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South Africa’s Building Blocks and Problem Areas by W B Vosloo* - Wollongong, January 2013

Foreign visitors, who might have been exposed to other parts of Africa, are often surprised at what they see on arrival in . Visitors are surprised by the modern airport facilities, the six-lane highways in and around the major cities, the many high-rise buildings, the large traffic volumes including a multitude of big trucks and expensive German cars, huge township development projects, five-star hotels, abundant modern shopping malls, more white faces than expected, well-maintained farmlands and high-quality livestock herds by the roadside, modern deepwater port facilities at five port cities, a wide variety of eateries and an abundance of food, a large stock of luxurious brick-built homes, extensive hospital and health services – but also around the cities large stretches of squalid squatter townships and, on street corners in the outlying suburbs of cities, large collections of people just sitting around looking for employment. To explain the context requires a more comprehensive analysis.

Positive Building Blocks

Sound Basic Infrastructure

Since its early colonial era, South Africa was well served by its major port cities: , Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban. During the 1960s two additional deep-sea harbours were constructed: one at Richards Bay to export coal and one at Saldanha Bay to export iron ore. Both export harbours are connected with good railway lines running hundreds of kilometres to the inland mining areas. Apart from these, South Africa has well-developed transport corridors between the port cities and the mining, industrial and commercial centres in the inland area – some of which developed more than a century ago. South Africa has more than 40 percent of all the paved roads and railroads on the continent of Africa. South Africa produces more than 50 percent of the total electricity output on the continent at six major coal-fired power stations and eight hydro-electric power pump schemes, and one nuclear-powered power station. Several giant new facilities are under construction to service the expanding distribution networks. South Africa is also well served by around fifteen large water- storage dams and a wide network of irrigation canals and tunnels.

Sound Business and Financial Infrastructure

For more than a century South Africa has been served by a network of financial institutions and business support systems. The major banks, Standard, First National, Nedbank and ABSA have been in operation for generations, each with a countrywide network of branches. In addition, there are several merchant banks focusing on business expansions and mergers. All the major accountancy networks are represented across the country as well as a plethora of attorneys, solicitors, conveyancers, tax consultants, management consultants, marketing agents and insurance agents. The mining, manufacturing and retail sectors are well-organised to lobby their interests. The trade union movement has a history of more than a century and is today predominantly represented by COSATU, one of the partners of the ANC government.

Several major insurance companies – SANLAM, Old Mutual, Liberty Life and African Life – have been in operation for over 80 years and have played a major role in offering pension schemes, a wide array of insurance policies and in mobilising the savings of millions of persons in their capacity as predominant institutional investors. South Africa has also been well served by development corporations, both 2 public and privately sponsored, to stimulate and channel development support such as the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC, now called Business Partners).

Last, but not least, a pillar of the business and financial infrastructure is the Stock Exchange (JSE) – the 11th largest in the world. Organised stock exchanges enable investors to acquire or sell shares in public companies. They can diversify risks by owning shares in several firms that are engaged in different businesses without having to become directly involved in management. Because shares can be easily bought and sold, change in ownership does not cause disruptions in operations as it does in either sole proprietorships or partnerships. The continuity of a public company makes long- range planning easier and also increases the ability of the incorporated firm to borrow money for expansion. The market capitalisation of the JSE is the largest in Africa and larger than Russia’s stock market. A strong capital market, strong financial systems and financial stability is crucial for sustained economic growth.

A Developed Education Network

Some of South Africa’s universities have been in action close to a century, e.g. Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Potchefstroom, Grahamstown, Fort Hare (counting as one of its famous students), Natal and University of South Africa (UNISA), a correspondence university with more than 100,000 students from across Africa and elsewhere in the world. Even Robert Mugabe, during his years in prison, was a student of UNISA. Most of South Africa’s Prime Ministers, Cabinet Ministers, politicians, senior civil servants and particularly also business leaders and managers are graduates of South African universities. In addition, every major city is also served by technical and teacher training colleges offering vocational training in all relevant fields.

