More than a quarter of a century after democracy, the repeal of apartheid legislation from the statute books has not translated into improved race relations among the different races in SA.
What was dubbed the miracle of 1994 and which gave birth to what became known as the “rainbow nation” has dissipated over the years as the legacy of apartheid stubbornly refuses to go away. The tenure of SA’s first democratic president, Nelson Mandela, was greeted with intoxicating euphoria that lulled the country into complacency about the irreversibility of reconciliation.
The mood in the country was captured in the question “what could possibility go wrong?” As it turned out, the honeymoon period was to be short-lived as the dream of one nation with a common vision began to unravel.
The unravelling of the democratic project was in the main occasioned by the monumental failures of leadership by the ruling ANC. After assuming power in 1994, it would seem that its mantra morphed from “a better life for all” to “it is our turn to eat” as cadres clamoured for a place at the feeding trough. This sentiment was articulated in the words of former ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama, when he uttered without shame or any hint of irony that “I did not enter the Struggle to be poor”.
It is such sentiments that caused the ANC to lose sight of the bigger picture and forget about the aspirations and expectations of the masses which had brought it to power. Poverty alleviation or even eradication was sacrificed for the creation of the small elite of those politically connected.
Policies such as affirmative action and BEE were subverted to accommodate party loyalists through the practice of cadre deployment. The failure to close the inequality gap would prove to be inimical to racial integration as the face of wealth continues to be white with a sprinkling of a few black elite, while the face of poverty continues to be predominantly black.
Such a situation ran counter to the goal of the normalisation of race relations and instead led to feelings of resentment from those who continue to bear the brunt of grinding poverty. Whites are blamed for being anti-transformation and for refusing to share their wealth with blacks. The failure to grow the economy coupled with the failure to improve the quality of education provision count as two of the most spectacular failures of the ANC government.
As a result of these failures the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality continue to stare us in the face. One can add crime and corruption to the mess under the ruinous administration of the ANC. The reconciliation project of 1994 has been jettisoned in favour of inflamed racial rhetoric that seeks to place the blame for all our problems on whites for their reluctance to climb on the transformation bandwagon.
Parties such as the EFF have taken to adding Indians as the source of our misfortunes. Among coloureds, there is a sense of marginalisation. As things stand, it seems there has been no progress on the normalisation of race relations. Instead, things seem to be taking a downturn.
To normalise these relations, what needs to happen is that a truce has to be called and racially inflamed rhetoric toned down. Whites also have to reach out to blacks in a spirit of atonement and willingness to make material sacrifices in an effort to improve the lot of their black compatriots. This can be in the form of establishing self-help projects that would ease the burden of job creation that the government seems unable to countenance.
There also needs to be more intermingling among SA’s racial groups. What now seems to be the case is that the repeal of restrictive legislation such as the Group Areas Act has not yielded substantial integration in residential areas, schools, churches, at places of entertainment and so on and so forth. A scant observation reveals that when blacks come to live in an area formerly reserved for whites, those whites who can afford it move further north to avoid associating with blacks. The apartheid architecture remains intact because we still live apart, we go to separate schools, worship separately and we play separately. SA is still a divided nation.
To break the edifice of apartheid we need a government that will prioritise issues of economic growth that will ensure that the imbalances of the past will be redressed. In turn, this would reduce racial tensions and ensure the vigorous resumption of the project of reconciliation.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.