black and white, and the country held its first democratic election.
But that transformation was not easy. South Africa came close to civil war multiple times during those negotiations. Extremists on both sides carried out bombings, assassinations, and large scale attacks. In the four years between Mandela’s release from prison and the first democratic elections, more than 20,000 people – men, women, and children – died in the violence.
Our guests this episode sat across that negotiating table from one another. Mohammed Bhabha was a leading activist in the ANC freedom struggle. During Apartheid, he was a lawyer who defended ANC members, and he went on to serve in parliament under Mandela. Roelf Meyer served in parliament and held top positions in the Apartheid government. Though they started as enemies, the hard-won trust they built helped shape the future of their country.
While South Africa isn’t perfect, Roelf and Mohammed bring powerful lessons that Americans can apply to find common ground, re-humanize the “other” and safeguard democracy.
Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Erik Lindgren, Gavin Luke, Martin Landh, Hampus Naeselius
How South Africa Ended Apartheid and Built a Democracy
AI-generated transcript
Mohammed Bhabha: The fact that so many people died after Nelson Mandela was released is not surprising. But we would not have been able to navigate that very difficult period. If we did not get like minded people with similar values by building a strong center. And we did that because of a common conviction to seeing that this country survives and we could build a new country.
Tim Phillips: The American people have never faced an election with so much at risk. The possibility that we may elect a leader who promises to be a dictator on day one is steering us in the face with profoundly dangerous implications. Whatever the outcome of this election in November, we will face a divided nation that will require deep soul searching and healing.
The challenge we face as a country is not unique to the United States. Other nations have found themselves at very difficult moments when democracy and peace were on the line. The choice these countries face was quite clear. Do we come together to end decades of violent conflict and repression, to build more just and inclusive democracies, or do we resist change and deepen the spiral of violence, suffering, and repression?
Thankfully, there were courageous leaders who sat across those divides, who found a constructive way forward that can offer some guidance to the American people at this time. Welcome to How Do We Get Through This. I'm Tim Phillips, CEO and founder of Beyond Conflict, and your host. How We designed this podcast series to help Americans like you and me Navigate the uncertainty and the fear surrounding the upcoming election and what this means for the future of our nation the guests on this podcast are leaders who found a way to help end war and Dictatorship with their once bitter enemies through trial and tribulations acts of courage and determination They found a way to guide their communities through decades of mistrust fear and uncertainty Situations not so different from what we're facing in the United States today.
I hope their words will give you hope, courage, and inspiration. The voice you heard at the top was my good friend, Mohammed Bhabha, from South Africa. He's talking about the negotiations to end apartheid and the building of a multiracial democracy, which is the focus for our first episode. But before we get into this, there are a few things you should know about me.
I'm Tim Phillips. I founded a non profit called Beyond Conflict in 1992 at the end of the Cold War. The goal was to help the newly emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe come to terms with their past and deepen the process of democracy that was unfolding throughout the region. Soon after, I found myself working in countries trying to move from conflict to peace, such as Northern Ireland, El Salvador, and Sri Lanka, and in South Africa, as the country was trying to come to terms with the brutality of apartheid.
And sought a way to both confront its past and build reconciliation at the core of our approach was shared human experience. We brought leaders who sat across profound divides and never imagined they could sit across the table from their enemy or they themselves could be agents of change to share that experience with others.
I often described our approach as sort of a big support group on wheels. And over those years, I'm proud to say that we made some important contributions to securing peace and democracy around the world. I've learned some powerful lessons over these three decades. One, there are no unique conflicts in the world.
Every conflict will have its own unique characteristics, but there are no unique conflicts. Two, profound and meaningful change is possible. And seeing that others have made that same journey. And actually lay the foundation for real transformation is deeply inspiring. About 13 years ago, when Barack Obama was president, I was working in Bahrain and other countries in the Arab Spring, and I was bringing colleagues from South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Central America to these countries.
And one of the things they would say to me at the end of the day, sitting as friends, is they were deeply concerned by what they were seeing unfolding in the United States. Like canaries in a coal mine, they could see the United States heading in a dangerous direction. Sort of a move towards the us versus them identity, sort of.
Sectarian politics that they were trying to move away from and I would tell them I recognize we have profound challenges But didn't fully appreciate how deep that challenge was until the last decade for many years I would encourage people in these other countries to sit across the table with their enemies many people who did horrific things And I really got courage and inspiration that if they could do that Why can't we speak to our adversaries or family members across these divides?
