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Frederik Willem de Klerk. That's another example of someone that stepped up and said "enough". While South Africa was not comparable to the USSR; nevertheless what de Klerk did was equally significant in terms of relinquishing power. I was living in South Africa as a visiting academic when the transformation began, before de Klerk: Mandela had come off of Robben Island to never return. Also, the forces of change were clearly beginning to take on a force and de Klerk recognized this and did the necessary. Many at the time doubted his "intentions...blah, blah blah" because many of these commentators public lives depended basically on SA continuing to be a pariah. De Klerk snatched this away from them...because, for me, in the final analysis its not what you say but what you do.

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