Yet white fear did not carry the day. Why? Because important sections of the liberation movement had learned to think in holistic terms. They told anyone who would listen—and these numbers grew over time—that the struggle was against not settlers but settler power. Without a state legally underwriting settler privileges, settlers would be ordinary immigrants. This was the heart of the South African moment: redefining the enemy as not settlers but the settler state, not whites but white power. By doing so, South Africa’s liberation movements eased whites into the idea of a nonracial democracy.