Because we don't want to end up where they ended up. And that's one of the central lessons they often share. Because they have deep concern, and in many cases deep love for the United States, with all our imperfections. Now, I'm proud to start this podcast with two of those friends who expressed their concern about the path the United States is on.
And by the way, these two individuals helped change the course of history in South Africa. When you think of South Africa today, the name Nelson Mandela comes to mind. He was a truly remarkable individual who emerged from three decades in prison and led his nation towards a multiracial democracy. And to end the brutal regime of apartheid.
But that transformation was not easy. In fact, the country came close to civil war multiple times during those negotiations. Extremists on both sides sought to undermine the process of change repeatedly through bombings, assassinations, and large scale violence. More than 20, 000 people, men, women, and children died from violence.
In the four years between Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990 and the first democratic elections in 1994, more people than the previous four decades of apartheid combined. But in the midst of this bloodshed, the government and the African National Congress came to realize that they were both committed to the process of democratic change.
And needed each other to make this work and to prevent an all out civil war. They were committed to the same outcome. They were building a multiracial democracy, anchored in the rule of law. Roelf Meyer was a central figure in that process, but he didn't start out that way. Roelf grew up as a beneficiary and for many years, a defender of the apartheid system.
He served in parliament, rose in leadership to become vice minister of interior, minister of defense. And later Minister of Constitutional Affairs and the lead government negotiator. But as you'll hear from him directly, he experienced what he calls an emotional transformation or paradigm shift. that led him to recognize that the system he served was morally corrupt and had to end.
Mohammed Bhabha was a leading ANC activist and as a lawyer defended ANC members and activists during apartheid. As a Muslim man characterized by the state as a person of color, He suffered under the system's brutal segregation policies. Mohammed became a key part of the team that negotiated the new constitution and went on to serve in Parliament and as Minister of Local Government under Nelson Mandela.
The process of change in South Africa was not perfect. The country is still burdened by corruption, insignificant economic inequality, but the transition from apartheid to a multiracial democracy in the early 1990s was a Still represents a completely powerful model of change and reconciliation three decades later.
Now we're going to hear from Roelf Meyer.
Roelf Meyer: I grew up as a farm boy in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. I grew up as somebody who was pretty much ingrained in the white community at the time, but also the family was supporting ruling party of the day, the National Party. It was running government on the notion of apartheid, which meant privileges for white minority and complete segregation in the society in South Africa.
And for me as a young boy, there was no reason to question that because that was the norm of the day. And that stayed that way for most of my early upbringing. through my school years and even through university. At some point, I started to get alerted to what was really going on at the political level.
I realized that what was on the law book was totally indefensible with regard to the discrimination against the black majority. And in that way, I started a transformation in my own mind. I would not say that I ever became a liberal, but what I became aware of is that what. It prevailed at that stage in South Africa was unacceptable, and that awareness helped me to develop a different mindset, and that is where I ended up completely on the other side from where I grew up, in terms of advocating and promoting and working for a new South Africa.
Tim Phillips: So Roelf, I wonder if you could rekindle a particular story that I know was an important moment for you personally. That shifted your understanding of apartheid. I recall you told me years ago that when you were Minister of Defense in the 1980s, you went to Namibia, a neighboring country, where the South African Security Services were battling an insurgent group called SWAPO.
You met a young fighter. And your conversation with him made a huge impression on you.
Roelf Meyer: One day I came across some of the members of the Namibian forces who were fighting the apartheid forces. And I had the opportunity to encounter this young man who was by then already fighting for 10 years on the side of the SWAPO forces, as they were called.
And I asked him how it happened that he became a terrorist. As they were described, and he told me that he was as a farm boy in the north of Namibia driving with the farmer, the white farmer. He was driving on the back of a van together with the farmer's dog, and then a storm broke out and the farmer stopped and put the dog in the front of the van and left him.
On the back of the van, and it was there that he decided this was it. That was enough. He was 15 years old at the time. The very next day, he decided to join the forces who fought against the apartheid regime in Namibia. And that was, you know, Such a telling story for me, because I realized what he was telling me is not something that was happening only on the rare occasions, it was actually happening all over South Africa at the same time, and it had to come to an end.
Tim Phillips: Before we go to Mohammed, because I think it's important in terms of Mohammed's experience, you came from a community, the Afrikaners, that suffered a lot of violence by the English during the Boer War in the early 20th century. And so as you're going through this paradigm shift, you're also dealing with a community that has felt maybe victimized, traumatized, angry.
