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Subject: NYTimes.com Article: The Half-Revolution
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 21:04:40 -0400 (EDT)
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The Half-Revolution
April 27, 2004
By ZAKES MDA
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa is an ailing country. No, not
the economy. On the contrary, the economy has been quite
buoyant. Since the official end of apartheid 10 years ago
today, the country has moved from a siege mode economy to a
dynamic and sophisticated one. For the first time in its
history South Africa has become a serious player on the
global economic stage. Before 1994 the only meaningful role
that South Africa had was in mining. The demise of
apartheid ushered in a new era of diversification in which
South African companies became multinational - listed on
the London and the New York Stock Exchanges (not a good
thing, the trade union movement has argued in South Africa,
but that is a debate for another time) - and are generally
doing well.
In Europe, South African corporations like Sappi dominate
paper manufacturing; in Britain financial and insurance
institutions from South Africa perform quite decently in
competition with British corporations; in the United
States, South African Breweries bought Miller Brewing
Company to become SABMiller - making it the second-largest
brewery in the world. When Americans drink Miller High Life
or Miller Lite, South Africans say "cheers" all the way to
the bank.
There are many other indicators that tell us that contrary
to prophecies of doom, the South African miracle continues,
quietly this time, without the glare of world publicity
that accompanied what can now be termed the first miracle:
the relatively peaceful transfer of power from a white
minority to a black-dominated government. The second
miracle manifests itself in the rand's appreciation against
major currencies of the world to a three-year high; in an
inflation rate that has dropped to its lowest level in 44
years; in an export market in which cars manufactured in
South Africa dominate the world's right-hand-drive market;
and in the South African corporations that have displaced
their European and American counterparts as the top
investors in Africa.
Even the leaders of the erstwhile apartheid state have
acknowledged these successes. F. W. de Klerk, the last
white president, recently said in Die Burgher, an Afrikaans
newspaper, that despite its flaws post-apartheid South
Africa was a much better place than the South Africa of the
past. Most of these strides have been made in the last five
years, during Thabo Mbeki's presidency. There is certainly
more to his presidency than his unorthodox views on AIDS
and his high tolerance (some will even say support) of a
stinking albatross that hangs around South Africa's neck,
which goes under the name of Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Though
these two issues seem to define Mr. Mbeki's presidency in
the imagination of the West, inside the country he is
viewed by influential blacks as one who has put content in
reconciliation by marrying what were previously empty
slogans with social change.
No, South Africa is ailing because it suffers from the twin
diseases of instant gratification and conspicuous
consumption. Call me na�ve, but I see these diseases
playing a large role in the spiraling unemployment rate
(despite the buoyant economy); in the AIDS pandemic, which
seems to be unmanageable; in the high crime rate; and in
the looming unrest of the black majority, who have seen
little or no benefits of the bullish South Africa trickling
down to them.
A new black elite has emerged in South Africa, mostly from
the ranks of the liberation movement - people who were able
to use their political pedigree and connections to amass
vast amounts of wealth. Trade union leaders have become
instant millionaires, setting up business consortia in the
name of union members but then reaping all the financial
benefits at the expense of the workers. Black empowerment,
a kind of affirmative action in which equity in big
business is transferred to black entrepreneurs, has not
done anything to alleviate poverty among ordinary black
South Africans. It has not created employment either.
Instead, workers have been laid off by the new black bosses
in an effort to maximize profits in order to repay white
capital that was used to purchase the equity in the first
place. Even the president's brother, Moeletsi Mbeki, a
member of the business elite himself, has lamented that
black empowerment has focused more on transferring equity
than on encouraging entrepreneurship and has thus created a
culture of entitlement and dependency in the black middle
class.
In the true fashion of the nouveaux riches there are crass
displays of wealth in Johannesburg and other big cities
here. A person's worth is measured by the car he or she
drives and by the suburb he or she lives in. The roads are
clogged with top of the line German and British sedans -
which are, by the way, manufactured in South Africa under
license. In Johannesburg it is very rare to see a car as
old as the ones I see on the roads of the small Midwest
city of Athens, where I teach at Ohio University part of
the year.
The new black elite feel that they are entitled to
unbridled wealth because for decades wealth has been the
sole preserve of whites who had set up effective
affirmative action programs for themselves. The tendency
then is to find the shortest route to a Jaguar and a
mansion in Sandton. There is no time or inclination to
drudge for years in order to attain these luxuries. South
Africans want it all and they want it now.
As a result the government has had great problems in
retaining some of its best people in Parliament and in the
civil service. They always resign for better spoils in the
private sector. This in turn results in the deterioration
of government services. But even more seriously it results
in excessive salaries for civil service and other
government managers, which in turn results in the draining
of funds that could be used in the alleviation of poverty.
Recently we have seen respected heroes of the liberation
struggle succumb to the temptation of instant gratification
and conspicuous consumption. In order to maintain their
high-profile life they have resorted to corrupt means of
accumulating wealth. Fortunately, in contrast to the
Mandela era, when there was a lack of political will to
take action against corrupt comrades (Nelson Mandela was
fiercely loyal and would publicly declare party members to
be men or women of integrity even before he examined
evidence of their crimes), the anti-corruption structures
that have been established today by the government itself
seem to be triumphing. A respected freedom fighter like
Tony Yengeni, a parliamentary chief whip of the ruling
party, has lost his job for buying a luxury car at a great
discount from a company that was bidding for a contract to
supply arms to the state. Even the deputy president, Jacob
Zuma, is under a cloud. Allegations of corruption have been
made against him and he is under investigation. No one is
sacrosanct.
All these efforts notwithstanding, corruption continues and
is exposed every day by the news media. So is common crime
like highway robberies and carjackings. All these are not
crimes of poverty. They are crimes of greed - of
conspicuous consumption and instant gratification. Drug
syndicate bosses and crime bosses who specialize in robbing
armored vehicles on the highways of South Africa are not
hungry people. They are multimillionaires.
While the national elite stuff themselves in these public
displays, one can already hear rumblings from the youths in
the ghettoes who feel left out. Toni Morrison once said,
"Every society as it moves forward is fearful of the ones
it leaves behind." A well-placed section of South African
society is moving forward at a breathtaking speed.
Unfortunately, it is too oblivious of those it leaves
behind to be fearful of them.
Zakes Mda is the author, most recently, of "The Madonna of
Excelsior," a novel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/opinion/27MDA.html?ex=1084114280&ei=1&en=748fb7a70ed74a82
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