As a white South African, growing up in an era where apartheid fell, saw infamous leaders like Nelson Mandela leading the country, winning two rugby world cups and knowing how people both black and white integrated post apartheid it is so sad to see uneducated "racists, rapists, criminals" like Winni Mandela, Jacob Zuma now leading such an amazing country. Where are those leaders you might ask....? They are still there, new and up and coming leaders still give speeches or peaceful coexistence, but unfortunately those leaders are being suppressed and the few in power want their message to be heard. Apartheid was an embarrassing time for any South African and once again it was the few in power making bad decisions on behalf of an entire country. I am 25 years old and have in my time never spoken down to anyone I went to school with, played sport together or studied together throughout university. There is no way the wrongs of the past can be corrected, things like affirmative action and BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) were implemented but became skewed, as what started off as something that could mend a country only became something that made a very niche educated population incredibly wealthy while the poor got poorer as the domestic housework and blue colour workers are left short changed by government as their employers now don???t have to funds to continue the informal job creation. When Mr Mbeki mentioned that BEE should be lifted as enough progress was made and the country had to heal itself, Mr Zuma saw his opening and came in with a message of ??? Why should BEE be lifted, the White people haven???t suffered enough??? I never did anything wrong and have always followed my parents example of not shying someone away if they arrive at my door offering to do something around the house, be it painting, cleaning, gardening or pool work. The basic message sounds throughout Africa ???POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY???
The End of The Affair
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Increasingly, Pretoria's answer seems to be no. Meanwhile, corruption—that African scourge—has grown noticeably worse. Allegations of profit-making now reach all the way to the top; though he vehemently denied the charges, the country's chief cop, Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, has been tarnished by a bribery scandal, as have Mbeki and Zuma. "A lot of people are just absolutely shattered by what the ANC has become," says Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC parliamentarian who quit the party after his corruption probes were shut down and who explored the graft allegations in a recent book.
But the problems go well beyond the ANC. Consider the economy. Postliberation South Africa has made great strides: a decade-long boom has lifted millions out of poverty, and with growth predicted to hit 5 percent next year, this progress seems set to continue. Yet according to the World Bank, South Africa now ranks as one of the world's most unequal societies—and things are getting worse. Between 1975 and 2005, wealth disparities nearly doubled. The economic divide between whites and blacks has narrowed, and "within the black community, there is a group that is better off than during apartheid," says economist Jac Laubscher. "But there is an even larger group that's worse off than before." According to a study conducted last in 2006 by the Institute for Race Relations, the poorest 10 percent of South Africans now get the same share of the national income as they did in 1993, the year before apartheid ended. And the number living on less than $1 a day has grown from 1.9 million in 1996 to 4.2 million in 2006. "We have got a crisis," says Adam Habib, deputy vice chancellor of the University of Johannesburg. Indeed, waves of angry protests calling for better services and greater opportunities swept the country in 2007.
Also troubling is the crime epidemic. Antony Altbeker, a criminologist who has spent years studying the fault lines in South African society, estimates that the country has become one of the world's five most violent places; it has eight times more murders a day than the United States (which is nearly seven times its size). The mayhem isn't limited to the poor: in June, five international tourist groups were robbed, and thugs ambushed South Africa's U.N. ambassador. Diplomats from the Ethiopian, French, Gabonese, Ghanaian, Pakistani and Thai missions have also been assaulted over the last six months.
Still, it's the marginalized who generally suffer the worst. The country is now enduring a plague of sexual assaults. "When victims come into our hospital, we don't even ask if they've been raped anymore," laments the director of one Cape Town hospital. "It's always a gang rape now, so we ask how many men they were raped by." As Altbeker describes the situation, "Violence [has] entered the DNA of our national culture and has reproduced itself there." Years of repression, vast inequality and widespread alcoholism have combined with lack of faith in the government to produce a deadly state of affairs.
And then there's AIDS, which perhaps best symbolizes the government's neglectful approach. For Mbeki's entire first term, which lasted until 2004, the president—who has persistently cast doubt on the link between HIV and AIDS—refused to authorize the delivery of antiretroviral medication by the public-health system. Recently, under intense pressure, Pretoria has improved its policies somewhat, formulating a national action plan that coordinates the delivery of medicine. But that didn't stop Mbeki from firing Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, South Africa's popular and effective deputy Health minister, last summer, or from renewing his support for her controversial boss, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang—who has publicly advocated beetroot and African potatoes as a cure for the disease. No surprise that South Africa now has about 5.5 million people living with HIV (according to the United Nations) and an adult prevalence rate of 19 percent.
Unfortunately for South Africans, December's leadership battle offered little hope that things will improve. An Mbeki victory would allow him to pick his own successor when he steps down as president in 2009; if Zuma triumphed as expected, however, the job will go to him. Once Mbeki's prot?g?, Zuma was fired by the president in June 2005 over corruption charges that remain outstanding. Yet these haven't hurt Zuma's popularity; nor did an indictment for rape (he escaped conviction). That's all cause for concern. Mbeki's tenure has been problematic, but Zuma is a poorly educated populist who many critics fear will drag down South Africa's economy and further hurt its image (this is a man who once famously brushed off concerns about AIDS transmission by saying he took a cold shower after having sex with an HIV-positive woman).
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