And do you think that shaped, not only your own journey, it made maybe your journey a little bit more difficult as a leader? Because there was something rooted in the fear of change that I assume your community experienced. Can you just touch upon that?
Roelf Meyer: There was fear. But it was more directly related to the fact that the white minority feared for what would happen to them if the black majority would take over and become the rulers of the country.
And that was an understandable fear, because the white minority, did so much wrong in terms of the black majority for so long. It was basically 300 years that white rule prevailed in South Africa. The dominant factor in the departure point of the white minority was how to protect the white minority in the negotiations.
so as to ensure a future that will not overrule them completely. But then there was a breakdown in the negotiations. I think it was actually the best thing that could have happened, because that forced us going back to the drawing board and say to ourselves, what is it that we want for the future instead of what is it that we want to protect from the past?
The protection from the past lied in protecting white minority rights. The future was How can we ensure a future that protect and guarantee and safeguard everyone in the country, black and white?
Tim Phillips: So now, Mohammed, I want to bring you in. Before you got involved in the negotiations, you were an activist within the ANC.
What was your upbringing like that informed your activism?
Mohammed Bhabha: Tim, my background is a little more colorful, so to speak. I am of Indian descent. I'm third or fourth generation of Indian descent. I am from a lineage that started off from indentured labor. People were brought in from India. And indentured laborers are people who had to buy their freedom through their sweat.
So your own heritage is pregnant with humiliation. The genius of apartheid was to divide even the black communities. Those that came from Asia had less privileges than white people, but significantly more privileges than African people. At a personal level, my interactions with white children, we were children.
We actually played with each other, with African children. It was as if we came to a watering hole, you know, in the Kruger Park. We would enjoy ourselves and then go back to our little enclaves. We developed friendships that still prevail till today. And that survived the harshness of apartheid. So I grew up in a conservative Muslim home.
My parents were hardworking people. They were from the merchant class. And my father's main focus was to see that I got educated. I would have a school which was 50 meters away from me, but I was unable to attend that school. Because it was for white children only. So I had to leave home at the age of eight to be near a school that allowed me.
In the late 60s, the South African government then passed the Group Areas Act. And after the passing of the Group Areas Act, they literally physically dislocated us. And my father lost the shop where he did many years of business. We were then physically removed and moved to what was called Group Areas.
African people were sent to areas like Soweto, and we were sent to what was called Indian areas. So not only were we segregated physically, but culturally, we were then divided. To the extent where, in a very genius way, apartheid created suspicion even amongst the oppressed.
Tim Phillips: So Mohammed as you describe what it was like to grow up in apartheid South Africa just hearing it I feel your humiliation and I feel your anger and I can imagine what it must have been to grow up under Jim Crow in the American south facing a lot of the same.
Reality. How do you deal with that anger?
[00:16:29] Mohammed Bhabha: Tim, before we get to that, I want to give you a sense of the kind of humiliation. I grew up in a family where we respected our elders. So you would get young white children coming into my dad's shop, insulting him and talking of him in the most disparaging way.
Then we could do nothing about it because that was the social order. If you were stopped by a traffic officer, And I remember my father used to drive his car and we would be sitting at the back seat. And the fear in my father's voice and the way he acted and the way he accepted this very vile, disparaging way in which he was spoken to by a young policeman.
I could imagine how he felt being humiliated in front of his children and his wife, my mother. We could not stay in hotels. We were not allowed in movies. I remember one evening we had driven all night to Cape Town and we did not have a place to stay. So we slept on the beach and early in the morning we were kicked in our ribs by a policeman who said, you're not allowed here.
And they kicked us off the beach. So those were some of the more humiliating it generates and it builds up in you and all you understand is anger and hatred. Just as an illustration of my anger to get some extra money during my school days, I used to work in a takeaway. Something similar to a McDonald's.
And I used to make hamburgers in the kitchen at the back. But when a policeman came, I, I hate to admit it, but I used to spit in the hamburger because it was a policeman. A small act of resistance. Resistance and, and just a way of expressing myself and ventilating.
Tim Phillips: So, Mohammed, spitting in that hamburger may have been your first act of resistance, but it wasn't your last.
Can you talk a bit about your early activism in the movement against apartheid?
Mohammed Bhabha: So, in school, we started doing things that were illegal. Started protesting, started printing pamphlets, distributing pamphlets. In my last year at schooling, I was arrested. I was taken to jail because we opposed the teachers who were part of the system, although they were the same color as I am.
They were extremely reactionary. We were forced to sing the national anthem. That was the Apartheid National Anthem. We were forced on Republic Day to carry South African flags. This was inflicted upon us, and many of us did not want to do it. And it was a Friday morning that we refused to do it. And it was our principal that reported us.
