Dawn of a New Era for South Africans : This week’s all-race voting climaxes centuries of black hope

South Africa, like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, was forged violently in a crucible of colonialism, racism and greed. Generations later, the political landscape still bears these birth scars.

This week’s historic election for voters of all races won’t end old hatreds or eliminate deep-seated fears, but it will put the country on the path toward democracy and, perhaps, racial equality.

White settlers arrived early in this extraordinarily rich part of Africa. The first, the Dutch, landed on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. These Afrikaners took “free” farmland--6,000 acres at a time--and brought in African and Malaysian slaves to till the soil. In the process, they displaced the black people who had lived there for ages.

The British gained control in 1795, establishing a more moderate brand of colonialism. Although they abolished slavery, they still enjoyed white privileges, imported Indian indentured servants and refused to enfranchise blacks.

Black South Africa did not submit willingly. The African National Congress led protests against racial restrictions from its founding in 1912, but the hard-handed restrictions only worsened. When the Afrikaners’ National Party came to political power in 1948, it codified white domination by creating apartheid, a legal system of racial classification and separation that determined where blacks could be born, live, attend school, work and be buried, in addition to decreeing whom they could not marry. South African police brutally enforced this cradle-to-grave system of racial segregation.

In 1960, a peaceful demonstration against apartheid turned deadly after police shot at unarmed protesters, killing at least 67; the infamous Sharpeville Massacre led the government to ban the ANC. But that only led to violence by anti-apartheid activists who had been forced underground. In 1964, Nelson Mandela and other prominent ANC leaders were charged with sabotage and imprisoned for life.

Students then took the lead in fighting apartheid. In Soweto and other townships they boycotted classes to protest the government’s insistence that they learn the Afrikaans language. In 1976, police fired repeatedly on peaceful student protesters. At least 575 died.

The internal and external pressures against apartheid finally had an effect in 1989, when a new president with a brighter vision took office. President Frederik W. de Klerk deserves credit for freeing Mandela and other political prisoners, lifting the ban against the ANC and other black political parties, repealing the apartheid laws and starting negotiations on a new constitution. Mandela, with whom De Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, deserves credit for his highly principled and unyielding role in advancing democracy. The culmination of their work will occur Tuesday when three days of voting begin.

After the election, a majority-ruled South Africa could capitalize on new commercial opportunities to become an economic leader on the continent. Nothing is a given in a nation with huge political divides and pervasive poverty. But as the balloting begins, at last there are bright hopes and great expectations.