April 27 was Freedom Day in South Africa, a national public holiday to remember the first democratic elections held in the country eleven years ago. Celebrations took place country wide under the theme ‘Building a South Africa that Truly Belongs to All’. Ronald Elly Wanda visited South Africa last year. Here he reflects on his experiences and concludes that the country has a long way to go before it belongs to all of its people.

Earlier last year I was ill-fated for I missed an opportunity to meet up with some of Africa’s contemporary divas at Hammersmith’s world famous Shepherds Bush Empire (formerly Apollo theatre) in West London. Amongst the divas assiduously imported from rhythmic South Africa were two of my favourites; culturally electrifying Yvonne Chaka Chaka and politically inspirational and poetically soothing Miriam Makeba, the woman whom perhaps every right-thinking African school boy at some point tunefully fell for. Noticeably absent was Brenda Fassie owing to her poor health, she died three months after the event. She will be sadly missed by all who enjoyed her ecstatic and care-free style of music. The festivities were hosted by Republic of South Africa’s London consulate to honour the country’s 10th anniversary under Black rule and as a democratic state.

January of 2004 saw my first visit to South Africa or Azania, a place chock-full of political history and also social ills resultant from the devilish apartheid system. I had other prior rendezvous in Durban and later in Johannesburg, but as a political spectator I couldn’t resist the temptations of comparative politicking to try and weigh whether what the English professors have painted in their thrilling lectures and engaging books was actually anything closer to reality. I am not implying that what the armchair professors have reported are entirely wrong, but that it is sometimes qualitatively functional to hear the story from those who actually went through it. After all, Simeon Strunsky the essayist perhaps had me in mind when he remarked that “people who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library reading Aristotle and more time on the buses and in the subways”.

My journey from London Heathrow to Johannesburg had been a fat circus right from the start. Day one, I missed my flight, due to Expedia’s (the internet travel agents) late communication to Virgin Atlantic who subsequently mishandled my E-ticket, not to mention the usual airport pressures.

Having spent a soporific night under the inept hands of Virgin Atlantic, I arrived at Johannesburg as scheduled. I was swiftly welcomed by the wonderful southern comfort (the weather not the drink!) that made me forget all about the horrible wintry English weather that I had left behind for the pitiable London inhabitants. Johannesburg airport’s layout, capacity and organisation are impressive and capable of giving one a counterfeit impression of having arrived in Amsterdam, Berlin or Venice and not geographically south of mother Africa.

Johannesburg, commonly referred to as the ‘city of gold’ is Azania’s biggest commercial centre; it is largely white and quite well to do. My stay at Sandton district was necessitated after a lengthy exploration that left me exhausted and disappointed in failing to find a place to stay in Johannesburg amongst “abantu” (people).

The neighbourhood of Sandton city (formerly Down-town) where I briefly resided boasts about everything that Soweto does not. Large and spacious houses, public parks which are not accessible to the general public, shopping malls, corporate headquarters, hotels and a large tax base to support ample amenities and services. Sandton city’s residents are predominantly white but one can find a few and occasional blacks who are considered better - off aka “Rand-lords”.

I didn’t have to walk very far from my transient residence to notice the huge electrified wall fencings that were supervised by Sandton’s very own police force. They reminded me of London’s city police, who keep watch over London’s fiscal constituency and are known for their brutality against ethnic minority communities. For a minute or so onward, I permitted my mind to wonder what it would have been like for me as a young black person or for that matter a black South African or just a black African caught by these largely white “heavy weaponry carrying” police force. Word has it that during the Apartheid regime the white dominated police force here when dealing with black people, were known to have employed a policy of “shoot first then ask questions later”. How times have changed, I thought to myself.