And lo and behold, at around one o'clock in the afternoon, I was picked up. I was taken into custody. I was beaten up. I don't think they took me seriously or they thought I'm a threat. But by then, about two years or three years prior to that, a relative of mine was killed in custody. He was a teacher. And he was thrown off a 10 story building, very badly tortured.
And these things have an impact on you.
Tim Phillips: Roelf, you know, you mentioned your own transformation or paradigm shift, but that as you emerged as a leader within the National Party, first as a young member of parliament, then in different sort of cabinet positions. You came to realize that this system had to change and it had to end and you eventually became the chief negotiator and the talk stand apartheid and minister of constitutional affairs.
What was key to the success?
Roelf Meyer: Two things come to mind. We realized that we're dealing with history in the making, that we are busy with an historic moment changing the fundamentals of this country. And it could have gone either way. We could have ended up in a civil war. Which would have completely destroyed the country, or we could find a way through talks, dialogue, and negotiations to bring about a peaceful solution.
result leading to a democracy. We were very fortunate that we had leaders on both sides that made the choice in the right direction. Nelson Mandela on the one side, F. W. de Klerk on the other side. And I believe we have to honor both of them for taking the right decision at the right moment. Everybody in the world, including ourselves, thought it was insurmountable.
that we were heading for a bloody civil war, and we succeeded in overcoming that. And in the process, I think what helped us to get through this was the fact that there were people of the same mindset on both sides. My counterpart in the negotiations was Cyril Ramaphosa, who is today the president of South Africa, now being elected for the second term.
He was the leader of the ANC negotiating team. And through the fact that we had the same conviction, and that was that we can bring about a peaceful solution. It was possible. So we started to believe in each other. And I think that is so key. It was a matter of us joining forces and saying to each other, there's not a problem that we can't resolve.
I had to trust him and he had to trust me, and that is how we brought about peace in South Africa. The inner conviction on both sides was strong enough to say, it's better to find peace, it's better to change the country than to fight it out.
Tim Phillips: Yeah, and that's such a powerful description of what happened and the importance of this globally and certainly here in the United States one of the lessons I've heard you and Mohammed talk about the past is that you built a center of convergence when the National Party and the ANC decided together that you wanted to build a new multiracial democracy Anchored in the rule of law and anchored in a new constitution where each individual is sovereign and that once that commitment was made, you needed each other to get through this process and when I reflect at this moment in the United States, you know, when you see a Liz Cheney or a Jamie Raskin who had co chaired with her the January 6th committee, profoundly different political positions and views, you But what brought them together was adherence to the rule of law, a constitution and the norms that undermined a democratic society.
Roelf Meyer: I think what, what is important from the lesson of South Africa and what we've gone through 30 years ago is the fact that if you find common ground about the destiny for the future, then it's possible to work out the mechanics and the tools and the, and the answers to everything that provide challenges.
We realized that we were different in our approaches and seeking answers for the same problem. But we also had the commitment to realize that we can only find the answer through sitting down, spending hours with each other, days and months with each other. And that is exactly what we did. I keep on thinking that if we could do it, given the circumstances of where we were, Coming over that long period of conflict in South Africa, there is no reason why others can't do the same.
Tim Phillips: And Mohammed, I've heard you say in the past that one of the key things on the side of the ANC was that you recognized in Roelf and others that you had allies in this process. You also had to. Understand the fears of the white community, but also understand the anger of the majority community in South Africa.
How was that managed and really in personal human terms?
Mohammed Bhabha: In many ways, the apartheid system made both the oppressor and the oppressed victims. They were both victims of a system. It had this ability to dehumanize both of us. And in understanding that, we also understood that our adversary is not homogenous.
There were people on the other side that had certain values that we could appeal to. Strategically, it was perhaps the cleverest thing we did. What this assisted us to do was to create a strong center, the center that Roelf was referring to, a center that was committed to constitutionalism, rule of law, but also driven by values that were underpinned by simple humanity, and the center spoke in one language.
We had to undo years of dehumanization, the us and them syndrome, where we denigrated our adversaries, our enemies, and the language from the moderates from both sides had to be very tempered, had to be very circumspect, and there had to be a harmony in the kind of messages we sent to ordinary people in the country.
This assisted folks in the streets to be able to internalize and to understand and be circumspect about their own feelings and about investing in a future. It also had to be done jointly with the likes of Roelf Mayer in them as moderates who formed part of our adversaries, that they were our oppressors.
