The Plot to Save South Africa: The Week Mandela Averted Civil War and Forged a New Nation

by Justice Malala

A “gripping and important” (The Guardian) account of nine tumultuous days, as the assassination of Nelson Mandela’s protégé by a white supremacist threatens to derail South Africa’s democratic transition and plunge the nation into civil war.

Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993. Nelson Mandela had been released after twenty-seven years in prison and was in power sharing talks with President F.W. de Klerk. After decades of resistance, the apartheid regime seemed poised to fall…until a white supremacist shot and killed Mandela’s popular heir apparent, Chris Hani, in a last desperate attempt to provoke civil war.

Twenty-two-year-old rookie journalist Justice Malala was one of the first people at the crime scene. And as he covered the growing chaos of the next nine days—the protests and police brutality, reprisal killings and calls for paramilitary units to get combat-ready—he was terrified the assassin’s plot might succeed.

In The Plot to Save South Africa, Malala “masterfully” (Foreign Affairs) unspools this political history in the style of a thriller, alternating between the perspectives of participants across the political spectrum in a riveting, kaleidoscopic account of a country on the brink. Through vivid archival research and shocking original interviews, he digs into questions that were never fully answered in all the tumult at the time: How involved were far-right elements within the South African government in inciting—or even planning—the assassination? And as the time bomb ticked on, how did these political rivals work together with opponents whose ideology they’d long abhorred—despite provocation and their own failures, doubts, and fears—to keep their country from descending into civil war?

Genres: History, South Africa, Nonfiction, Africa, Politics

Audiobook

Published April 4, 2023

Reviews

[Lulu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This covers the assassination of Chris Hani (an anti-apartheid activist) and the fallout that resulted, which proved to be a pivotal moment in South Africa’s history.

This is an important historical event that needs to be known and I’m glad the author took time to write this book. The story is pretty easy to follow, but there is quite a bit of repetition. It left me with a few questions, but it’s worth a read.

[Nicole Dunton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Title: The Plot to Save South Africa
Author: Justice Malala
Release Date: April 4th, 2023
Page Count: 344
Format: Netgalley and Audiobook
Start Date: April 9th, 2023
Finish Date: April 10th, 2023

Rating: 5 Stars

Review:

When I first got this book, I was eager to read it. I am always wanting to learn as much about history and other countries as I can. I did have concerns about it going over my head. I was convinced I'd have to do a lot of research and ask a friend of mine many questions to fully understand. I was wrong. This book was very easy to follow along and understand. I actually hope to read it again to make notes and annotations on parts that really jump out at me. I do recommend this book to anybody that has an interest in history and nonfiction books. It's really good and well worth the read.

Important to Note: Nonfiction. Violence. Real World Issues.

[Ekta · Rating 3 out of 5]

In South Africa just before Easter in 1993, Nelson Mandela’s protégé, Chris Hani, was assassinated by white supremacist Janusz Walus. During the next nine days, Mandela and his team of leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) worked long hours to quell the rage and despair of Black South Africans. The Plot to Save South Africa recounts Hani’s death and the deft political moves Mandela undertook to keep talks of ending apartheid from collapsing.

Author Justice Malala was a rookie reporter and arrived at the newsroom early on that Saturday of what would eventually become the day of Hani’s murder. With vivid retellings from his own memory as well as recounting details from extensive interviews of many key figures, Malala takes readers through the hours and days after Chris Hani died. Hani was important to Nelson Mandela not only as a figure for Black youth in South Africa but also because Mandela looked at Hani as a son.

When Hani was killed, Mandela had to focus all of his energy on what Hani’s death represented and how to turn a tragedy into a triumph for the ultimate goal: a fair and free election for everyone that would allow Black South Africans to elect their leaders.

Hani’s death came only three years after Mandela was freed from a 27-year prison term. A former militant and guerilla fighter, Chris Hani had pivoted his approach and begun encouraging political change by peaceful means. Mandela depended on Hani to appeal to the youth and saw the positive effects of Hani’s presence. His assassination by a white supremacist threatened to undo all of the painstaking work by Mandela and everyone at the ANC.

