Domestically and internationally, opposition to apartheid had both a moral and a political dimension. Opponents the world over justifiably regarded apartheid as a fundamentally immoral policy based on white supremacy and racial injustice.

Under apartheid, the majority-Black population was treated by the white minority government as second-class citizens. It was such blatant injustice that offended the consciences of millions of people all over the world, many of whom joined the international campaign to end apartheid.

To most people, the very notion that some people are better than others simply on the basis of their skin color was profoundly immoral and savored of the debased ideology put into practice by the Nazis during the Second World War in its mass murder of Jews, Slavs, and other ethnic groups they regarded as racially inferior.

From a political standpoint, international opposition and internal resistance to apartheid were both based on the simple concept of majority rule. The vast majority of South Africans were Black, yet they were denied basic civil and human rights by the white minority government.

The anti-apartheid movement, in fighting to bring to an end the system of white minority rule, was attempting to bring democracy to South Africa. Only once democracy had been established could the core principle of majority-Black rule finally be made real.