But if we understood that the system was able to dehumanize both oppressor and oppressed, We could then work together and not play the blame game, but come out with something much more constructive for the future.
Tim Phillips: What was it like for you personally to go from fighting your oppression to then working alongside your oppressors?
Mohammed Bhabha: My feelings towards Roelf, whom I hated immensely, not Roelf as a person, but also Roelf as a proponent of a particular system, I hated immensely. But my change in my attitude was also part of my emotional growth that was very ably assisted by very strong leadership. Uh, I'm going to give you one anecdote, and it's at that stage where I crossed the Rubicon.
Even after I was elected as a member of Parliament, within the first year we had a World Cup, rugby World Cup. I went into the stadium supporting the opposition, not South Africa. We hated the South Africans, rugby players particularly, because that was the symbol of apartheid. And when Nelson Mandela walked onto the stadium, and I stood up and I sang Nkosi Sikelel' i, I think my transformation was complete.
I needed to see it. So we have baggage that we carry, and it's a process.
Tim Phillips: I want to transition to where we are here in the United States in this upcoming election. And I just want to circle back to what both of you have said. You had to step out of the binaries, the silos, as difficult as that is, with so much loss, oppression, suffering, fear, to get to know each other as individuals.
And we are a hyper polarized country right now. You've both traveled to the United States. Particularly the last two years meeting with people across the divides. This election will be very close and half the voting population will be very not just angry, but will view the results in existential terms.
So what would you say? To a listener right now, I'll start with you, Roelf, at this moment. How do we get through this and keep a country together no matter what the outcome is?
Roelf Meyer: Tom, let me be very specific in terms of the South African experience and where we're coming from. I think the lesson that we can share is the fact that here we are talking on the same podcast, Mohammed and I, As former enemies coming together over a period of time, realizing that we have more in common about the national interest of South Africa, about our own commitment to that interest, but more than anything else, our respect.
That we share throughout what we're doing today for human rights and individual humanity. When we use those two value based factors, principles, human rights, national interest, as our common objectives, our common direction, we can differ on a lot of other things. Mohammed is a Muslim, I'm a Christian. But we respect each other as individuals.
And we work together as brothers. And there's nothing that will split us.
Tim Phillips: I think it's important to point out, as you enter the third decade of the transition, there's a lot of instability. I don't mean political, but economic and poverty and corruption in your country. So things weren't completely perfect, but that takes time.
So Mohammed, if you could share your thoughts.
Mohammed Bhabha: Tim, I know in South Africa, we had to address what made Apartheid successful and what methodology they used. They created, um, Dehumanizing and demonizing language. What is it that civil society, you Tim, can do to try and change the dehumanizing language? The you and us.
And I think there's a lot of work that can be done. The second thing that both Roelf's side and our side had to do was to start addressing how violence was being normalized. There must be some strategies to address that. Then, the United States has a very highly developed information environment, whether it's the news circuits, social media, misinformation has to be challenged.
The 20, deaths after Mandela was released was the result of a very successful strategy of creating paranoia. And Roelf and I, perhaps that was the most difficult task we had, was to undo the messages that we gave to our constituencies over decades and over centuries, and asking them to trust the adversary, the enemy, and in the United States context, how do we start re humanizing our adversaries?
Tim Phillips: You know, when you mention the word civil society, which is more. Sort of internationally used in here in the United States. It's really our social sector. It's our nonprofit sector. It's our faith groups It's our community groups. It's our rotary clubs. It's people involved in social justice activism And I think the point you made Mohammed that when you're in struggle against oppression or your community on the other side, there's language that's used to mobilize people to both frame what they're dealing with and what they're resisting and also who the other is like, but once you move in a process of transformation where you break down those borders, where you try to come together because you recognize you have to build and save this country.
And let's be honest, depending on the outcome of this election, you could see mass demonstrations, there's threats of election violence, as we've seen in the past. How do you prepare individuals for that? And how should they be thinking about this moment for themselves?
Roelf Meyer: I've been visiting the U. S. many times over a period of now more than 40 years.
And when I started to go there, I took the experience that I've then received from all over the United States in the beginning of my own political career in South Africa, so serious that I thought I would like to repeat a working democracy model like in the United States, also in South Africa. I thought that example was the one that I would like to live for in South Africa.
Now, more than 40 years later, I'm proud of what we have achieved, and by the way, we have had an election this year in South Africa, which was Exceptional in the sense that the ruling party, the ANC, was in government for 30 years from 1994, had accepted without a moment of hesitation the outcome of the election in May of this year, which indicated that they only had 40 percent of the vote compared to more than 50 percent every election before that.