The education sector consists of some 8 million primary, 4.5 million secondary, and one million tertiary learners. 30,000 schools and 400,000 educators. Education is compulsory for the 7-15 age category and 20 percent of the national budget (5.5 percent of GDP) is spent on public education. Literacy levels are estimated at 82 percent: 81 percent female and 83 percent male. At most primary schools, 50 percent of learners are female. At university level, the majority of students are female.

Much still needs to be done to improve the quality of public education. For most of the past decade, less than 50 percent of candidates passed the final school-leaving examination. Private (independent) education is able to offer world-class schools that increasingly attract international pupils. Within the public sector there are also many ex-White suburban schools that are now racially integrated, where 100 percent pass rates are achieved. Of those who gained matric passes good enough to get them into university in 2003, only 5 percent were Black, compared to 7 percent Coloured, 41 percent Indian and 36 percent White. Unfortunately there are also dysfunctional township schools, which only achieve 0 to 20 percent pass rates and where a culture of teaching and learning is absent. The hardest part is to improve the quality of teachers.

During the anti- ‘struggle’ years, much criticism was directed against the Bantu Education Act of 1953 which introduced mother-tongue education for the various African communities. It was claimed that it was designed to consign Black people to a destiny of manual labour and mental oppression. But the principle of mother-tongue education was consistently supported by Afrikaans- speakers for many decades. have always maintained that mother-tongue education is the simple de facto reality in mother-tongue societies like England, France, Germany and Italy. The 3 mainstream language, mother-tongue language and the official language is one and the same thing. In a multi-lingual country like South Africa, with its 11 official languages, English – or perhaps ‘broken English’ – has become the lingua franca.

A growing number of Afrikaner and African parents have selected English as the preferred medium of instruction for their children in recent years. The consequence has been a marked intensification of learning problems. A study by Webb and Kembo-Sure, a research team, reported in African Voices, 2000, p.7, “… The decision of school authorities and parents to use English as the language of learning in schools (especially primary schools) has definitely contributed to the under-development of the South African people.” The same point was also made by Mamphela Ramphele, widow of Steve Biko and former Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, in a press interview on March 8th, 2009: “There is overwhelming evidence that learning through the first language or mother tongue helps to anchor learning in the child’s immediate environment: family, community and everyday interactions. Children, who are taught in the first few years in their mother tongue, while other languages are introduced as subjects, tend to become more proficient in all languages. It provides the anchor for better and deeper learning by linking it to everyday life and one’s own identity.”

Access to World-Class Science and Technology

In contrast to other parts of Africa, South Africa had the benefit of easy access to the predominant sources of modern science and technology – the major Western countries such as the USA, Western Europe and the United Kingdom. A very large proportion of White academics in a multitude of disciplines had the opportunity to pursue post-graduate studies at the trend-setting universities abroad: the Ivy League schools of America, the top universities in the UK, the leading universities in Germany, France, the Netherlands and in Scandinavia. This interaction was facilitated by the language proficiency of not only large numbers of White scholars but also by a substantial number of Black, Coloured and Indian students.

The transfer of scientific knowledge and state of the art technology was evident in all the natural sciences, physics, engineering mechanics, IT-technology, architecture, electro-magnetics, nuclear physics, economics, business management, public management and administration, finance and banking, medicine, education, agriculture, psychology, sociology and even theology. This interaction created a vast amount of cross-fertilisation that enabled South African universities, technical colleges and research institutions to keep abreast of new trends and best practices. There is virtually no field of knowledge, or area of technological advancement, that has not been accessible to South African scholarship over many generations.

The presence of this relatively large ‘first world’ component of highly educated and skilled persons has enabled South Africa to calibrate its industrial manufacturing strategy to international realities – a shift away from raw materials and cheap, labour-intensive, heavy industry to what is increasingly known as the ‘knowledge economy’. Ideas, information and technology are believed to have acquired greater importance than muscle and commodities. Extracting the wealth of minerals in South Africa required a high level of mine engineering technology and geological science.