The book offers insight into the many, many meetings and rallies that took place in that nine-day period. Violence and riots also blew across the nation, and white supremacist leaders used the opportunity to sow discord. But South African president F.W. de Klerk was losing his grip on his cabinet and government, and at crucial times when the nation needed to hear from him he either didn’t speak or delivered a message that completely missed the point.

Malala’s memoir showcases the immediacy and description of someone who has lived through a major historical event. Readers will be able to hear the cries for justice by Black South Africans and the pushback in raised voices by apartheid champions. In attempting to fill in crucial details for those unfamiliar with the tragedy, however, Malala spends too much time looping in back stories and intersection points of everyone involved in Hani’s death. The book, in parts, is a compelling read but might take some patience and concentration to finish.

[David Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

An hour-by-hour look at the aftermath of the murder of Chris Hani, a major leader in the South African antiapartheid fight. Nelson Mandela plays a major role, in fact, demonstrating his leadership as white South African president de Klerk struggles to maintain control. The murder was an attempt to spur a race war and disrupt ongoing negotiations but had the opposite effect of speeding up the transition to majority rule.

Why obviously different, the story is reminiscent of the time before, during, and after the American Civil War, and notably, America today. The players are eerily similar - the white right wing "conservatives" attempting to control society to their benefit versus the black oppressed people seeking equal rights along with their white allies. An eye-opening book.

David J. Kent
Author, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius
Immediate Past President, Lincoln Group of DC

[Randall Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very detailed, and page turning retelling of a turbulent moment in the late stages of the struggle for multi-racial democracy in South Africa. White supremacists, ironically in this case a Polish immigrant, conspired to murder Chris Hani's in April, 1993. Hani was freedom fighter, presumed to be Mandela's successor, a man Mandela considered a son. Whites assumed the murder would provoke a violent backlash by black South Africans, a response that would force the DeKlerk government to stop negotiating with the ANC and its allies.

Instead, due to the leadership of Nelson Mandela and a host of his allies, violence was generally contained. The book tells how the limited violence had the opposite effect. DeKlerk was forced to resume stalled negotiations and set a firm date for the elections that would sweep Mandela into the presidency a year later.

Malala introduces a wide cast of characters on both sides of the spectrum who were involved, for good or bad, in the murder and its aftermath.

For those without knowledge of the struggle to destroy apartheid, this is a good book to understand the nature and depth of that struggle. Malala details the murderous behavior of the South African security state against its own citizens. Your learn about a large group of liberal whites, both Afrikaners and English-speakers, who worked with the disenfranchised to bring true democracy to their country.

Malala introduces you to the rogue's gallery of white supremacists who did all they could politically, socially and economically to keep the black-majority under its bootheel.

This book reminds us of the great struggle for independence, and the vote, led by men like Mandela, Tambo, Ramaphosa, and the murdered Chris Hani. It is both a primer for those unaware of the details of this struggle, and a reminder for those who remember just how horrible the South African apartheid system was for its black and colored citizens.

The story also serves as a cautionary tale about the depths to which men, and women, will go to preserve their entitled position in the world.

It contains some eerie similarities to the actions governments in Hungary, Turkey, and Israel are taking currently to entrench minority rule.

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it...

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audiobook) When we look back nearly 30 years ago, and think of South Africa, we think of Mandela and how he and F. W. de Klerk worked together to end apartheid and bring about majority rule in South Africa. Actually, it wasn’t near that simple. At one point in 1993, after the murder of a leading African politician and Mandela protégée Hani, it was just as likely that civil war would return to South Africa, with the whites and the blacks going at it in violent bloodshed. Yet, somehow, the political skills of Mandela and his supporters did just enough to hold off the bloodshed and allow for majority elections a year later. de Klerk had his role to play, but he was also caught in a trap of trying to stay in power with the help of Mandela, but trying to balance the conservative white factions in check. It was not easy, not pretty, but it somehow sort of worked.

This work offers good insight into a critical time in South Africa. It could have devolved very, very quickly. Did this lead to utopia for South Africa? No. The ANC hasn’t been perfect, not by a long shot. Yet, where is South Africa without Mandela? He was human here, and some of things attributed to him didn’t quite happen the way they said it did, but if Mandela wasn’t there to be a sane focal point…

Worth the read, regardless of format. The author does the intro and conclusion, but another reader handles the body of the work. Works for the audio files.