They accepted the fact that they had to rule the country on a coalition basis with other parties. I think that was an exceptional example of how democracy today works in South Africa. So, my plea to American society, to the American voter, and to the leadership would be, please keep it up in the interest of democracy all over the world.
Phillips: After we finished recording, Mohammed called me up. And said there was more he wanted to say about South Africa and a message he wanted to make sure the American listener heard. So we jumped back on the mic, just Mohammed and me.
What do you say to somebody who grew up the way you grew up in relative terms? Sees inequality, sees violence. Sees oppression and says, it's not my job to understand the fear of my adversary?
Mohammed Bhabha: you know, when a person humiliates you and makes you believe that, uh, you are subhuman could address it in two ways. One is acting a way that will reinforce their opinions of you and their stereotypes of you.
The other is a very, very useful method and much more productive. Is to act in a way that disorientates your adversary because he's been or she's been told to expect something, a particular mannerism or particular conduct. And when they meet you, they see exactly the opposite
Tim Phillips: of the caricature they had of the dehumanized person.
Mohammed Bhabha: And it's disorientating. I've seen people absolutely helpless. They don't know how to handle the situation. I remember meeting some of the most brutal security forces in the intelligence community, in the apartheid system, just after 1990. And I remember engaging with this one. Very high ranking intelligence officer in the apartheid apparatus.
And he had met Chris Hani for the first time. The former head of the communist party who was assassinated. He was the most demonized personality in the apartheid propaganda machine. He was black. So there was a particular stereotype about black people. He was a member of the communist party. There was a particular stereotype and caricature of communists, and he was a member or the head of our military wing, Umkhonto Yusiswe. So with him, there were three areas which strengthened the caricature. And once they met him, I have not seen anyone as hard as this intelligence officer. So shaken. He could not believe it. It was a kind of disorientation that I always remember and it just remains imprinted in my mind.
Now you can imagine a person who's lived his life believing that the person he's going to meet is nothing short of a devil. And what he meets is a very human person. Conciliatory, warm, concerned about, uh, his adversaries children asking how the kids are, how are you guys doing. And you can imagine the disorientation.
It's a huge, huge, huge level of disorientation.
Tim Phillips: Mohammed, what I hear you saying, I think it's very different than when a lot of people think about the power, the necessity of dialogue in polarized societies. You're actually taking it to a human level, saying what happens. Under apartheid or long standing conflict, think of Northern Ireland or what's happening in the Middle East and elsewhere, is those across the divide, the community, are dehumanized.
They're not like us. They don't suffer the way that we suffer. They don't have the same aspirations, right? They don't experience love the same way, right? There's something innate about that other that is very different. And what we know from research in dehumanization is when you begin to dehumanize others, It strips Moral Responsibility.
To treat the other is fully human when you begin to sit down and meet a roof or when the former head of intelligence meets Chris Hani it's a process of re humanizing because you sit there and say he or she is like me on a very human level and here's a question i have can you re humanize each other.
Find a partner for a process of change and still maintain different political values and interest, and it's not selling out. Absolutely.
Mohammed Bhabha: There will be those characters in society that are incorrigible. They are beyond incorrigible. Yes, they are. They are beyond redemption. Don't waste your time.
Tim Phillips: Can I just interrupt?
That's important. Not everybody will have this sort of quote unquote Damascus like conversion. What happens is a bit of a sorting process, right? You find like, wow, that Mohammed, that Chris, that Roelf, Can be my ally for change, but in that process, you get to find who are those others that you just said are incorrigible that really are not partners in change
Mohammed Bhabha: at a broader level.That is the strategy as well. But to answer your earlier question, Tim, the issue is that. If you don't have dialogue, yes, some people are going to say dialogue is a sellout. What are the alternatives? If we're not going to have dialogue, all you are going to do is reinforce the stereotypes. And it gets worse and worse and worse.
And deepen the division and polarization. Absolutely. What does dialogue do? It gives you an opportunity and a space to address the caricature that has been created for you, whether it's by politicians, whether it's by society, whether it's by revisionist history, whatever it is. The caricature has been drawn up.
What other way do we have to be able to challenge those stereotypes, then but to speak to each other and to show your adversary, the victim of that caricature, so to speak, give them an opportunity not to reinforce that stereotype.
Tim Phillips: Mohammed, as you know, our Congress is deeply dysfunctional, and it's rare to see meaningful bipartisan legislation get through.
