ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the low status accorded to political pluralism and civil liberties in the democratic discourses of the South African left. It describes the rethinking of democracy and contains lessons for the future. The chapter explores the persistence amongst many Congress-aligned activists of practices that contradict the pluralist spirit of official commitments and by the considerable influence, in and beyond the Congress camp, of vanguardist and quasi-syndicalist discourses that accord a low importance to the language of pluralism and rights. Viewed from one angle the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa constitutes a rich tapestry of democratic discourse. The struggle is held to be about creating a democracy: about replacing white minority rule with nonracial majority rule. Political pluralism and civil liberties are sometimes criticized as elitist on the grounds that they encourage a notion of democracy consisting of competition between political élites in which the masses are reduced to passive onlookers.
