Theodore Dalrymple writes:
The event that saved his historical reputation was not under his control. It was the downfall of the Soviet Union, for it was surely not a coincidence that the un-banning of the African National Congress and the release of Mandela himself happened only after the implosion of the Soviet bloc. Until then the Communist Party of South Africa, both the most Stalinist and the most resolutely pro-Soviet of communist parties anywhere (not always an easy balance to preserve), had what in Soviet langue de bois was called “a leading role” in the ANC.
As it happened I was in South Africa about the time of the great transition…
***
In other words, one could argue three chief architects of “the end of apartheid” were… Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II.
Ha ha.
