April 27, 2023, South Africa commemorated thirty years of freedom and democracy since the end of apartheid. The day is celebrated as ‘freedom day’. But rather than ecstatic hand waving high-fives, the mood is that of sadness, frustration and anger. The inequalities of apartheid remain widespread as millions, black Africans, remain shunted away from the ladders of economic opportunity. Hunger stalks households, and “Black” youth unemployment rate, which is well over 60%, drives the hopelessly frustrated youths to drugs, crime and xenophobic “African- on-African’ violence. Car-jacking, rape, and robberies are commonplace, and the murder rate is scary. It is almost the highest in the world. The country’s thuggishly violent and extremely corrupt police force is so overwhelmed by the scale of the lawless anarchy that it appears to be turning a blind eye to the mayhem.
When apartheid ended and “democracy” was birthed, the mood among black south Africans was of euphoric hope, as they envisioned the dawn of good, prosperous living, the expected “dividend of freedom and democracy”. This hope has been progressively extinguished over the post-Mandela era, as “democracy” gradually unmasked itself, revealing the uneven contours, in the dispensation of wealth, opportunities and justice, etched deeply on its not so beautiful face. Having showed its true face; of inequality and injustice , the black population, constituting the vast majority of the populace, are sad, frustrated, greatly disillusioned and angry. But it was not always like this.
In the beginning, under the presidency of Nelson Mandela , and later, Thabo Mbeki, the ANC was a party led by deep thinking, intelligent leaders, people who understood and knew the imperatives of steering the country along sovereign developmental pathways of prosperous growth. Life got better for the “township dwellers” and a black middle class emerged from out of the swamps of the townships, as efforts to desegregate and deracialise the public service were stepped up, with the enforcement of affirmative action laws.
However, by the way liberal democracy tends to, over time, develop to a kakistocracy by displacing competent meritocrats, and replacing them with monied oligarchal dimwits, ‘pageant’ populist, and cunning demagogues, the progress made during the Mandela and Mbeki era came screeching to halt. This was pronounced during the presidency of “a man of the people”, the populist Zuma, The downward spiral has accelerated under the presidency of “a man of means” the billionaire oligarch, Ramophosa. Things are now so bad that many cast nostalgic glances at the Mandela and Mbeki eras, asking when they will see them again .
Post Mandela ANC has deviated from its socialist welfarist orientation to the wholesale embrace of the neoliberal policy dictates of western styled democracy. This entails curtailment of the provision of state services and the subjugation of government to the dictations of private capital, and their foreign suzerains; who as a standard rule, decree privatization, removal of subsidies and the imposition of damaging austerities. As the neo-liberal template consistently plays out wherever, public services and infrastructure provision has collapsed, and education, health care, security, electricity and even water supply have been privatized; to rake-in even more money for the wealthy financier and rentier elites. The curtailment of state services, mixed with the ensued massive corruption and organized looting of the state by political and corporate elite, has skyrocketed the cost of living, eroded incomes, thrashed down standards of living and damaged the wellbeing of citizens. If, to the working class, this may be only additional prices to pay, alongside their high piles of debts, to the common man and “township dwellers”, it is too high a burden to bear. This explains the frightening scale of crime in the country.
The consequence is that the ANC has lost its Liberation movement and Mandela era allures, moral integrity, and appeals. And the task to regain this former credibility, earned from its original pro-people orientation, is not going be easy going forward. As a fallout of its misplaced oligarchal, anti-people policies, for the first time, in the post apartheid era, the party has failed a win a majority vote in a general election, barely pecking 40% of the national vote, and having to be compelled to form a, priory, unthinkable coalition government with “apartheid baby”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, the party that put Mandela to rot away in Robben Island for thirty years; a rabidly liberal white dominated party . A non-abashed supported of neoliberal economic policies. A party comfortable in bed with the Atlanticist hubristic politics of racist, western oriented NGOs who are openly financed and managerially coordinated by the global meddler in chief, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of U.S.A.
This is so beyond astounding, the Madiba, Nelson Mandela must be turning in his grave.