Just last year, South Africa celebrated 20 years of transition to a
democratic rule. It was a time of celebration as much as a time for
reflection and healing all over again. Mandela did
the unprecedented
when he laid the foundation for a new South Africa, the Rainbow nation.
That was meant to legitimise the multiplicity of races that would see
the modern South Africa as a home for all without discrimination on the
basis of skin colour.
Today, that foundation is being threatened. It took one man, Mandela
to take a stance that shook the whole world and remains in the annals of
history as one of the most remarkable decision to be made by man. It is
expected that as Mandela left the stage, the subsequent leaders, the
different races and the entire South African people would work together
to build on that momentous foundation that Mandela laid for his people.
I don’t want to over simplify what is at stake here. I know there are
lots of complexities in building a nation such as South Africa with the
kind of history it has. My expectations, however, is that the
sacrifices Mandela, his comrades and others made would be enough
motivation for subsequent leaders and indeed South Africans to continue
from Mandela stopped. The last 20 years have not been exactly a smooth
sail for the Rainbow Nation, but one would expect that the underlining
issues would remain at the forefront of national discourse and
engagement.
It looks as if the recent leaders do not appreciate the enormity of
the challenges before them, and the propensity for this to exacerbate.
On one hand, there is the lingering effect of long years of subjugation
and oppression of the majority. When a people live under those
conditions for such a long period of time, they do not just suffer
economic disempowerment, they equally suffer psychological damage. Black
South Africans are still grappling with the psychological effect of
apartheid, and pitifully will continue to do so for a long time if the
leaders do realign their priorities.
Just to buttress the point above, whenever a people are being
oppressed as South Africans were, just like our forebears during
slavery, they look for ways to relieve the pressure as a survival
strategy. In the case of South Africans, most of the young people found
that in sex and drugs. And wherever you have these combination on the
high, crime is simply a corollary. Research has shown that South Africa
has the largest crime database in the world. It is also reputed for
being the rape capital of the world. While efforts are being made to
address these serious problems which are simply the symptoms, the remote
cause and other underlining issues are yet to be thoroughly dealt with.
On the other hand, in all fairness, the aftermath of apartheid has
not being all gloom. For one, there is evidence of physical and
structural development that even the largest economy in Africa does not
have. The health care, educational, transportation systems and other
infrastructural developments which South Africa can boast of today are
not found in majority of other African countries. Some people are
already expressing concern that the new managers may not be able to
manage, sustain and improve on these infrastructures, which are part of
the legacies of apartheid regimes. This does not in any way make up for
some of the pressing challenges facing modern South Africa.
South Africa’s current housing deficit stands at about 2.1 million to
2.5 million units, affecting about 12 million people; youth
unemployment is still a challenge; the widening gap between the poor and
the rich even in the face of programmes such as the Black Economic
Empowerment is still astounding; HIV/AIDS prevalence; incidence of
teenage pregnancy, are some of the serious challenges still confronting
the Rainbow nation. In the light of this reality, you have the
privileged class insisting on maintaining their status, and the
disadvantaged class looking for new ways to relieve their anger. The
fear of racial and xenophobic attacks is still palpable, evident in
recent reports of attacks and anti-xenophobic protest that held in
Durban and some other places.
Just recently a Zulu King made an utterance about the influx of
foreigners into South Africa. That has now triggered a new wave of
xenophobic attacks on especially foreigners of African extraction.
Messages have been going round since then warning of massive attacks
against foreigners in parts of South Africa. If foreigners are
constituting a nuisance for the country, there are better ways to
curtail that. I think this new wave of attacks is a manifestation of the
psychological effect of apartheid as well as the structural imbalance
that still exists.
There is also the recent protest by the students of the University of
Cape Town (UCT) who feel assaulted by the sight of the statue of Rhodes
on their campus. To my mind, the #RhodesMustFall movement is just a
tiny portion of a bigger issue that the country will be dealing with in
time to come. The students are beginning to extend the debates to the
racial composition of their academic staff, and the structure of some of
their curricula.
There are some fundamental challenges before the new leaders of
modern South Africa. There is still a need for spiritual and
psychological healing, value re-orientation, bridging the income
inequality gap, consolidating on the inherited structural developments,
among others. And these must be seen as a collective responsibility.
Everybody must be prepared to make sacrifices and compromises. Those
still on their high horses must come down, and those still crawling and
wallowing in the wrong of the past must stand up, so they can join hands
and work side by side to build a prosperous and egalitarian South
Africa.
Some of the pertinent questions we need to ask are: How should
identity be constructed or reconstructed in modern South Africa? How
should our shared humanity be perceived amidst racial differences? Where
is the place of history, and how do we start writing a new one? The
sacrifice for a truly modern and democratic South Africa did not and
cannot end with Mandela. His legacy and personal sacrifice should spur
this generation to make the right choices. All must work together to
truly heal and then we can build on the legacy of this global icon,
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, and other dead and living heroes of
Democratic South Africa.