International Trade

After more than two decades of co-ordinated world-wide campaigns to isolate South Africa by imposing trade and investment boycotts, 1994 once again opened the world for South Africa. South 4

Africa was able to share in the flourishing international growth rates. In the period 1994 to 2001, manufacturing’s share of total exports rose from 35 percent to more than 50 percent. The share of primary products in merchandise trade declined from 64 percent in 1970 to 37 percent in 2000. Its emphasis on high technology caused the low technology sectors to decline while the high technology sectors have seen a steady increase.

In the same period, exports, as a percentage of manufactured output, increased from 14 percent to 28 percent with motor vehicles, basic iron and steel products and basic chemicals leading the way. Vehicle exports rose from 15,764 in 1995 to 130,000 in 2002, and are still rising. Exports of vehicles as a percentage of domestic production have risen from 4 percent to 26 percent, earning more than R50 billion. From BMW, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen to Toyota, South African right-hand drive vehicles are sold in many parts of the world. South Africa is also well-placed to penetrate the huge potential of the emerging African market.

Accommodating Governmental Structures

Heterogeneous societies always carry the burden of inter-group rivalry – often based on coinciding and reinforcing cleavages as in the case of South Africa. These cleavages provide a fertile seedbed for polarised, cumulative conflict with regard to the allocation of values such as natural resources, privileges, priorities, pre-eminence and the control of command positions. For several generations the South African political scene was characterised by White domination coupled by various efforts to implement a separatist policy by creating separate self-governing territorial units where feasible. The underlying assumption was that socio-cultural incompatibilities and political tensions could not be resolved within a single polity. Given this irreconcilability of interests, separation of the groups into their own socio-economic political units with a territorial foundation was viewed by White power centres as the solution. In the colonial era, separate protectorates, that later became independent states, were created as in the cases of Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana.

Despite the operation of these centrifugal forces, the historical pattern of group interaction has also created common areas where members of all groups were permanently resided. A dismantling of the inter-racial South African economy proved to be unworkable without the total impoverishment of all concerned. Neither economic resources nor political capability was available to accomplish the ‘separation of the inseparable’. The South African reality encompassed both socio-cultural diversity and economic inter-dependence. Normally, separation by way of partitioning can at best only be achieved if it is geographically and economically feasible and based on mutual agreement. However, successful examples of this solution, though not impossible, are hard to find.

The opposite option was to choose a Westminster-type non-racial ‘common society’, based on universal suffrage, which in South Africa would inevitably lead to unqualified Black domination. The Westminster system, although suitable for a fairly homogeneous society, was itself modified by the English to accommodate the Irish Catholics (partitioning off Ireland and again sub-partitioning Northern Ireland) and granting a degree of self-rule to Scotland (devolution). The problem with simple majority rule in deeply divided societies is that it has a basic tendency to revert to majority domination.

Some of the problems raised by an unmodified Westminster-type majoritarian approach can be summarised as follows: (i) Executive dominance with the acquiescence or support of a permanent parliamentary majority. 5

(ii) An intensification of inter-group conflict as a result of the winner-takes-all principle and its concomitant inference that the losers may lose all. (iii) A concentration of political competition and conflict at the centre of the political system as a result of a lack of decentralisation to meet local problems and to respond to diverse needs and aspirations. (iv) A lack of restraint on parliamentary sovereignty and executive power in the absence of effective constitutional restraints. (v) The absence of power-sharing devices to reconcile conflicting group aspirations and to protect minority interests.

An accommodation response to the challenges of diversity and intergroup strife is to accept the plurality of the country as given and to design a political structure to fit and express this pluralism in a constructive way. Insofar as a democratic system rests on consent rather than compulsion, each coherent group must perceive that its basic needs can be fulfilled within the system. Examples of such needs are physical safety, preservation of language and culture, local self-government and effective participation in the decision-making of the overall political system.

