A History of South Africa

by Leonard Thompson

  By the end of the Mandela presidency, the health of South Africans was blighted by major setbacks. The government did provide access to health care for thousands of people who had never had it before by shifting limited resources from expensive city hospitals to clinics in the rural periphery, where doctors were extremely scarce. There was, however, a serious deterioration in the quality of the public hospitals, including Barag-wanath, a large hospital in Soweto built for Africans in the apartheid era. In May 1999, deputy president Thabo Mbeki visited Baragwanath and was told that the place was crippled by crime and corruption. Nurses said that drugs, food, crockery, and essential equipment were frequently stolen; thieves seized the property of patients who died; and nurses were afraid to work at night “as they are threatened inside the hospital by gun-wielding thugs.” A month later, four senior doctors reported that the health services in Gauteng province were on the verge of collapse from a shortage of staff and money.68 By that time, South Africa was in the early stages of a medical catastrophe. The diseases of the AiDS-related complex, which in Africa are spread mainly by heterosexual contact and contaminated blood, were killing more people in East and Southern Africa than had been killed by all the wars in the region, and they were already wreaking havoc in South Africa. According to official estimates, 3.6 million South Africans were HIV positive in 1999, and the number was increasing by more than half a million a year. A quarter of a million South Africans would die of AIDS each year by 2002, rising to half a million by 2007. UN-AIDS estimated that life expectancy in South Africa would fall from 68 years in 1998 to 48 in 2010. On account of AIDS, South Africa dropped thirteen places in the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index, from 89 in 1998 to 101 in 1999.69 As the scourge inexorably intensified, it was beginning to affect every aspect of life in South Africa. For example, a vast number of AIDS orphans were being drawn into crime as their way to survival.70 The health of South Africans was also adversely affected by high levels of air and water pollution. The leaded exhaust fumes of the heavy urban traffic, combined with factory emissions and the smoke of coal and kerosene fires, created dangerous levels of air pollution in the cities; open-cast coal mines were heavy air polluters in Mpumalanga, and the vast dumps of treated rock from the gold mines contaminated water supplies. Environmental questions had always ranked low on the political agenda in South Africa, and no appreciable improvement took place during the Mandela presidency.

  Under a weak education minister, little progress was made in coping with the education mess. Although the system was formally desegregated, there continued to be a vast disparity in quality, and despite many overlaps, the quality of education still corresponded closely with race. Schools ranged from expensive private establishments, attended by whites and the new black elite, to former white public schools with mixed student bodies, to schools that catered to the vast majority of the black population and continued to be almost exclusively black. The national and provincial education departments received a fair share of the budget, but not all poor children attended school, because the government could not fulfill its commitment to provide free education for all South Africans. A culture of learning was not restored in the black schools, where it had been lost during the struggle against apartheid. Students were unruly and intimidated their teachers, 26 percent of whom were un- or underqualified in 1998, and many teachers were lazy, incompetent, and often drunk or drugged. Morale among teachers was very low, and fewer and fewer South Africans were choosing the teaching profession—South Africa was facing a serious shortage of teachers.71 In 1998, only 49 percent of the 551,000 candidates passed the South African school-leaving examination (”senior certificate”), and only 13 percent did so with sufficient credits to qualify for admission to university. These figures represented a decline since 1994, when 5 8 percent of the half million candidates passed the senior certificate, and 18 percent did so with university entrance qualifications. The African rate was especially low.72 African students were particularly weak in mathematics and the sciences; as one academic report noted, “Scientific literacy levels [still] reflected the hierarchy of inequality of apartheid education policies”—a poor preparation for life in the twenty-first century.73

  The universities were in no better shape than the schools. By 1999, with racially open admissions, African students formed not only a distinct majority in colleges founded for Coloured and Indian students but also increasingly large minorities in formerly all-white institutions. The universities founded for Africans were still attended almost exclusively by Africans, and these were in serious trouble. After serious confrontations, the government removed students who refused or were unable to pay the fees, but students, professors, and administrators were dissatisfied, and the quality of the degrees was dubious. Since few Africans were qualified for university appointments, and those who were found much better-paid jobs in business or politics, the professors were still overwhelmingly white. The top administrators were Africans, some of them incompetent and corrupt. By 1999, six African universities had incurred huge deficits and accumulated student debts totaling more than $40 million, and their enrollments were declining. Although erstwhile all-white schools continued to receive the bulk of state funds for higher education, the government cut their subsidies quite deeply, prodded them to admit more and more black students, and encouraged them to emphasize such practical subjects as accounting. These universities had to lower their entrance qualifications and shrink their humanities departments—a process enhanced by the step-by-step removal of history as a subject in school syllabi.74 No wonder that when the energetic Kader Asmal, the new minister of education in the Mbeki cabinet, had studied the total educational picture in South Africa, he told reporters that “the educational condition of the majority of people in this country amounts to a national emergency. It will not be an exaggeration to say that there is a crisis at each level of the system.”75

