Drama of the peace process in South Africa: I look back 30 years

The Drama of the Peace Process in South Africa: I look back 30 Years by historian Sylvia Neame one of South Africa's 'magisterial historians', as Tom Lodge has described her in his recent book, Red Road to Freedom is a rare portrayal of the unfolding of the peace process in South Africa in the second half of the 1980s into the 1990s as it links general historical accounts with personal experience. She was a member of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party and combines the view of what she denotes as an outsider (the historian) with that of an insider. The chief historical figures involved in Sylvia's narrative are the ANC leaders, Nelson Mandela who was serving a life sentence, and Oliver Tambo who led the organisation from exile, but she also indicates her own contribution to the peace process in 'internal papers', addressed to the leadership of the liberation organisations from 1985 to 1990. She makes the point that her efforts were geared specifically to reaching a political solution and not simply a negotiated one that can take place at the end of an extended armed struggle. What adds to the interest of the book is that Sylvia was at the time based in communist East Germany and the theme of German reunification finds its way into the book, including in the diary extracts in Part II. She was, indeed, in a position to experience at close hand two important historical events of the late 20th century and to observe from a strategic location in Central Europe what she believes was the unfolding of a new epoch of world history in which global human problems would come to the fore. Her work also has strong implications for developments in present day South Africa.