Building a democracy: a decade after apartheid

International | SPECIAL REPORT: South Africa celebrates 10 years of freedom and equal rights. Its successes—and failures—are signposts for democracy-builders in today's terror-torn lands | Priya Abraham

When Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president, he stood on a podium encased in bulletproof glass. The white-haired freedom fighter had just succeeded in tearing down the country's racist apartheid system and needed protection as he brought the country out of a past not so different from the terrorist present in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.

Unifying whites, blacks, Indians, and mixed-race "coloreds" segregated for decades would be tough. But he promised then in 1994 that the nation reborn as a democracy would "never, never and never again" see racial oppression.

Hyperbole aside, Mr. Mandela's vision is largely succeeding 10 years later, with the country's third free elections on April 14. Black South Africans move about without internal passports. They live in once white-only neighborhoods. The sweeping black backlash of violence that many whites feared after apartheid's fall did not materialize. And to heal old wounds, the new government set up a unique Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine past atrocities.