Freedom Day 2016: South Africa still fraught and divided
South Africa remains unequal despite progress that has been made to bridge societal divides.
10 April 1993: all South Africans know where they were when the news broke of Chris Hani’s assassination, just like 27 April 1994 – the day of the first democratic election – will forever be etched upon the nation’s memory.
Recently, the wound of the former was reopened as Hani’s murderer, Janusz Walus, made another legal bid for parole.
This year also marks the 20th anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and of the adoption of the final Constitution. Yet today South Africa seems to be a country fractured and unable to reconcile.
A younger generation blames Mandela for ‘selling us out’ – and the Constitution has become the scapegoat for all that is wrong in society. That argument often ignores the complexities and historical context of the time; as well as the role those in power play (or fail to play) in implementing the Constitutional promise.
The only thing that can be said with certainty is that transitions are imperfect and difficult
Looking back on the imperfections of South Africa’s transition, the only thing that can be said with certainty is that transitions are imperfect and difficult. Yet this week, as the country celebrates 22 years of freedom, South Africans seem slightly less optimistic and enthusiastic; trusting their leaders far less than in those halcyon days, and at times seeming rudderless.
Deepening levels of inequality have exacerbated race and class divisions. Just this week, Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) released a damning report on the status of youth in the country. It examined issues of crime, employment and health, among other things, for the period 2009 to 2014.
Already the International Labour Organisation has found that South Africa has a youth unemployment rate of 52%: far higher than those of neighbouring countries. StatsSA found that in the 25- to 34-year-old age group, only one in three South Africans had a job. Much of this has to do with the failure of the post-apartheid education system. And so, the status quo is a rather bleak one.
When there is disagreement, South Africans turn up the volume and out-shout the other
Is it any wonder that dialogue is brittle and that blame is apportioned readily and angrily? When there is disagreement, South Africans appear to not be listening but instead turn up the volume and out-shout the other. Is apartheid to blame for the country’s current ills, or the corruption prevalent across so much of the government? Perhaps it is all the fault of the liberal media? And so it goes on.
There seems to be no space for middle ground, or for one finding the other; only the anger of exclusion and unfulfilled promises. The reality is a nearly 25% unemployment rate and unsustainable levels of inequality.
As a country, South Africa clearly underestimated the apartheid legacy and the ability to create a ‘developmental state’; too little emphasis was placed on mobilising citizens’ energies for change and short-termism by the government compromised sustained transformation of society. There was an assumption that elected officials and public servants would be incorruptible, while the unintended consequences of policy choices were not adequately recognised and consensus was often ‘imposed’.
27 April 1994 was about creating something new and reaching across divides
As the National Development Plan (NDP) also contends, without a new development trajectory, South Africans will remain unequal, poor and lacking the cohesion necessary to live together peacefully. For the nation remains stymied by difference. And violence, whether by state repression at Marikana, xenophobic attacks or from one citizen to the other (on university campuses or elsewhere) becomes a means of problem-solving. Of course, government has yet to provide more than lip service to the NDP itself.
Yet as we see time and time again, there is something at the heart of society; a resilience that has seen the nation create the impossible despite these differences.
In this country of great complexity and contradiction, freedom is linked not only to economic emancipation and opportunity – but also a sense of understanding and relating to ‘the other’ across the ingrained fault lines of race and class.
The meaning of 27 April 1994 was about creating something new, grasping the urgency of a new development trajectory and reaching across divides. That is the triple challenge of Freedom Day this year.
Judith February, Consultant, Governance, Crime and Justice Division, ISS
This article first appeared on EyeWitnessNews.