The members play to their base, demonize the other side, and even members of their own party who seek to work across the aisle for the good of the country. Compromise has become a dirty word to use, and yet compromise, cooperation, respect for your adversary, were core to your process of change in South Africa.
What can you share with our listeners from your own experience?
Mohammed Bhabha: Oh, we had, uh, we had masters of the one liners, especially when the camera was shining on them. And we had people who played to the gallery and so forth. The successes we had was not done before the cameras. Those were the result and the consequences of back channels.
You saw those very same, very, very vociferous opponents who on the floor of parliament would be half murdering each other. But I must tell you that It is because of the special relationship that our president had with Roelf that they were able to keep their lines open and it was the back channel. So away from all the noise, there was a sanity and a measured approach and an understanding of what was at stake.
Where did we come in as rank and file? You did not have, as far as the ANC was concerned, A bunch of elitist leaders sitting in a corner determining our future. Most importantly, the influence of civil society on the ANC that was able to absorb the messages that came from our leadership and even send back messages to them that this is not acceptable.
We think you're crossing the line here, but it was that kind of bottom up approach and our bottom up approach is not Instant gratification. It's a long
Tim Phillips: process. It takes time. So a couple of things, Mohammed, as we come to a close of this, you mentioned earlier, Chris Hani. So in 1994, it was actually a Polish immigrant, white Polish immigrant to South Africa associated with the radical right wing of the Afrikaner community assassinated Chris Hani.
And it was at that moment that the country was literally on the verge of civil war. And everything that had been tried in the previous four years, three years, would have fallen apart. There were forces, particularly to the extreme right of Roelf who wanted to undermine this process. And yet, because of the relationships that were built, not only from Ramaphosa, but from Mandela and de Klerk and many others, you and others were able to thwart that and save this emergent democracy.
And I have to say what I'm fearful of as an American, if Kamala Harris loses, you're going to have a lot of people feeling what was it all about? Do they have any voice going forward? Does their vote matter? Does their enthusiasm and excitement, activism matter? What would you say to them right now? What
Mohammed Bhabha: was very important in South Africa was, particularly from the ANC side, was our approach was value driven.
And we are now bearing fruits of that approach. At the time, we were quite confident that we will win and it will be a resounding victory. But we had to develop values, or rather sustain values, that would ensure that regardless of who is in power, those values will perpetuate. And those values were non racialism.
Because there was a very real possibility that we would do exactly the same what the Afrikaners did to us, And what would happen was they reacted to what the British did to them.
Tim Phillips: And when you say non racialism, you mean, instead of being a black supremacy.
Mohammed Bhabha: Yes. African nationalism, which we saw prevailed in some of the countries North of us.
And in 1994, during the elections, the parties that pushed the nationalist agenda, both white and black did horribly bad.
Tim Phillips: That's a really key point you're raising, Mohammed. One of the dynamics we see in the United States is significant demographic and cultural change. And there is legitimate fear, meaning psychologically fear of change. You can see this in Europe with Brexit and many other places, but it's also ripe for manipulation.
And you raise a good point about non racialism is essentially where 90 percent of the population is either black or of color. Saying to the white minority, we are not going to flip the value system here to go from one form of supremacy to another. And it's not just to make you comfortable. But it's really the foundation of the democracy we want to build.
Mohammed Bhabha: What messages can be sent
that our core values don't change? What is it that the leadership, whether it's political, civil society leadership, what messages that we will never ever forsake the core values that built the United States of America? Never. And we have the institutions to protect it. And that's the kind of messages we sent to our adversaries.
The second thing, yes, democracy is under threat, not in the United States, only in South Africa as well. And the young people that come out, ask the question, what difference does it make? What must I go and vote for? You're talking about in South Africa. But around the world, there's a generation that's asking, questioning, whether the institutions of democracy are able to capture their aspirations for a future. So my vote may not have brought my candidate in, but the fact that I have a system that allows me the freedom to conduct my civil society activity, that is where the power lies. And that makes the difference. Democracy is not about voting day. It doesn't begin and end there.
Democracy is about the freedoms it brings for me to organize myself to take on the abuse of power. It's not about November's elections. It's about maintaining and sustaining a system. The results may not always be what we want. That is the ebb and flow of society and democracy. But what sustains itself are the institutions of democracy.
The fact that I resort to a justice system. It takes years to build institutions. It takes days to destroy them. And that is your task. To protect those institutions. I look back at my life. We've fought for freedom. It's a hard fight. It's very easy to lose it. And the day you lose it and the day it's gone, it's going to take a long time to recover.
