Since 1994, the democratic government in South Africa has worked at improving the lives of the black majority, yet close to half the population still lives in poverty, jobs are scarce and the country is more unequal than ever. For millions the colour of a person’s skin still decides their destiny. South Africa does appear as two worlds in one geographical field-from the 1st world of Jo’burg and Cape-town highways and suburban areas such as Sandton, Rosebank to the makeshift roads and Shanty towns of Alexander and Soweto.
Although classified as a middle-income country, South Africa’s harshly skewed allocation of income, resources and opportunities means that close to half the population lives in poverty, which is concentrated among Africans. After years of transition to the post-apartheid state there has been no social revolution in the country dubbed the rainbow nation.
The first phase of South Africa’s ‘transition’ has witnessed the ANC’s political and ideological acceptance of the broad framework of a globally dominant, neoliberal political and economic orthodoxy. In effect, the ANC made the choice to abandon the more radical economic demands that were part and parcel of worker and community struggles for meaningful redistribution of wealth and resources and for a new ‘people’s’ state to prioritise the delivery of basic needs and services to the dispossessed and marginalized majority.
South Africa experienced a ‘dual transition’ in the early 1990s. On the one hand, a transition from racially driven, authoritarian rule to a more democratic (institutional) system of governance; on the other, a reintegration into the global capitalist economy along neo-liberal lines. The former was a huge achievement made possible by the struggles of millions of South Africa’s workers and poor, but the latter remains a serious barrier to the realisation of meaningful socio-economic change for that broad working class majority.
Almost all of the more radical socialist demands that had been created at the centre of community and worker struggles such as public expropriation of land and natural resources in the hands of the small white capitalist elite were simply excised from the post-apartheid macro-economic policies.
The ever growing nest of poverty and unemployment is shaping the terrain for future political struggles. The economic pressures for even those who have jobs are enormously high and could precipitate militant class struggles as recent sporadic incidents around the country’s work places have indicated. One such incident occurred at a platinum mine. At least 34 mine workers in Marikana were massacred in cold blood while at least 78 were critically injured, some in life-threatening ways by trigger-happy South African police whose lack of professional restraint was nauseatingly palpable as they unleashed an unnerving volley of gunfire from their state-of-the-art automatic weapons which were repeatedly broadcast worldwide. This has led growing public concerns about President Zuma’s leadership or lack thereof on key issues with wider cross-border implications on matters of the rule of law, constitutionalism, non-violence, accountability and respect for human life among many other related concerns. One does not have to be a malcontent of any kind to point out that President Zuma’s handling of the Marikana massacre has seriously undermined his position as a legitimate or authoritative voice against state-perpetrated or sanctioned violence.
No matter how one looks at the Marikana tragedy, a cold-blooded massacre cannot be an appropriate police response to a labour action by down-trodden workers, even if their action is deemed illegal. By definition, a massacre breeds a culture of violence and entrenches institutional hatred. It is for this reason that the August 16 Marikana massacre will go down in South Africa as a very dark day along with the apartheid massacres in Sharpeville and Soweto. A massacre is a massacre and must be condemned as a matter of course.
Against a backdrop of modest economic growth, infrastructure development and service delivery benefiting poor households have improved, but at rates too slow to match mushrooming needs and generally on terms that follow market logic. Overall the country’s unequal social structure continues to be reproduced with inequalities still exhibiting strong racial and spatial patterns.
With the demise of apartheid and the correction gross mi-structure, the social malaise brought about by the policy of apartheid will remain for some time. Deliberate efforts will have to be made to deal with the social problems of the new South Africa. The problem is not that of changing the captain of the ship, but changing the engine and reorganising the crew to pave way for a more equal nation. As Thabo Mbeki noted: “A global human society based on poverty for many and prosperity for a few, characterized by islands of wealth surrounded by a sea of poverty is unsustainable.”