As elsewhere in Africa, the changes in South Africa came after a long and bruising fight by the people. Through liberation struggles, the working class, black women and the student movements amongst other groups of people fought a bitter war to liberate black people from the slaving system of apartheid. The outcome in South Africa was that Nelson Mandela in 1990 was released having spent 27 long years in prison, South Africa had its first ever democratic election that saw black people voting for the first time in 1994. Expectedly and unsurprisingly, Mandela and the ANC (African National Congress) won the elections overwhelmingly and Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected president. Having served his full term he was succeeded by the country’s vice president Thabo Mbeki in 1999, whose mandate got renewed in the middle of last year by the South African electorate.

Eleven years on, it is often common to come across books and discussion papers written by European and American armchair professors of African politics on how well South Africa is doing. I mean you walk into a library or a political or social forum and all you will see is; “The End of Apartheid”, “The fall of Apartheid”, “The politics of Apartheid”, “Mandela”, “Waiting: the White South Africans”, “The concise History of South Africa.”

I might upset some readers, but I am of the view that there were many concessions made in the run up to the political transition of 1994. Mandela and other leaders who led the liberation struggle abandoned the “real” fight for the people, that of social justice and equality of opportunity. For instance, the laws in South Africa today are formally ‘colour-blind’ and in some cases even promote affirmative action in favour of black people; however from what I saw in Soweto, and in Durban, the country remains an inequitable society. United Nations research has also categorised it as still amongst one of the most unequal in the world. Indeed, not so long ago a government minister was quoted as saying: “South Africa is sitting on a social time bomb”, clearly reflecting the concerns of the majority of poor black South Africans.

It is clear that the ANC has abandoned its core roots and energy - the poor people. The ANC party was born socialist but later adopted capitalism and endorsed the neo-liberal agenda, whose fruit we know is exploitation of the people. The ANC’s economic policy emphasis on market liberalization and tight government control on spending has meant that the working class and poor who are mostly black South Africans have to bear the cost of its conservative economic policy.

I recall one prominent South African panellist during a seminar in London that I chaired, noting that: “Post Apartheid policy makers drew all the wrong lessons from ‘international experience’, and hence have prepared to amplify rather than correct apartheid capitalism’s main economic distortions”.

The compromises made by the ANC government since 1994 has not delivered higher living standards and its systematic ideological conversion has pronounced many people who are already poor into further poverty. My former tutor Professor Heather Deegan in her book “The Politics of the New South Africa” agreeably notes that: “When it comes to education, the legacy of apartheid is still evident in many places. Many children continue to study under the tree, in dilapidated buildings and without appropriately trained teachers. Some schools are hollow shells without even the most basic equipment and few textbooks.”

For if we are to truly judge whether present day South Africa is democratic or not we need to look at the primary essence of democracy. The essential aspirations of democratic ideals are that decision ought to be taken by the people. Secondly, this means that the mass of the people should have some say in what they are going to be, and not just told what they are. Thirdly, this decision should be genuinely the peoples; it should not be manipulated by propaganda, misinformation and irrational fears. And fourthly it should to some extent reflect the peoples considered opinions and aspirations. In my view none of the above tenets are apparent in present day South Africa. This is because the only way we are going to fully realise democracy in Africa is when collectivism prevails, in other words a government by the people for the people.

In this light, it is easy to comprehend the argument of two amongst many of Mbeki’s critics, Professors Dani Nabudere and Patrick Bond – who have articulated that the persuasive powers of the World Bank and IMF - are partly to blame for the fact that a decades old liberation movement disappointed its constituents entirely reasonable aspirations within months of coming to state power.

The exchanges I received whilst in Soweto were enough to make me defend the view that the poor men and women in the townships have got no reason to be cheerful - in spite of ten years of Mandela and Mbeki neo-liberal regimes. For the poor are still poor and the Rand-lords as in Sandton are still getting richer. The liberation struggle ought to continue, free enterprise ought to be dejected whilst collectivism encouraged in order for Africa to fully realise egalitarianism. After all in terms of natural resources Africa is the richest continent in the world. Why are its inhabitants incessantly in poverty?

* Ronald Elly Wanda is a Political Scientist based in London, UK.
[email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]