What 30 years of black power have done to South Africa

As Walt's friends and regular readers know, I called Zimbabwe -- known in earlier, better days as Rhodesia -- home for some years in the 1990s. Zimbabwe (aka the Land of Bambazonke) was one of the last African countries to achieve independence from their colonial masters, in this case "Great" Britain. Today, 44 years after independence, Zimbabwe is an economic basket case, an effective one-party state ruined by its government's ignorance, incompetence and kleptomania.

While I lived there, I often visited RSA, the Republiek van Suid-Afrika, or Republic of South Africa, which was on the verge of overthrowing the National Party and its apartheid régime of racial separation. The 1994 elections, held for the first time under a one-man-one-vote system, brought to power the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela. The ANC has ruled South Africa ever since.

In the run-up to the handover of power to the black majority, my friends and colleagues told me, "You just watch. The blacks are incapable of running a country. In a few years, it'll be just like 'up north'." 

This weekend, the people of South Africa are celebrating -- sort of -- the 30th anniversary of freedom from the rule of the white settlers. In the week leading up to the anniversary, countless South Africans were asked what three decades of freedom from apartheid meant to them. 

The dominant response was that while 1994 was a landmark moment, it is now overshadowed by the joblessness, violent crime, corruption and near-collapse of basic services like electricity and water that plague "the new South Africa" today.

The 1994 election changed South Africa ("Republic" has been dropped from the official name) from a country where black and other non-white people were denied not just the right to vote, but many basic freedoms. Apartheid laws controlled where they lived, where they were allowed to go on any given day, and what jobs they could have. 

After the fall of the apartheid system, the country's new constitution guaranteed (supposedly) the rights of all South Africans regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual preferences. However, it doesn't give all those "marginalized" folks the white houses, white cars and white women they coveted. 

Nor has it brought about freedom from want. Quite the opposite. The black majority -- more than 80% of the population of 62 million -- are still overwhelmingly affected by severe poverty. The official unemployment rate is 32% --, the highest in the world -- and more than 60% cent for young people (aged 15 to 24).

South Africa is still the most unequal country in the world in terms of wealth distribution, according to the World Bank, with race a key factor. More than 16 million mostly black South Africans (a quarter of the country's population) rely on monthly welfare grants for survival. 

Seth Mazibuko, an anti-apartheid activist in the 1970s, sums things up, thus, "Let us agree that we messed up." So they did. Things are worse now than when the Afrikaners were in charge, and the chances of returning to those not-so-bad-after-all days are slim and none.