Techniques of accommodation normally include decentralisation (devolution), federalism (regionalism), power-sharing (e.g. coalition, proportionality in policy-making bodies, mutual veto or even segmental autonomy in tribal areas, recognition of communal common law), and sub-cultural autonomy (enclaves of ethnic self-rule). These techniques can be applied to replace unrestrained majority rule with co-operative consensual rule; to replace executive dictatorship with power-sharing based on a mutual veto in order to harmonise inter-group relations; to replace winner-takes-all majority decision-making with the principle of proportionality or parity to scale down the disproportional exaggerated power of majorities in setting priorities and allocating resources; by delegating as much decision-making as possible to sub-units (e.g. federal regions or provinces) where regional or national minorities are protected from being swamped politically, socially and culturally.

South Africa went through three phases of transition after a ground-breaking De Klerk speech in the South African Parliament on 2nd February, 1990, opened the door for the release of Nelson Mandela. The first phase, 1990-1994, was the negotiation phase. The second phase, 1994-1999, was the interim phase. The third phase, starting in 1999, was the phase during which the consolidation and expansion of Black Power took shape. Each phase involved all three levels of government: national, provincial and local.

Approximately 650 local municipalities had to convert themselves into negotiating forums and negotiate an interim phase of local government. This was done under the auspices of the Local Government Transition Act. On the national level an Interim Constitution was negotiated which provided for the election of a Government of National Unity. It was elected in the first non-racial democratic elections in April, 1994. At the same time, a Constituent Assembly was appointed which negotiated the Constitution that was finalised in 1996. The 1999 election was the first under the final constitution.

During the transition years, much use was made of the ‘co-optation’ technique to rope in leaders from minority communities in sensitive command positions. After the ANC triumph in the 1994 elections, Mr. F.W. de Klerk, the former President, was appointed as a joint Vice-President together with under Nelson Mandela as President. For the next two years, two investment bankers, and , were consecutively roped in as Minister of Finance to assist Deputy 6

Finance Minister, , to find his feet. Dr. Chris Stals stayed on as Governor of the Reserve Bank for two years to assist with the training of his successor, . Piet Liebenberg served as Receiver of Revenue for a period to facilitate the eventual take-over by . After 1997, Thabo Mbeki roped in , former National Party Minister, as his Minister of Tourism and Environmental Affairs. When became President in 2009, to appease general uneasiness, he appointed several non-ANC members to his Cabinet: Pieter Mulder, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Sue van der Merwe, Andries Nel, , Gert Oosthuizen. In order to accommodate a wide variety of sub-cultures, minorities and interest groups, Zuma enlarged his full Cabinet to 34 Ministers and Deputy-Ministers.

The country was on a knife edge during the transition years, 1994-1996. There were isolated bombings, massacres, assassinations and limited armed confrontations. But on the whole, it was a relatively peaceful transition. South Africa proved to have the leadership and the character to walk through this period of turbulence and keep the transition process on track. F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela were subsequently joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Mandela deserves much praise for recognising the need for reconciliation; De Klerk for being prepared to sponsor the concessions made by his constituency.

Van Zyl Slabbert, a former Leader of the Opposition in the South African Parliament, summed up the process in the following words: “Eventually all the major parties that could cause irreparable damage, came to the table and chose peace rather than violence. Their leaders have to be commended without exception: Mandela, De Klerk, Viljoen and Buthelezi.” (See Van Zyl Slabbert (2002), “Government and Opposition”, in Bowes and Pennington, South Africa – The Good News, pp.49-55)

So far the new constitutional dispensation has facilitated the achievement of a significant degree of democratic political stability; it has implemented an effective system of tax collection; it has achieved a peaceful, constitutional succession of political and executive leadership; it has tolerated the mobilisation of special interests; it has implemented a system of regional government to fit the ethno- graphic population composition (e.g. Zulus in KwaZulu Natal, Xhosas in the Eastern Cape, Tswanas in the North West; Sothos in the Free State and Coloureds and Whites in the ); and, it has maintained a reasonable economic growth rate of between 2 and 5 percent over the course of 14 years.