  The Mandela government did not succeed in reducing the appallingly high crime rate inherited from the apartheid regime. Surveys indicated that in 1998, 83 percent of the total South African population believed that the government had little or no control over crime; 43 percent of the black population and 56 percent of the white population felt unsafe. Half of the South African population did not believe in the official crime statistics, which are derived from data provided by the notoriously unpopular and inefficient police, if only because of widespread underreporting.76 Even so, the official figures are awesome. According to these figures, whereas the murder rate per 100,000 decreased 7.3 percent between 1994 and 1998 (largely because of the decline of political killings), the attempted murder rate increased by 7.8 percent, robbery with aggravating circumstances increased by 4 percent, rape (including attempts) increased by 16 percent, assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm rose by 11 percent, and residential housebreaking by 17 percent.77 Throughout the Mandela presidency, South Africa had indubitably the highest rape rate in the world—49,280 women were reported to have been raped in 1998. This shameful preeminence was related to the male chauvinist element in South African culture. South Africa also had one of the five highest rates of other violent crimes; in 1998, for example, the official South African murder rate was 58.5 per 100,000, nearly ten times the U.S. rate of 6.3 murders per 100,000.78

  There was also a high level of corruption in the new South Africa.79 Some of it was inherited from the apartheid regime, but much of it was unprecedented. A few examples illustrate the range of political corruption. In the central government, police and other officials stole pensions from the dead and issued duplicate pensions, ran a scam in driving licenses, extorted money from people they had arrested illegally, and colluded with syndicates in stealing and marketing a million cars a year. Political corruption was even more widespread in the provincial and municipal governments. In Gauteng, school examination papers were for sale, and there was massive fraud in the Department of Housing and Land. In Mpumalanga province, political notables were endemical
ly corrupt; in June 1999, the premier, Ndaweni Mahlangu, said that it was “politically correct” for politicians to lie. A KwaZulu/Natal department paid four million rand to ghost workers, and in another department a single official stole one million rand. White officials were responsible for some of these excesses, but as political scientist Tom Lodge explained, most transgressions were due to the absorption into the burgeoning political class of the new black elite, comprising “cadres and governors ... with recent experience of extreme poverty.”80 Political scientists Heribert Adam, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, and Kogila Moodley were scathing in their criticism of members of the new black political and business elite: “The state is perceived as a source of enrichment.. . . The extraordinary gap between elite remuneration and bottom income erodes cohesion and solidarity in favor of everyone for himself and herself by all means available... . Comparative extreme inequality remains South Africa’s ticking time bomb.”81 In 1998, the government tried to cope with this problem by appointing Judge William Heath to head a Special Investigating Unit, which recovered, saved, or prevented the loss of 1.3 billion rand by March 12, 1999; but that was only the tip of the iceberg.82

  Exit Mandela

  On February 5,1999, as his presidency drew to a close, Mandela delivered in parliament a somber review of the state of South Africa.83 His government, he said, had laid solid foundations for the future. The judiciary made no one, not even the president, above the law. “Equality, the right to vote in free and fair elections and freedom of speech” were now taken for granted. “Though we might differ on method, it has become a national passion to pronounce commitment to a better life for all.” Fresh water, electricity, and telephones were supplied to many more people, even though targets were not met; many school classrooms were built or repaired, adult education was expanding, and a recent meeting of representatives of government, labor, business, and local communities created “a splendid partnership between business and government.”

  But, said Mandela, “The long walk is not yet over. The prize of a better life has yet to be won.” Racism survives in the new South Africa; full reconciliation was not to be expected before the remnants of apartheid attitudes and practices were dismantled. “Turning the tide against crime cannot be expected overnight,” but “we can and shall break out of this bog. There is hope.” There was hope, too, that the economy would improve and unemployment would decrease: “Our fundamentals are robust.”

  In words that white South Africans could not use without being branded as racist, Mandela denounced corruption by the new black elite, especially in local government. “All of this,” he said, “was spawned by apartheid,” but, he added, “it is also a reality of the present that among the new cadres in various levels of government, you will find individuals who are as corrupt as—if not more than—those they found in government. When a leader in a provincial legislature siphons off resources meant to fund service by legislators to the people; when employees of a government institution defraud it for their own enrichment; then we must admit that we are a sick society.” Nevertheless, he concluded, “We dare to hope for a brighter future, because we are prepared to work for it. The steady progress of the past few years has laid the foundation for greater achievements. But the reality is that we can do much, much better.”

  Mandela had prepared for a peaceful succession to the presidency. In 1997 he yielded the leadership of the ANC to his first deputy president, the energetic Thabo Mbeki, and he delegated most of the day-to-day administration to Mbeki. When the election was held in June 1999, the ANC won more than 66 percent of the vote, and a reinvig-orated Democratic party replaced the National party as the official parliamentary opposition. The ANC retained control of seven provinces, but the IFP again won a majority in KwaZulu/Natal, and in the Western Cape the National party formed a coalition government with the Democratic party. Parliament then elected Mbeki as president, and Mandela, universally admired as one of the greatest people of the twentieth century, retired into private life, though not into obscurity. He continued to play an active role in global affairs; for example, he helped pacify Rwanda and Burundi.84

