The last two years in South Africa have seen the most sweeping changes in the politics of the country since the coming to power of the first National Party government in 1948. While full democratisation, with a new constitution and a franchise for every adult South African, has still to be achieved, the unbanning in 1990 of organisations such as the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, and the repeal in 1991 of the principal Acts of Parliament which entrenched the system of racial segregation known as apartheid, have cleared the ground for the creation of a new and more democratic society in South Africa. It would be naive to suppose that this society can be called into existence merely by legislative means, or that the process leading to such legislation, which is now under way, will be painless. Years of domination by white South Africans over other racial groups will have to be unravelled, efforts devoted to improving the economic situation of individuals and the economy of the country as a whole, mutual confidence built up, attitudes changed. The timespan involved will not be five years or ten, but a generation or more. But the movement has begun, and it is almost inconceivablet hat it could now be put into reverse.2H iccups there will be, but democratic change will come.