Problem Areas

Despite many ‘good news’ items, the New South Africa also produced a number of obdurate problem areas that needed to be addressed. Nelson Mandela deserves much credit for fostering a spirit of reconciliation and optimism – for leading by example. Since his retirement a range of serious problems emerged.

Law and Order

Crime statistics became a political hot potato with even the Commissioner of Police finding himself under suspicion. The most popular explanation for the high crime rate offered by ignorant journalists was that it was somehow attributable to the ‘apartheid’ system that existed between 1950 and 1990! But such simplistic explanations are not helpful to deal with a huge problem that particularly affects 7 urban Black communities. They deflect attention from the real issues. Several studies have revealed that 72 percent of the victims of violent crime knew the offender. It also revealed that 60 percent of respondents in the survey had been victim of at least one crime between 1993 and 1998. In the period 1996 to 2000 the number of crimes, especially rape, carjacking, serious assault, housebreaking and common robbery, had been steadily increasing – particularly violent crime.

During the 35 apartheid years a total of 2,700 people were killed confronting government forces (The Economist, “Survey of South Africa”, February 24th, 2001, p.7). During the 3 years to March 2000, police officers killed 1,550 persons. Only for a period of two years, 2001 and 2002, police statistics recorded 21,000 murders each year – more than 50 persons per day. Between 1994 and 1997 a total of 554 farmers were killed on their farms, averaging almost 200 murders per 100,000 farming population. In 1999 the number of farm killings rose to 809. When caught, criminals are handled by a slow, over-burdened justice system. Only 18 percent of murder cases led to a conviction. Part of the problem is the poor quality of the policy force. Some are said to be corrupt, many untrained and more under-equipped. The Economist, (op.cit. p.7) reports that one-quarter are functionally illiterate and 10,000 do not have driving licences.

In view of the high cost of crime to the business community, they have spent more than R11 billion on private security services since 1999. The police budget for 1999 was R15.5 billion. The private sector launched an organisation called Business Against Crime (BAC) to work jointly with government agencies to fight crime. Actions initiated included for example: - The streamlining of courts to handle cases faster and more efficiently. - Addressing of corruption by vehicle registration offices. - The elimination of the disappearance of dockets at many courts. - The elimination of the illegal re-registration of vehicles (used to recirculate hijacked cars). - Video surveillance in city centres, like Johannesburg, to reduce street crime. - Support to victims of sexual offences. - Reduction of commercial and organised crime. - Improvement of safety in areas frequented by tourists. - A schools crime prevention programme was launched. - Attention was turned to syndicated crime in the drug trade, corruption, illegal firearms and vehicle theft (which exceeded 120,000 in Gauteng alone). - Improvement of security in outsourcing and handling of cash in transit to commercial banks.

By 2006 a United Nations report claimed that South Africa still had the highest rate of gun-related crime in the world (except Colombia). They also reported an increase in well-organised armed robberies. To protect their own safety and their property, private individuals and businesses hire private security guards which appeared to outnumber police in a November 2006 count by at least two to one.

South Africa spends a lot on police, courts and prisons. In 2004 it spent 3 percent of GDP – or $130 per person – on criminal justice, compared with 1 percent and $66 in Europe.

An Over-Embellished Bill of Rights

The constitutional structure that was jointly designed by the outgoing National Party and the upcoming ANC, and implemented in 1994, has served the country reasonably well in the subsequent 8 years in terms of reconciliation and reconstruction. The new constitution was formally adopted by an elected Constitutional Assembly in 1996 and formally came into force in February 1997.