  We should not forget the enormity of the task that the new regime undertook in 1994—the task of transforming a society that had been molded by colonialism and then dominated with ruthless thoroughness by a racist minority, into a nonracial, democratic society. Bear in mind that before 1994 Africans had been almost totally excluded from the authoritative political system. No African had ever been a member of parliament, and the small number of Africans who had been entitled to vote in the Cape Colony lost that right under apartheid. It would, however, be unrealistic to ignore the fact that in some crucial aspects conditions worsened in South Africa after the transfer of political power, but it would also be unrealistic to underestimate the achievements of the new regime. It restored dignity to black South Africans; it pacified a country that was on the brink of civil war; it entrenched a democratic constitutional order and maintained the rule of law; it adapted to the existence of an outspoken (though relatively small) political opposition and acquiesced (though grudgingly) in the presence of a relatively free press; and it provided millions of people, who had never had them before, with electricity, piped water, telephones, and adequate housing. Except for the AIDS pandemic, which was tearing all of Southern Africa apart, the major problems that afflicted South Africa—poverty, crime, the weak economy, and the education mess—were mutually reinforcing and had deep roots in the past. They could not possibly have been solved in six years. Moreover, in spite of the gravity of the situation, South Africa in 2000 was richer, more stable, more peaceful, and more humane than any country in mainland tropical Africa. The 2000 edition of the United Nations Human Development Report, based on 1998 data, ranked South Africa 103 out of 174 states. That was disappointing in the global context, but much better than any other country in mainland sub-Saharan Africa. The closest were Swaziland, Namibia, and Botswana, all neighbors of South Africa, followed by oil-producing Gabon. Nigeria, South Africa’s principal rival for leadership in sub-Saharan Africa, ranked 155.85

  Nothing is preordained in human history. In 1999 it was still conceivable that the dreams of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, and millions of other South Africans would eventually, in some fashion, triumph.

  CHAPTER 10

  Beyond the New South Africa, 1999–2014

  LYNN BERAT

  By the time Mandela left office, he had become a secular saint. After all, against what often had seemed like impossible odds, he had given the world the miracle of the new South Africa, vibrant, democratic, and determined to overcome its tragic past. There was euphoria in the land, and, as he was in office for only five years, the people who had waited so long for liberation were prepared to hold on a little longer for the economic gains that would fulfill the promise of the nation’s stunning political achievement. While expectations were high for Thabo Mbeki, the ANC’s golden prince, it would be difficult for anyone, no matter how competent, to maintain the level of unity and enthusiasm of the Mandela years. The task of nation-building is a difficult, messy business, and the more time that elapsed, the clearer it became that the ANC’s dream of “a better life for all” would be hard to realize. Mbeki’s seemed increasingly to be an “imperial presidency,” as the media called it. His unceremonious ejection from government would, after a brief, constitutionally appropriate interlude under the much respected Kgalema Motlanthe, bring to power Jacob Zuma, often portrayed as a man of the people—albeit one with an unusual gift for scandal. With his populist tendencies, Zuma was the perfect foil to Mbeki’s heavy-handed remoteness, but, in politics as in life, image and reality are not always consonant. Zuma’s leadership was tainted by growing corruption and bureaucratic bungling that made the prize of economic liberation recede ever further from the people’s grasp.

  The Presidency of Thabo Mbeki

  Mbeki’s First Term: The Polity

  The international community welcomed Thabo Mbeki’s elec
tion. Widely known in diplomatic circles from his days as an ANC exile and his years as Mandela’s deputy president, he had a reputation as a capable intellectual. More than a year before he became president, he had caused excitement with his talk of an African Renaissance in which South Africa would be an active partner in bringing development and prosperity to the African continent.1 Mbeki appointed as deputy president Jacob Zuma, a long-time ANC activist with no formal education who since December 1997 had been deputy president of the ANC. Unlike Mbeki, Zuma had spent ten years on Robben Island before following Mbeki’s path into exile. Also unlike Mbeki and the majority of the ANC leaders, he was a Zulu, and his appointment may have helped mute the common criticism that the ANC elite was dominated by a Xhosa clique, derisively referred to in politics and the media as the Xhosa Nostra.

  With the exception of Zuma, who had not served in the Mandela presidency, Mbeki’s government represented continuity. All the former ministers who were available remained in the cabinet, except one white man and one African who had been a critic.2 On June 16, 1999, in his inaugural address, Mbeki spoke eloquently of expanding the frontiers of human dignity and sounded a balance between continuity and change.3 Nine days later, in his first state of the nation speech to both houses of Parliament, Mbeki reprised these themes in a thorough statement of his government’s determination to cope with the many problems facing the country.4 He did not mention reconciliation, which had been among Mandela’s top priorities, and whereas Mandela had been a rather relaxed administrator, Mbeki signaled that he would be active in the day-to-day work of government. His February 4, 2000, state of the nation speech also made no mention of reconciliation. Rather, after congratulatory remarks about the country’s achievements on the tenth anniversary of de Klerk’s momentous release of Mandela, Mbeki announced a “common national offensive against all forms of inequality and discrimination.”5 The following year South Africa would host the International Conference against Racism.