The resistance movements in South Africa have shown an increased maturity in recent years, and this has found an echo in a corresponding maturity in the modification of the apartheid system itself. The contention here is that most of the ‘reforms’ brought about by the South African government have, in one way or another, been primarily provoked by resistance activity. The tricameral parliament and the newly proclaimed National Statutory Council (NSC) — the major components of the new dispensation at a national level — reflect the state’s increasingly ‘sophisticated’ responses in attempting to contain the emergent wave of resistance.