FORUM TheThe EconomicEconomic LegacyLegacy ofof ApartheidApartheid John Shingler able and inspiring act did not overcome cal leaders who were steeped in the idea the terrible problems which apartheid and art of compromise and realised that, created. The harsh reality facing South at the end of the day, they had to leave OUTH AFRICA’S NEW POLITICAL Africa’s new rulers is that apartheid con- something on the table for each other as leaders confront a difficult situa- tributed to the forging of a legacy which well as the rest of the country. The cul- S tion. They govern a country which will take generations to overcome. tural compromise—epitomised in the is ostensibly normal, but where in In the years leading up to the 1994 elec- claim and hope that South Africans are fact much of the economic struc- tion a broad consensus emerged on three “the rainbow people of God”—has its ture of apartheid remains intact. issues: apartheid was a catastrophe; roots in the dreams of Christian brother- South Africa’s various peoples could be hood and Enlightenment egalitarianism Agreeing to Differ? brought into a “rainbow nation”; and the which underpin the ideology of the Many people—in South Africa and apartheid state should be replaced by a African National Congress (ANC), and abroad—believed that bringing apartheid law-governed constitutionalist order. But which ultimately may be acceptable to formally to an end would be like waving this was basically a political consensus; it Afrikaner nationalists, Zulu exceptional- the Fairy Godmother’s magic wand, turn- did not include a fully articulated, shared ists and supporters of Black conscious- ing the pumpkin immediately into a car- economic vision of the country. ness alike. riage. Not so. In one of the great The platform from which Nelson Man- It is the third pillar, the tacit agreement volte faces of this century, apartheid was dela now governs rests on three pillars: a to modify only slowly an economy built declared legally dead—but that remark- constitutional settlement; a cultural com- upon racially based privilege and exclu- promise; and a problematic and contest- sion, which is the source of the challenge Investment strategist with Brockhouse & Cooper, Inc. ed economic accommodation which confronting the Mandela government— in Montreal, Canada, where he specialises in South leaves much of the status quo ante intact. that is, to define and establish an eco- Africa. From 1967 to 1996, he was a Professor of Polit- The first two pillars need not detain us. nomic vision which will inform and ical Science at McGill University in Montreal. His South African passport and citizenship were restored The constitutional settlement was based inspire all South Africans as they seek to in 1994 after a 30-year hiatus. on extensive negotiations between politi- overcome the legacy of apartheid. WORLD ECONOMIC AFFAIRS ● WINTER 1997 49 FORUM A Useful Comparison factors—but in the 50 years since World racism and English jingoism, it was rela- One way of putting this challenge in War II the implementation of the policy of tively easy for the dominant Whites— international perspective is by comparing apartheid has been central to South owners and workers—to put in place a South Africa to Canada. Both countries Africa’s malaise. system of White supremacy based on the are colonial in origin, settled initially by I remember as a boy the shocked exclusion of native Blacks from almost all the Dutch and the French, respectively. It atmosphere in my school’s playground skilled work—a policy variously called was the British, however, who gave them the day after the election which brought “the colour bar” or “job reservation”. their basic founding features in the Nine- the Afrikaner nationalists to power in The long confrontation between the teenth century. Both overwhelmed native 1948. Within months the country was Boers and the British culminated in the peoples and imposed European institu- plunged into tension and conflict as the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. The result- tions and practices on them. Both started new cabinet pushed aggressively ahead ing turmoil coincided with the urbanisa- and remain active in the extraction and with its programme of racist legislation, tion and impoverishment of the Afrikan- exploitation of natural resources. Both and the country sank into its “forty lost ers, a process which laid the foundations have developed sophisticated modern sys- years” as Dan O’Meara called them in his of a political revolution in South Africa in tems of administration, recent book by that title. As the first half of the 20th century—the har- financial services, research things turned out, I was to nessing of Afrikaner nationalism to racial and development, transport If South Africa spend three of those four exclusiveness and domination. and communications, man- decades abroad—a political This development has to be seen in the ufacturing, and resource had pursued an émigré in an exile only part- context of the prevailing Anglo-South development. open political ly of my own