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More troubling, the prospect of negotiations has brought to the surface intense differences within the black community over how -- or even whether -- to proceed. Despite their overwhelming superiority of numbers, South African blacks pay allegiance to half a dozen movements with divergent goals and ideologies. All will settle for no less than black majority rule, but each has a different notion of how to obtain it. The A.N.C. commands the largest following, especially among the politically active young, urban, working and middle class. Yet many are uncertain about subscribing to the old socialist rhetoric that still colors A.N.C. pronouncements. Many more are doubtful about continuing the "armed struggle," which the A.N.C. has yet to disavow. Nevertheless, the A.N.C. has long demanded the sole right to represent the country's disenfranchised.
That right is challenged by 1.5 million Zulus, who pledge their loyalty to Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi. He claims an equal right to participate in any negotiations, and has kept close ties to Mandela personally. But Buthelezi's Inkatha movement is suspect to many blacks for its history of cooperation with the government. The A.N.C. despises Buthelezi as a white puppet, and violent rivalry between the two organizations over the past two years has left more than 1,200 blacks dead. Also at odds with the nonracial A.N.C. is the much smaller Pan Africanist Congress, whose slogan is Africa for the Africans. But its main disagreement is over tactics: the P.A.C. does not believe blacks can get a fair deal in negotiations when all the weight is with the whites. The P.A.C. refuses to countenance talks and wants to keep up the struggle until the whites surrender.
While the P.A.C. has limited grass-roots support, its vow to fight to the end is endorsed by radical elements in the A.N.C. Mandela's biggest challenge may come from within the A.N.C., where some in the new generation of leaders resent his automatic resumption of leadership and consider him too willing to compromise. One of the most powerful of the younger figures, Cyril Ramaphosa, the 37-year-old general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, declared that Mandela's status "was no different from the status of any other member." Others were angered by Mandela's presumption in initiating a personal dialogue with De Klerk. Mandela's first and quite daunting task will be to end this black disunity.
The white community is also divided. Polls indicate that De Klerk is slightly ahead of the white population at large in pushing for reform. Fully 31% of whites voted for the breakaway Conservative Party, the bastion of the verkramptes, or ultraconservatives. They object to any form of power sharing and resist not just negotiations but all attempts to pare the laws of segregation. At worst, they talk of secession and partition, retreating to a smaller but still pure Afrikaner land where whites would dominate. While the conservatives probably cannot block De Klerk from pursuing reform, their reactionary attitudes act as a heavy drag on attempts at compromise. The challenge for De Klerk is to build enough white support for each step as he inches ahead.