The role of external pressure in the fight against apartheid and minority rule in South Africa External pressure played a very important role in bringing about the end of apartheid. The embodied rejection of white domination in South Africa, in formations of protests, strikes and demonstrations, caused a decade of turbulent mass action in resistance to the imposition of even harsher forms of segregation and oppression. The Defiance campaign of 1952 took mass mobilization to new heights under the banner of nonviolent resistance to the pass laws. These actions were partly influenced by the philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi. A key step in the emergence of non-racialism was the formation of the Congress Alliance, including the ANC; South African Indian Congress; the Congress of Colored People; a small white congressional organization (the Democratic Congress); and the South African Congress of Trade Unions. The Alliance gave formal expression to an emerging unity across racial and class boundaries that manifested itself in the Defiance Campaign and other mass protests of this period, which also saw women's resistance take on a more organized character with the formation of the South African Women's Federation. , a Freedom Charter was drawn up at the Soweto People's Congress. The Charter set out the principles of the struggle, binding the movement to a culture of human rights and without racism. Over the next few decades, the Freedom Charter was elevated to an important symbol of the freedom struggle. The Pan African Congress (PAC), founded by Robert Sobukwe and based on the philosophies of ?Africanism? and anti-com...... at the center of the paper ...... economy and growing international pressure, these developments have made historic changes inevitable. FW de Klerk, who replaced Botha as Land President in 1989, announced upon the opening of the Chambers in February 1990 the lifting of the ban on liberation movements and the release of political prisoners, in particular Nelson Mandela. A number of factors led to this step. International financial, trade, sporting and cultural sanctions have clearly been sharp. Above all, although South Africa was nowhere near collapse, either militarily or economically, several years of emergency rule and ruthless repression had clearly neither destroyed the structures of organized resistance nor helped to establish the legitimacy of the apartheid regime or his collaborators. Instead, popular resistance, including mass and armed actions, was intensifying.