Acknowledging injustices of the past, the new constitution makes a commitment to improve the quality of life of all citizens and to free the potential of each person by building a non-racial and non- sexist society in which fundamental human rights are respected. The founding values of the legal order thus established were stated as: human dignity, the achievement of equality, the advancement of human rights and freedoms and respect for certain fundamental principles of democracy – the rule of law, universal adult suffrage, a common voters role, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government aimed at ensuring accountability, responsiveness and openness. These founding values of the Constitution were articulated in a Bill of Rights. These rights, however, are not absolute. They may be limited in terms of a law of general application, and only to the extent that the limitation is “… reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.” (See Section 36 of the Constitution)

The critical issue remained testing the scope and nature of the abovementioned provisions under the Constitution. Chaskelson’s response was not encouraging. He stated that it “… calls for a proportionality analysis, involving the balancing of different interests in the context of the relevant legislative and social setting.” (See Chief Justice Chaskelson, “The Constitution and the Constitutional Court” in Brett Bowes and Stewart Pennington, South Africa, the Good News, Rivonia: South Africa, the Good News Pty Ltd, 2003, pp.77-83)

The equal protection clause guarantees that “… everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law” (Section 9(1) of the Constitution). Discrimination is presumed to be unfair unless the contrary is established. However, ironically, “positive discrimination” in favour of black persons is exempted. The extent of this exemption could ultimately nullify all the constructive intentions of the constitution-makers.

The Constitution provides for a Constitutional Court to function as a court of appeal and its decisions are binding on all courts and all organs of the state. In addition, the Constitution is premised on a separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The powers of each branch are defined in the Constitution.

A potential problem with the over-the-top scope of the ‘rights’ granted in the Constitution lies in its enforceability. In original form in Western democracies, a ‘Bill of Rights’ served as a charter guaranteeing fundamental liberties to the individual and setting firm limits on how far the state may encroach on the lives of its citizens. These conventional rights, as in the 1791 amendments to the USA constitution, refer to freedom of speech, religion, association and self-incrimination. But the new SA Constitution also includes socially inspired ‘rights’ such as “access to adequate housing”, “reproductive health care”, “adult basic education” and even green rights to “have the environment protected”. The Bill of Rights thus converts the constitution into an instrument of social-engineering for ‘righting wrongs’, e.g. all forms of social inequality and material disadvantage, and for promoting the rights of those who believe they have a special claim against society. It imposes positive duties on the state to achieve the realisation of certain socio-economic rights, e.g. rights to housing, health care, food, water and social security, land reform and access to land. These claims on society, elevated to constitutional imperatives and entrenched in a Bill of Rights constitute a legal base for aggrieved persons or interest 9 groups to sue everybody. It would allow people to prosecute politics by litigation. Self-righteous reformers do not see the role of courts as simply to enforce the law, but to remake society in their own image. Obviously the courts have no power to order the government how to spend its budget! The broad range of issues covered in the Bill of Rights could open the door to an avalanche of frivolous litigation by opportunists.

Misguided grandiose designs are bound to end in disasters. No government can deliver equality as an outcome. The state can try to improve equality of opportunity, but to delude the man in the street that it can ensure equality of outcome as a legal ‘entitlement’ is surely dishonest.

Nepotism and Corruption

As a result of the conflation of party and state, both embedded in a culture of reverse discrimination and compensative entitlement, nepotism and corruption have become unrestrained. ANC wheeling and dealing are by definition seen as actions of the previously disadvantaged, and accordingly above reproach and beyond criticism. Parliamentary control over the executive branch through its committees (e.g. Public Accounts) is neutralised and exacerbated by a shortage of opposition members adequately knowledgeable to penetrate and decipher the intricacies of public accounts. The traditional checks and balances between the different branches of government (legislative, executive and judicial) which are essential components of an accountable and responsible democratic system are slowly being eroded. Parliament has become a rubber stamp, the public broadcaster a government mouthpiece. Cost effectiveness and efficiency are sacrificed. Since it does not count in an open-ended timeframe of redress and compensation. Many ANC-connected members have promoted and enriched themselves in the name of ‘transformation’ and ‘affirmative action’. R.W. Johnson lists, in unrelenting detail, a web of ties between ANC leaders and their families and the new rich and powerful: crony capitalism for comrades and camp-followers.