[Patricia Burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

The assassination of Chris Hani, one of the key Black figures in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, as peace negotiations had recently restarted, threatened the entire process. An almost-hourly recount of the eight days between his assassination and the peace agreement, where Mandela lead the country out of chaos and near-civil and tribal wars, is critical to an understanding of the individual and group efforts to turn the country into a democracy. Exquisite detail by journalist Malala of the complexities of 300 years of colonialism and over 40 years of formal apartheid, which collided after the assassination of Hani by white right-wing conservatives who wanted the peace process permanently stopped. The leadership of Mandela at this time of protests, anger, murders, and political posturing by De Klerk’s government (and refusal to admit the minority government’s involvement, especially through the police, in much of the violence) is manifest: protests, mass actions, stayaways (from work) but with discipline. There were more deaths, more property destruction, but the Transitional Executive Council and a date for elections, the first ever by all people in South Africa, were actually facilitated by the assassination of Chris Hani. A brilliant, deeply detailed, understandable telling of the continuing foundation of the peace negotiations and successful democratic voting.

[James Davisson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Plot to Save South Africa is a beautiful book, brimming with admiration for and understanding of its subject matter, period, and heroes, providing an insider's guide to a key moment in South African history to unfamiliar international readers (like me!). In it, Justice Malala (at the time of the events, a rookie journalist, and these days a celebrated South African news personality) carefully lays out the tale of the assassination of a key South African leader in the middle of the democracy negotiations in 1993 in well documented chronology, using explanatory asides and flashbacks to add background info and nuance. Key side characters are entertainingly introduced and then given pithy reintroductions when we see them later, helping readers recall them amidst a welter of factions, acronyms, and names. All the while, Malala builds a dramatic narrative, full of surprises, setbacks, a sense of the future hanging in the balance.

Malala's key idea is that the assassination of Nelson Mandela protégé and popular firebrand Chris Hani, meant to ignite a race war, was instead cannily used by Mandela and his allies to push through stalled negotiations and make concrete progress toward ending apartheid. He shows how Mandela successfully grappled with his own grief at Hani's death and sought to steer his followers feelings toward peaceful demonstration; meanwhile, Nelson's political frenemy President FW De Klerk is shown ceding his authority by both failing to restrain right-wing militants and accusing Hani's mourners of fomenting violence with their demonstrations. The text makes a strong case that this is the week that Nelson Mandela, lifelong activist and factional political leader, became South Africa's first true national leader.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Justice Malala was a rookie reporter when the news came in that Chris Hani had been shot. To his own eyewitness account, he has added meticulous research to piece together the events of that day and the personal and political aftermath of an assassination designed to trigger a race war. This book reads like a true crime novel. It is a reminder that history is contingent; that Hani's death led to the end of apartheid feels like a one in a million chance. So many things could have turned out differently. Reading about white supremacist operatives, barely controlled protests, police overreach, gun-toting right-wingers, and the precarious negotiations to keep South Africa from imploding was uncannily similar to listening to the January 6th Commission hearings. The playbook for dividing a nation remains the same.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

It takes a really gifted author to construct such complicated subjects such as this into a narrative that keeps the reader engaged and able to keep track of all the parties involved. The story was bogged down for me by too many names, acronyms, agencies and dates presented too close together without enough distinguishing information to keep them all straight. Not enough finesse of weaving the human interest aspects with the historical facts to make a compelling read. This could only have been accomplished by making the book much longer or changing the approach to tell the core parts of the events without all the peripheral political information. This type of historical non-fiction reads best when written as either investigative journalism OR biography. Hampton Sides is about the best at doing both at once.

[Shane Fitzpatrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was easy to read as it covered the events of a historic week in South African history. I recall the tensions at the time but Malala clearly explains the back story to what was effectively the fall of apartheid. He does do in an easy to follow chronological order and repeats the names of people and events which I found useful as, with multiple players it is not always easy to remember who is who. There is no clear conclusion as there is still uncertainty as to who was really behind the assassination of Chris Hani. Was is just Janusz Walus with Clive Derby or was there a deeper conspiracy with the old apartheid government??? All the facts are presented and you can decide…..

