New beginnings

Now that a decade has ended, it is tempting to go back to the beginning. The beginning goes back to when the first president of the democratic South Africa, Nelson Mandela stepped down.

It is not exactly the beginning but it is always useful to focus on some aspect of our history that has a direct bearing on what is happening today.

The “new” South Africa is an old country in many, predictable ways.

It is maybe the only country founded on the same ideals that kept the majority of its people oppressed and exploited.

Once upon a time, it was a white man’s country.

The founding fathers who were sometimes English and sometimes Afrikaner had one aspiration: entrench social inequality or class division.

Of course, the most stupid of them, like Jan Smuts or Hendrik Verwoerd, thought that it could be easily achieved by using race. Thus for many decades, if not centuries, race became an instrument not only to determine a man’s position or rank in society but to entrench social inequality.

But even that did not get rid of inequality among those who were considered white in the same society.

It does not matter now that it was a racist society to so-called blacks.

There were millions of white people who were not treated as equals to other whites simply because they were too poor or lacked style and class that could only be bought with money.

The whites would be deceived to feel superior or better to blacks through the propaganda of apartheid. But this, in itself, did not eliminate the social inequality that plagued their society. South Africa has always been an unequal society.

Well, after freedom and democracy there were hopes that inequality would ultimately be eliminated in the new society. There was every reason to hope for this because through the popular Freedom Charter, for instance, the people had a chance to express their aspirations of the type of society they wanted to live in.

But South Africa has, in the past 10 years, turned out to be a pretty predictable African country in many ways. It is the same country that perpetuates deeply entrenched social and economic inequality.

As soon as Mandela stepped down, the new vision was to create a black middle class that would become self-sufficient through economic independence gained through empowerment.

The mirage was taken for a dream of what was possible in a fluid yet unchanging economic situation.

It was mainly former president Thabo Mbeki and his economic advisers who defined and pursued this dream of a black bourgeoisie.
There were many uncritical people who thought that this re-invention of a nightmare that was first espoused by the Urban Foundation in the mid-1970s could spread and become a solution for the economic injustice and social inequality.

It is noteworthy that the Urban Foundation, a white intellectual think-tank that advised corporate and apartheid government, only came up with this divide and rule strategy after the 1976 upheavals.

The aim was to create a black middle class as a buffer zone between the rich and poor.

Well, ideas are colourless but the purpose of pointing this out is to show how there has been little deviation in thinking between white intellectuals and those who took over after Mandela.

Perhaps it is time that the people who run this country begin to show us that they are capable of coming up with fresh, new and original ideas that can take this country to a new path.

Of course, not too long ago, the government introduced the New Growth Path which, at face value, seems to be a wonderful document.

But we have to ask hard questions about how far it will go to drive away or exterminate social inequality, which is inherent in our thinking and economic system.

It has been reported that we live in the most unequal society in the world. This is not the image or vision we had we embarked on to a new and bright future.

In many ways, this “new” South Africa is the old.

It has the potential not only to undermine the integrity of our freedom and democracy but to sabotage the dreams and aspirations that so many people live and died for.

As we enter the new decade, let us be aware that it is time for new thinking.