Reverse Discrimination

‘Affirmative action’ was intended to redress past imbalances and injustices. With the passage of time it established a different kind of institutionalised race-based discrimination. It is underpinned by an elaborate legislative framework. The Employment Equity Act determines that “designated employers” should have “demographic proportionality” in employment (70 percent Black, 45 percent women, 5 percent disabled) and submit plans to attain such equity. The Equity Act reinforces the constitutional ban on discrimination and those who are accused of “unfairness” have to prove their innocence. The Black Economic Employment Act imposes a host of obligations on companies. To be BEE compliant companies have to meet different criteria, which include having a designated proportion of Blacks in upper and middle management, paying for skills development, etc., thus creating a legal minefield benefiting an army of specialist lawyers, consultants and accountants – all part of a new industry of racial auditing.

The Mbeki government which openly spoke of the need to build a black bourgeoisie took various legislative steps to push Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). BEE firms were privileged in public procurement. In tenders up to R500,000 the evaluation of tenders allowed 20 points for bids from HDIs (Historically Disadvantaged Individuals) and 80 points for price. Above R500,000 a 90:10 ratio would apply. On 22nd March, 2002, the Mercury Business Report announced that to date 66 percent of contracts awarded had gone to BEE companies. Companies sought hard to qualify as ‘black empowered’ in terms of the appointment of black executives and board members to transfer equity to 10 black shareholders, to adopt BEE charters, to set numerical targets for black employment and to commit to an annual social spending percentage on black groups out of post-tax profits. The government announced its overall target of placing at least 35 percent of the economy into black hands by 2014. But the downside is clear: once the principle is established that merit or price is irrelevant, there is a steep and slippery slope to the exercise of blatant racial choice and a dilution of standards. (See Johnson, R.W., South Africa’s Brave New World: The Beloved Country Since the End of Apartheid, London: Penguin Books, 2009, pp.381-444)

The momentum of the BEE campaign has not only inhibited new direct foreign investment, it encouraged disinvestment. The affirmative action programme has also spawned a populist campaign to nationalise mines, industries, banks and farmland. It created the spectre of unemployed youths who do not understand basic economic essentials such as the need for fixed investment, the laws of supply and demand, the role of profit to generate taxable income or the role of positive cash flow in running a viable business.

AIDS

Although South Africa’s health care is superior to what is available elsewhere in Africa, its response to the AIDS pandemic has failed. For a decade, the country’s political leadership has been in denial. This resulted in more HIV-positive people than anywhere else in the world.

AIDS came later to South Africa than to many countries further north. The first case was reported in 1987 and the epidemic did not really begin until 1993. Little is known for certain how many people are infected and how many people have already died. UNAIDS estimated the HIV-positive people at 4.2 million in 2001. Deaths were expected to rise to around 400,000 in 2005 and 600,000 in 2010. Average life expectancy is set to fall from 60 years to 40 by 2010. It was claimed that in 2006, AIDS killed as many as 900 people a day.

For a long time Mr. Mbeki questioned medical opinion on the causes and treatment of AIDS – particularly on the use of anti-retroviral drugs. This led to little public education and opinion leadership on the issue. Mr. Mbeki’s agenda was to find African solutions rather than the expensive anti-retroviral drugs.

It is clear that there is more merit in preventative measures than merely extending the lives of terminally ill AIDS patients in terms of funding priorities. But such an approach requires very intensive educational programmes aimed at teenagers and sexually active young adults. It also requires a stronger focus on properly researched treatment of early stage HIV-positive persons. However, the expensive anti-retroviral treatment is essential to extend the lives of people who have already contracted the AIDS disease. But much more needs to be done to make the general public aware of the causes and consequences of AIDS.

The Zimbabwe Tragedy

In the period April to September 1994, Hutus in Rwanda carried out a systematic genocide of Tutsis, killing 800,000 to one million persons. The international community stood by, failing to intervene or to do anything to prevent this horrible massacre.