[Ian Kayanja · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a book about leadership in times of crisis, and a moment in South African history that forced the country to rise above its worst version of itself.

The book can really be summarized by this final quote: “When Mandela came out of prison there were millions of us behind him. We all urged him at the top of our voices to act radical and cause a conflagration. We did it most loudly in that week of [Chris] Hani’s assassination. Mandela chose an unpopular path — to tell his followers that he would not kill the elephant, would not pull the trigger, and that peace was better than war.”

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an important piece of journalism...but I'm not convinced its a good book. I say that because many people who were not alive/too young to pay attention during the fall of apartheid have come to view it as an inevitability where the peaceful transition of power from the white minority to the Black majority was all but assured from the moment Mandela left prison. This book reminds us that the future was not nearly so assured as it seems now in hindsight. But... there were several moments in this book I wish Malala could or would have gone deeper into the moments he catalogues. For example, he pretty heavily foreshadows the murder of the white tourists during this period, but the actual event feels like a bit of an afterthought rather than a key inflection point. By treating all of his moments with the same emphasis we almost wind up glossing over things that are pretty darn important to his story.

[Devlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Plot to Save South Africa" by Justice Malala

**Sympathetic View:**
Justice Malala's "The Plot to Save South Africa" is a poignant exploration of South Africa's tumultuous journey towards democracy and justice. Through a deeply personal lens, Malala unveils the heroism, sacrifices, and unwavering resolve of countless South Africans who fought against oppressive regimes. The book serves as a powerful testament to the nation's resilience and an urgent call for continued vigilance in the face of ongoing challenges.

**Objective View:**
In "The Plot to Save South Africa," Justice Malala offers a comprehensive account of South Africa's political landscape. Drawing on various sources and firsthand experiences, the book aims to provide an in-depth examination of the nation's struggles and successes post-apartheid. While the narrative is rich in detail and personal anecdotes, some readers may find Malala's perspective to be inclined towards his own experiences, potentially overshadowing a broader, objective view of events. The writing style, though evocative, occasionally leans towards the verbose.

[Mike Whiskey Bravo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. Having lived in South Africa as a child through the 80s, I recognised some of the names involved.

The tone of the book was fine to begin with, but then about half way through it changed, where it got repetitive. One thing that jarred though: the use of capital B for Blacks, but lower case w for Whites. Deliberate?

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding insights into this inflection point in SA’s transition to democracy. Grippingly written - reveals a truly sophisticated process that was potentially derailed, but for the cool heads that prevailed among some of the historic personalities involved.

[Heather G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible

The loss of Chris Bank is incredibly sad, the fact his daughter witnessed it is awful. The grace Mandela and many other showed in the face of this heinous act of hatred and cruelty is inspiring.

[Morgan]

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.

[Raymond Ozuna · Rating 5 out of 5]

La patrie ou la mort, nous vaincrons!

[Catherine Knepp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good information but writing was a bit chaotic

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Power of words.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really excellent. Even though it starts in the "middle" and examines only a week of events, it's great at grounding the complex politics without being confusing or superficial.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was in my late teens when these events took place and may not have fully appreciated them at the time, although I was not unaware of events in South Africa. I saw Bishop Desmond Tutu speak at the California state house during my 5th grade field trip to the capitol. I saw Nelson Mandela speak at the Oakland Coliseum during his world speaking tour following release from prison.

Even so, I didn't know the details of the nine days following the assassination of Chris Hani, a high ranking official in the African National Congress and close friend of Nelson Mandela. In the days following the assassination, perpetrated by white supremacists with the goal of plunging South Africa into a civil war to further cement white political domination of the country, Nelson Mandela emerged as the nation's true leader in attempts to maintain peace and order. While the official president deClerk's efforts faltered, Mandela's leadership was the catalyst of achieving the exact opposite of the assassination's purpose, averting civil war, and ultimately leading to majority rule and democratic elections.

At one point, South Africa looked to the U.S. as an ideal model of apartheid. Now, apartheid-era South African influences inform U.S. policy, giving this historic perspective an unexpected relevance to the present day U.S.

[angelika swartz · Rating 3 out of 5]

crazy good