The point is not that no progress had been made by the 90s. The point is simply that we must acknowledge the complicity of large numbers of white South Africans in the apartheid system, and acknowledge that many crucial components of apartheid (such as a the ban on interracial marriage) were
popular policies. Outside of revisionist historical circles, this isn't a remotely controversial point.
Ultimately I defer to the comprehensive TRC report. Here is an apt quote from the introduction to volume 4:
>An important debate with which the Commission had to wrestle was, as has been
fully discussed in the chapter on The Mandate, how to paint the backdrop against
which such human rights violations occurred. Without some sense of the
“antecedents, circumstances, factors and context” within which gross violations
of human rights occurred, it is almost impossible to understand how, over the
years, people who considered themselves ordinary, decent and God-fearing found
themselves turning a blind eye to a system which impoverished, oppressed and
violated the lives and very existence of so many of their fellow citizens.
>It is an old question: one that is asked of any country that undertakes acts so foul
that the world openly condemns it. It is a question that has been answered in
different ways, for such is the nature of historical debate. However, what is clear
is that apartheid could only have happened if large numbers of enfranchised,
relatively privileged South Africans either condoned or simply allowed it to continue.
Ultimately I defer to the comprehensive TRC report. Here is an apt quote from the introduction to volume 4:
>An important debate with which the Commission had to wrestle was, as has been fully discussed in the chapter on The Mandate, how to paint the backdrop against which such human rights violations occurred. Without some sense of the “antecedents, circumstances, factors and context” within which gross violations of human rights occurred, it is almost impossible to understand how, over the years, people who considered themselves ordinary, decent and God-fearing found themselves turning a blind eye to a system which impoverished, oppressed and violated the lives and very existence of so many of their fellow citizens.
>It is an old question: one that is asked of any country that undertakes acts so foul that the world openly condemns it. It is a question that has been answered in different ways, for such is the nature of historical debate. However, what is clear is that apartheid could only have happened if large numbers of enfranchised, relatively privileged South Africans either condoned or simply allowed it to continue.