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When Robert Mugabe’s supporters turned on white farmers in the mid-1990s, the UK faintly offered to fund the cost of a farm redistribution programme. Over a period of 10 years, Mugabe has virtually destroyed civilised life in Zimbabwe: he cowed the judiciary, silenced the media, rigged three elections, killed and imprisoned his opponents, dispossessed Zimbabwe’s most productive citizens and printed so much money that inflation destroyed his currency and brought his country to a standstill. He converted Zimbabwe to the level of a failed state. Yet, the free world stood by comfortably leaving the problem in South Africa’s hands.

Mr. Mbeki strived, over almost a decade, to set South Africa up as a symbol of African potential, with its own institutions (NEPAD) and its own mechanisms for solving problems (silent diplomacy). His ambition was that African countries should help each other uphold standards of good governance, human rights, democracy and economic progress.

But despite his repression of his own people, Mugabe remained a revered icon of the liberation struggle, as the man who can throw scornful insults at Western leaders in measured English. But after Mr. Mbeki had exhausted his arsenal of ‘quiet diplomacy’ measures, recalcitrant Mugabe remained in power and continued to ransack his country. South Africa also failed to help the people of Zimbabwe – except, perhaps, by way of allowing an estimated 2 to 3 million refugees to cross the borders into South Africa. Under Zuma, the Zimbabwe imbroglio continued unabated.

Political Correctness

Spin and propaganda are facts of life in the modern communication world. It involves avoiding or softening the unfavourable parts and stressing or focusing exclusively on the good news. The negative outcome is that the truth is either distorted or totally concealed. But you cannot build a future on ignorance.

The impact of political correctness on life in the New South Africa is well expressed in the words of an ex-ANC foreign correspondent: “The educational system deteriorated markedly in ANC hands and, effectively, the government insisted that expertise and good qualifications did not really matter. Anyone who argued that merit was the vital criterion in choosing future doctors or competent managers was accused of being racist in principle. Indeed, all the talk of meritocratic criteria was regarded as intrinsically racist. This left the government free to appoint to positions throughout society people who lacked the skills or qualifications necessary to do their jobs properly: young black women with no technical background to run the railways, ambassadors who had, at best, spent a few weeks learning the skills serious foreign officers spend years inculcating, judges who, even as lawyers, had been inexperienced, incompetent and drunk, and senior policemen who had been thugs or crooks. All these are real examples. In order for this to pass muster South Africa became a society of ubiquitous pretence, not only by the government but by politically correct whites. It was so nice to cheer the arrival of so-and- so to this or that leading position because he/she was young, black, a woman or a disabled person, and this said such nice things about the new society. To notice that such a person could not possibly do their job properly was the height of bad manners. ANC municipal office-holders, who needed no encouragement to treat their towns as merely part of a spoils system to be ransacked, happily took the lesson and would gaily get rid of trained planners, accountants, engineers and their ilk in order to be able to hand their jobs to unqualified cronies or relatives.” (R.W. Johnson, op.cit., p.430)

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It cannot be said that South Africa has completed its transition from a polarised society to a smooth functioning liberal democracy. The temptation to suspend democracy in favour of some authoritarian alternative, as has often happened elsewhere in Africa, remains a danger. The practice of ‘reverse discrimination’, or what is euphemistically called ‘affirmative action’, remains an open question. If all problems faced by black societies are explained and treated in terms of a racialist paradigm, the incentive to find constructive self-reliant solutions will remain stunted.

Bibliography

Bowes, B. & Pennington, S. South Africa – The Good News, The Good News (Pty) Ltd, (2003) Hyde Park Johnson, R.W. (2009) South Africa’s Brave New World, Penguin Group, London Meredith, M. (2012) The State of Africa, Simon & Schuster, London Vosloo, W.B. (2010) Political-Economic Trends Around the World, Biblaridion-Crink, Cape Town

______* Dr W B Vosloo, PhD, Cornell 1965, is a retired former professor of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa (1966-1981) and was Chief Executive of the South African Small Business Development Corporation, Johannesburg (1981-1995). He is now retired and has been living in Wollongong, NSW, since 1998.