This afternoon I was listening to my local left-of-center community radio station (88.5 WMNF – "Not a member of the Big Brother Broadcasting Network!), and Indian author Arundhati Roy was giving a speech, mainly excoriating America’s role in the Iraq War and its aftermath, but she covered a wide range of ground.
At one point, she was talking about how the powers-that-be have long since figured out how to subvert and control any emerging “democracy,” and she cited South Africa as an example: Since the post-Apartheid government was established in 1994, it jumped on the global-economy bandwagon, privatizing things that were public under the old regime, with the result that 10 million people, almost a quarter of the total population, have lost their electric power and water service; disparities between the haves and have-nots have grown even wider; and the old white elite has not been at all disturbed in its possession of the country’s productive property.
So says Arundhati Roy. Now, I realize she’s arguing from a distinct ideological viewpoint and I should hesitate to accept her words without checking them against reports from more mainstream media sources. The problem is that such sources tell me almost nothing, good or bad, about South Africa. Since Apartheid was abolished, South Africa seems to have dropped off the radar screen. I’ve heard news stories about the reports of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, the AIDS epidemic, the occasional soccer riot, and not much else.
In the late '80s I was occasionally involved in anti-Apartheid demonstrations, and did some reading up on South African history. I was all for Mandela and the ANC, but I remember thinking at the time: If the ANC leaders come to power, that will be a distinct improvement over Apartheid, but they will probably fall flat on their faces. They will prove to be corrupt or incompetent or both. Why? Because they are political activists who have spent their entire public lives to date fighting the government, and they have never had a chance to participate in government, not even as a party in opposition. They have no experience running a government, and they have never been exposed to the temptations of power. But, so what? After a few years, they will learn, well enough to deliver the goods, or the voters will turn them out. That’s the way democracy works. And if South Africa can put its strange, pseudocolonial political system behind it, it might become the nucleus for the development and modernization of Africa! Even under Apartheid, it was the most advanced and richest country on the continent.
Right-wingers at the time made much more dire predictions. I remember Jesse Helms loudly proclaiming on the floor of the Senate that the end of Apartheid would lead to minority rule in South Africa, in the form of communist – sorry, commernist – rule.
Well, obviously, those fears were unfounded. But I still don’t know whether my own expectations have been fulfilled or not. I’ve checked out some websites on South Africa but they have very little to say about the current state of affairs there. I know the bantustans were abolished and merged into the new provincial governments, all of which are controlled by the ANC except for West Cape, which is ruled by the Nationalist Party, and KwaZulu-Natal, which is ruled by the Inkatha Freedom Party; while the ANC still controls an absolute majority of the national parliament. I know that when Mandela’s term ended he stepped down and national elections were duly held, so SA is now on its second post-Apartheid president, Mbeki – that’s a milestone for any new democracy. But that’s all I know.
Here’s the question: ARE the non-white peoples of South Africa better off for having gotten rid of Apartheid? Obviously they’re better off in some ways – they no longer have to be terrified of their own government. But besides that, what? Has the general standard of living gone up or down? The GDP? The literacy rate? The distribution of wealth?
:eek: 