And you don't know what you have and you don't value what you have until it goes away. And unfortunately, until some intellectual or some political scientist in the future will find an alternative. to maintaining those systems other than the voting system that you're going to do in November. That's all we have.
And until that exists, I would even go as far as say that it is treasonous not to go and vote because you owe it to the freedoms that you have. The day it is gone, you are going to cry. And you are going to long for it because that's what you are robbing your, your children and your future. I'm the first person to say democracy is not perfect.
Voting is not perfect. People will always try and exercise influence through democratic institutions, but you as an individual, you are that protection against that abuse. Let me tell you, Tim, after all the anger that you have, Of September 11, hardly a decade thereafter, a kilometer within the scene of September 11, you have an Islamic center.
Think about it. Those are precious, precious freedoms that you enjoy. You will never, ever, ever recover it if you lose it.
Tim Phillips: Those are some powerful closing thoughts. I've known Roelf and Mohammed for close to three decades and I am still deeply moved by their words.
So let's recap. Here are three brief takeaways from today's conversation that can help us get through this political moment in the United States.
Number one, you can keep your principles and work with the other side to advance meaningful change.
We heard from Roelf and Mohammed how important it was for the National Party and the ANC to build a center of stability during that negotiation process. Once they were committed together to the shared goal of building a multiracial democracy, Anchored in a new constitution, they came to realize how much they needed each other.
They faced intense and often violent opposition from extremists on both sides. Many white South Africans feared living under a black majority. That had been dehumanized and repressed for centuries and those to the left of the ANC sought a more radical transformation of the country amidst increasing communal and political violence building a center of gravity was essential for that transformation to succeed.
Roelf and his colleagues in the National Party did not abandon their conservative values nor did Mohammed and his ANC colleagues abandoned their progressive ones. What anchored them was a commitment to democracy and the rule of law. In our country, we have people such as former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Congressman Jamie Raskin become allies and even friends.
Neither one has abandoned their conservative or liberal values in coming together. What they found is they shared foundational values that make democratic discourse and progress possible. There are many places where Americans can go to have a dialogue based on mutual respect And a desire to learn and build meaningful relationships.
The One America Movement, Braver Angels, and the American Exchange Project, just to name a few.
Takeaway number two. Dehumanizing language undermines democracy and creates an environment where violence thrives. Mohammed spoke about dehumanizing language under apartheid in South Africa. Language that dehumanized people of color, Was baked into the system from the way a police officer spoke to his father during a traffic stop to the highest ranks of government and my organization beyond conflict.
We've done extensive work on understanding the psychology of dehumanization and were found that leaders in the language they use can shape and drive dehumanization in very damaging ways. Language that describes other human beings as animals, rodents, or as a poison in our bloodstream strips our moral responsibility to treat them as human beings worthy of dignity and respect.
We see one of our two presidential candidates use dehumanizing language that normalizes violence and embeds a deeply dangerous mindset. Yet, as we heard from Mohammed, it's possible to re humanize the other. In conversations with your friends, your family, or online, do you come in contact with dehumanizing language?
It takes courage, but you can change that conversation. Chances are, there are stories and experiences of dehumanization in your own family or community, and you know how painful that experience was. The people you love. What opportunities can you take to rehumanize the other?
Takeaway number three. To work across a divide successfully, you need to agree on a few things.
The African National Congress and the National Party were able to work together because their leaders recognized the core principles that underpin and sustain a democratic society. The rule of law, respect for a constitution, and democratic norms. Those norms included the equality of all races and accepting the outcome of elections, even when your side doesn't win.
As we know, these norms are under profound threat in the U. S., yet the majority of Americans agree with these core principles. That means that you can find someone on the other side who you can form a relationship with to make our country and your local communities even stronger. Bridge builders are not rare.
Maybe you're one yourself and don't know it. They exist across the country in every community and family. Many of these individuals do this work intuitively, quietly within their families, among friends, co workers, faith groups, sports leagues, you name it. The more we recognize the work people do to heal our divides within our own core communities, the more we recognize our capacity to work together to advance meaningful change Across our nation.
Thanks so much for joining me for this first episode of how do we get through this? Let us know what you thought or how you've applied these principles in your life. Get in touch through our website. at beyondconflictint. org and please tell a friend. How Do We Get Through This is produced and edited by Andrea Muraskin with additional editing by Ashley Milne-Tyte.
We have marketing help from Summer Heidish and I'm Tim Phillips.
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