S. Africa Question Has Become Not What, But How And When?
Cell No. 5 at Robben Island Prison is small, a mere six foot square. A third of the cell is occupied by a bed, two feet wide and wedged between the cell’s interior and exterior walls. Cell No. 5’s interior window opens on a dingy gray-green corridor; its exterior window looks out on a stark concrete courtyard.
Nelson Mandela spent nearly 27 years in the confining grayness of this place. During that time he became the most celebrated political prisoner in the world. Today, as the elected leader of South Africa, his picture is prominently displayed on the wall of the prison’s public briefing room. Jailers who once guarded him now serve his government.
Nearly a year after the elections in which Mandela came to power, South Africa is functioning on hope, fear and inertia. There is vigorous debate on its new constitution, the future of its economy, Mandela’s health, the long-term viability of the ruling African National Congress, the prospect that the Olympic Games will come to Cape Town in 2004. Although the debate is vigorous, the pace of progress has been slow. New housing initiatives have not been implemented; unemployment remains high; the currency is a mess; crime and corruption are becoming rampant.
During a recent visit to South Africa, I spoke with some three dozen African journalists, officials, drivers, guides and business people in an effort to learn more about the prospects for their nation. I toured the country from tense Johannesburg, to the now quiet Mozambique border and to hopeful Cape Town.
Three recurring and interrelated themes ran through my conversations:
Foreign trade is needed to spur economic growth.
Major economic advancements will require South Africa to demonstrate political stability.
Political stability will depend primarily on the ability of the ANC-led government to provide for the economic needs of the people.
On the economic issue, South Africans, including many in the formerly all white power structure, have been quick to realize that the global economy offers far more potential for growing wealth than was available to them under apartheid. A publisher in Johannesburg told me “there will soon be so much more to share that sharing will be preferable to playing the old zero-sum game” - in which some had, while most had not. He was quick to add, however, that long-term political stability is the key to greater foreign investment and trade.
To a person, my contacts stressed the critical importance of Mandela’s health. The president seems robust and fit, but there is concern that he is losing his eyesight and that, at age 74, his health could quickly take a turn for the worse. A successor, Thabo Mbeki, is being groomed.
Mbeki is often described as a capable administrator “but no Mandela.” While Mbeki may succeed to the office, no one can succeed to the legend of Mandela nor to the nearly universal love and esteem in which he is held. The presidential succession is clouded by the presence of Mandela’s estranged wife, Winnie. The president was recently forced to dismiss Mrs. Mandela from her post as deputy cultural minister because of ongoing allegations of her alleged involvement in fraud, corruption and kidnappings. Mrs. Mandela commands great loyalty from the poorest of black Africans and is seen as a powerful potential opponent for Mbeki.
There are other potential challengers within the ANC, which most observers feel will certainly produce the next president.
There is, however, a minority view which holds that feuding within the ANC will open the door for victory by another party’s candidate. This view is most often advanced by supporters of de Klerk’s National Party or the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party, led by the mercurial Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
If the foreign exchange difficulties cannot be overcome quickly, the nation’s serious unemployment and housing problems will deepen. These problems mostly afflict the former victims of apartheid.
The dichotomy between rich and poor, black and white, remains stark. At Robben Island, the officials who staffed the boat carrying a group of publishers from a pier in Cape Town across the nine kilometers of water separating the island from the town were all white. So were the prison officials who briefed the group on the status of prison-media relations. So were the island tour guides.
Local newspapers were filled with stories about the topic of the day: the rebellion of black policemen against white officers in Johannesburg. Their claim: That advancements and promotion of blacks within the national police service are too slow and that the officer force still contains many overt racists.
Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, who shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, recently had one of their first public tiffs over a related police force issue; namely, whether to grant blanket amnesty to police officers who served the previous apartheid governments.
As I left Cape Town on a clear, warm Thursday morning I asked my college-educated black driver how quickly he thought the economic and political transition would take place. “Many (black) people feel,” he said. “that it should already have happened or should happen in about six months. But, you know, it cannot happen overnight. That would scare too many people away. I think it will take more time. I think maybe in three years we will be seeing it.” Most of the whites I spoke with felt the transitions would take 10 years or more.
The “expectation gap” is the ground on which South Africa will build its future, for better or worse.
xxxx