It got me to thinking: Zimbabwe and South Africa had such similar situations – both British colonies in southern Africa, with a postcolonial government where an all-white minority ruled over a disenfranchised black majority. And in both countries that system was abolished (1980 in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, 1994 in South Africa). But afterwards – the two countries took such very different paths!
Zimbabwe became an arbitrary dictatorship under Robert Mugabe, who has been president since 1980. He has played the race card, dispossessing white farmers and encouraging blacks to squat on their estates. But blacks under his rule haven’t fared much better – hunger is widespread, and all political opposition is effectively banned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4222387.stm
South Africa, OTOH, made a peaceful transition to democracy and has had two free and fair elections. When anti-Apartheid sanctions were being debated in the U.S. Senate, I remember Jesse Helms warning that a change of government in SA would “lead to minority rule – Commernist rule!” But, although the Communists are in a governing coalition with the African National Congress, there have been no state expropriations of property, nor reprisals against the white population. The worst social problems are rampant crime (the old all-white police forces having been abolished with Apartheid, and the new ones still too young to be effective) and the HIV epidemic. Apart from that, the society and economy appear to be thriving. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa
Why such a striking difference between two countries that started out in such similar situations?
Firstly, thanks for starting one of the few Africa threads I’ve ever seen on the Dope.
I think these two countries did not really start from as similar situations as you think. Zimbabwe was born out of a war. This has affected the psychology of the country ever since. South Africa managed a peaceful transition, something I never would have predicted beforehand. This difference may be all important in South Africa’s future development. Also South Africa had the Mandela factor, not to be underestimated – he actually stood down from power.
It is early days in South Africa, however. Zimbabwe independence was hailed around the world and the country was held up as an example for many years – despite the fact that Mugabe showed his colours early with his repression of the Matabele. It was a tourist mecca for much of the 80s and 90s. It is only in very recent years that wide-spread repression has started. The land issue is a pretext made-up because Mugabe can feel power slipping away.
South Africa has yet to face this problem. Its elections can be free and fair because there is no way that the ANC could lose. I’m not saying they will inevitably turn to corruption in a big way, but there simply hasn’t been a need as yet.
I could rattle on about this for ages but will leave it there for now.
As Ithaka noted, Zimbabwe was born of war. Well and good. But what was established following the revolution (freely elected revolution) quickly degenerated into the african ‘Big Man’ concept of government.
Certainly the two parties involved in the election, the ZANU and ZAPU parties, were led this way (and in fact Mugabe led the ZANU party).
South Africa, on the other hand, had a more orderly transfer of power from one elected leader to the next within the regular framework of government. I think this is vital is seeing that SA remained stable and democratic whereas Zimbabwe has not.
And I agree that Mandela setting the example of stepping down from power was vital to the establishment of a regular exhange of power via the electoral process. Sometimes that can be the trickiest thing for a new government to acheive: the handoff from one executive to the next through peaceful means.
I think it was partly the war that led to the veneration of the Big Man in Zimbabwe. Both Mugabe and Nkomo (leader of Zapu) were ‘heroes’ from that struggle.
I’ve interviewed Morgan Tsvangerai (leader of the MDC, the present opposition). He’s a likeable fellow but I’m not utterly convinced he’d be any different. He’s of a different generation but that’s proved a false hope elsewhere on the continent.
I’d also like to point out that while these elections were clearly not free and fair, Mugabe still does have huge support in the country, especially in the rural areas. Change will come, but I think we’ll have a few years of him and / or Zanu yet.
We shouldn’t forget that Zimbabwe had almost 20 years of peaceful, prosperous life after the war and the Zim Dollar was stronger than the SA Rand in the early nineties. Perhaps this was due to post-independence euphoria, where people were happy to accept Mugabe’s rule because it wasn’t the white government of the past, but it is wrong to paint the one as a total success and the other as a total failure.
In fact, some would argue that there are signs of early “Mugabising” symptoms in the South African government - an inability to accept/listen to criticism, Mbeki’s bizarre “Aids is not caused by HIV” stance, various abortive attempts to transform the education system for example. I only hope that people are noting the developments to the North and acting to prevent the same things taking place in my homeland.