making. African hegemony in the economy, a sit- Since World War II, how- If South Africa, in the uation against which the Afrikaner intel- ever, the two countries have and economic years following World War ligentsia led a White working-class revolt. followed increasingly diver- strategy, II, had pursued an open Banking, insurance, the civil service, the gent paths. Canada has political and economic strat- professions, education, mining, manu- become prosperous and perhaps it egy—educating its popula- facturing, wholesale and retail com- egalitarian, and ranks at the might today tion generously and with merce, and much of agriculture was in top of recent UN surveys. In have been an vision, training the labour the hands of English-speaking South contrast, South Africa is force, welcoming fresh ideas Africans—most of them of British descent demonstrably unequal and, African “Lion” and modern technology, and and unabashed in their contempt for widespread reports of its comparable to exploring new opportuni- Afrikaners. wealth to the contrary, very ties—perhaps it might today The South African government of the poor. the Asian have been an African “Lion” 1920s, in an attempt to protect the Elementary data speak for “Tigers” of the comparable to the Asian nascent manufacturing sector which had themselves. Canada’s popu- “Tigers” of the Pacific rim. emerged during World War I, introduced lation is 29.6 million and Pacific rim. Why this turn to exclusion an import-substitution policy which was South Africa’s is 41.2 mil- in South Africa at a time kept in place until the final GATT round lion, yet their respective when the rest of the world and South Africa’s admission to the World GDPs in current US dollars are $566 bil- was embracing the more generous out- Trade Organisation. This protectionist lion and $134 billion. Their per capita ward-looking vision of the post-World outlook coincided with the so-called GDPs are thus concomitantly disparate at War II era? A grasp of its historical back- “civilised labour policy” introduced at $19,100 and $3,240. Canada’s unemploy- ground is essential to an understanding that time. These two policies reflected the ment hovers around 9.5% whereas South of what the great historian C.W. de country’s fortress mentality and basically Africa’s official rate is in excess of 30%. Kiewitt called “the anatomy of South performed the same function—protecting Canadians think in terms of declining African misery”. White South Africans from the competi- house prices and housing starts, whereas tion of others, whether foreign workers South Africa has a homeless population The Roots of Apartheid abroad or Black workers at home. variously estimated at between 8 and 12 Prior to the discovery of diamonds in The National Party came into office in million people. Canada has well over 200 1867 and gold in 1884, and the opening of 1948. In introducing the slogan and prac- post-secondary educational institutions, the Suez Canal in 1869, South Africa’s tice of apartheid it built upon the oppres- South Africa perhaps 40. One is the dar- place in the British-dominated global sive and complementary strategies of ling of the G7, and the other, with the economy of the day was limited to the preceding generations—White supremacy waning of the euphoria following the provisioning of East-India men, tea clip- and segregation. These policies were in 1994 election, draws increasing criticism pers and whalers at Cape Town, and to a fact largely British in origin. Parentheti- from international commentators. marginal international trade based on the cally, note that there is a tendency in the Why so great a discrepancy? In the case export of animal products (ivory and analysis of South Africa to blame all the of Canada, its success can in large part be wool) and the import of manufactured misery on the Afrikaners. But this is inac- attributed to its proximity to the United goods (tools and guns). curate; it was the British who laid the States—as a source of capital and as a The rapid expansion of its mining foundations of the system which the market; but its inclusive economic and industry in the late 19th century brought Afrikaners later inherited and, in their social policies have also been very impor- South Africa into the modern world in a turn, consolidated. tant. In the South African case, the strangely perverted way. Because the The goals of the fervent Afrikaner absence of either a large neighbouring emergence of South Africa’s economy nationalism which led to the 1948 elec- market or major source of capital were coincided with the rise of European toral victory were twofold: to contain WORLD ECONOMIC AFFAIRS ● WINTER 1997 50 FORUM English-speaking capital and, by means of They were willing to abandon their global economy, as the government failed apartheid (in an intensely interventionist political position and to focus their ener- to respond to the emergence of highly use of state power), to secure the interests gies almost exclusively on the preserva- competitive technology-based export of the White working class.