'The saddest thing about the death of Comrade O.R. Tambo,' wrote one of the black students in my local university newspaper, 'is that he will not now be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Comrade Mandela on that great day when freedom comes.' Other, more radical students are less respectful of the ANC luminaries and their chosen strategy of negotiation. 'The only thing to negotiate,' they are given to saying, 'is the transfer of power' - or sometimes, 'the seizure of power'. Only then - and here all concur - can we get ahead with the great task in hand, that of 'building the new nation'.

LRB 22 July 1993 | PDF Download