It will soon be ten years from one of the most dramatic and symbolic events of the last part of the twentieth century: the transfer of power in South Africa from the white minority to the black majority.

Most observers were pessimistic when, on May 10, 1994, three years after the abolition of apartheid, Nelson Mandela took office as President of the Republic, promising the creation of a “rainbow nation” where 11 different ethnic groups could live together in peace, sharing equal rights and obligations. Despite the extraordinary personality and the openness of mind of the new President, who had just been released after 27 years of imprisonment on Robben Island, it appeared unlikely that, after years of bloody racial conflicts, such an epoch-making transition could take place without serious clashes, and that the land of apartheid could give itself a new order without violence flaring up everywhere.

And yet, the miracle happened. Ten years later, with Mandela now retired to private life, South Africa can look at itself as a normal country; a country between development and underdevelopment, with a limping economy, vast pockets of poverty and a crime rate among the highest in the world, but where Whites, Coloureds, Indians, Xhosa, Zulus, Vendas and other ethnicities have found a common, albeit still fragile, modus vivendi.

The new South African constitution is by far the most liberal in the continent and, at least on paper, it is in no way inferior to the most advanced European constitutions. The whites lost power for the first time since the birth of the country, but having maintained, in large part, control over the economy, there was no mass migration to Australia or Canada, which many had predicted. Having assumed control, the black majority began to develop a modern ruling class, but they now find it difficult to meet the demands of the urban and rural masses, who had great expectations from the demise of the apartheid system. Citizens of Indian origin are still in a precarious position between the two chief ethnic divisions, being culturally closer to the whites but politically allied with the blacks.
The Zulus, outnumbered by the Xhosas and concentrated in the province of Natal, have for the time being set aside their secessionist ambitions and are present in government positions.

Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC), which led the struggle against apartheid and collected the fruits of victory, occupies two thirds of Parliament and has, until now, resisted the temptation, all too common in Africa, of assuming the role of sole party.

Under the leadership of Nelson Mandela and, from 1999, his successor Thabo Mbeki, South Africa has gradually assumed the role of an African superpower, whose influence extends to the Sahara region and whose moderating action has made it one of the most influential member states of the United Nations.

It is no coincidence that in the last three years the country hosted two important international meetings: the World Conference on Racism (which unfortunately degenerated into a trial against Israel) in Durban, and the Johannesburg Environment Summit.
South Africa is also the chief promoter of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a coalition of the more advanced African countries which proposes to act as a controller for the respect of political, economic and human rights in exchange for more generous investment policies by the international community.

Many factors have contributed to this success, but the greatest merit must no doubt go to Nelson Mandela, one of the few recipients of the Nobel prize for peace who truly deserved it.
When still in prison, having established confidential contacts with members of the white regime, Mandela realized that if a bloodbath was to be avoided, the transfer of power would have to take place in an atmosphere of national reconciliation, without reprisals or vendettas and without abusing the former masters, who had finally decided to give in, driven more by international pressure than by domestic opposition.
That is why, even after the resounding victory in the first elections held in universal suffrage in March 1994, Mandela initially preferred to share power with his friend/adversary Fredrick De Klerk, the last white ruler.
That is why he left white people in control of the economy for a few years, well aware that he lacked experienced men to manage the modern industrial country that had come under his rule and careful to prevent a flight of capital.
That is why in his first year as President he sponsored the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a sort of public confessional presided over by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, which examined and debated the crimes committed under apartheid (as well as the crimes and the violations against human rights committed by the ANC during its years in exile) and laid the foundations for a wide-ranging amnesty.
Mandela also steered his party away from Marxism towards a free-market economy. During the cold war, and especially during Soviet expansionism in black Africa, the ANC had come under Moscow’s sphere of influence, receiving money, weapons and, when necessary, hospitality for its activists.
The movement also collaborated with the South African Communist Party, led by Joe Slovo, a Lithuanian Jew who had a direct line with the Kremlin.
As a result, the ANC’s political programme was based on the nationalization of production facilities, central planning, forced distribution of wealth and all the accoutrements of real socialism. With an ideological background like that, the party was dreaded by the country’s economic establishment, which, though not favourable in principle to apartheid, was afraid of coming to the same end that was met by Russian entrepreneurs in 1917.
That conversion had started before the ANC’s ascent to power, with the fall of the Berlin wall, the dissolving of the Socialist regimes in eastern Europe and the end of the USSR.
Socialists in the Western countries attempted to keep the ANC on their side, pushing for nationalization of the gold mines and diamond mines that had been the countries economic backbone for years. A report produced by an international panel (Macroeconomic Research Group, MERG) commissioned by the movement called for a command-and-control economy, accompanied by a swift Africanization.
The report caused the markets to be hit by a wave of panic, further jeopardizing foreign investment, considered by Mandela and his associates as fundamental for economic development and job creation. Though admitting his inexperience in economic theory, the wise old man took the hint: with the whole world shifting towards free trade, directing his country towards nationalization and central planning would mean condemning South Africa to an inescapable decline, weakened as it was by years of sanctions, international isolation and less-than-brilliant management by the white regime.
Consequently, to the disappointment of his Socialist advisers, Mandela set aside the MERG report and ordered a general revision of the movement’s economic agenda.

On February 26, 1996, he presented the Growth, Employment and Distribution (GEAR) programme, under which South African economy would fall into line with the other industrial nations of the world.
This U-turn did not prevent the government from passing laws aimed at stripping the whites of their ancient privileges and introducing its own men in the key positions.
The law precluding blacks from the ownership of farmland was of course done away with, thereby ending the settlers’ virtual monopoly on the land and preparing the ground for a more even distribution of agricultural resources.

But the one measure than more than any other contributed to change South African society was the mandatory preference given to black applicants in the public administration, for excise licences, in universities and even in large private companies. This forced changeover, inspired by the affirmative-action policies implemented in the United States in favour of ethnic minorities, is still in force and it will remain so for years to come; but even now it is clear that when it will be completed, opportunities for white people in South Africa will be seriously reduced, and the flight of educated young whites to other countries, now just beginning, will be greatly accelerated.
ANC leaders do not fail to realize that this will have negative repercussions on the country’s economic and cultural development, and that the inevitably lessened competence will harm its international competitiveness. On the political level, they could hardly do otherwise; letting things be and leaving the development of a new middle class exclusively to market dynamics would amount to reneging on the very principles of the struggle for freedom.
So far the price to pay has been sustainable; but if the government, compelled by a trade union that has traditionally played important political roles, should step on the accelerator, all of Nelson Mandela’s patient efforts for reconciliation would be put at risk.
As yet however, South Africa’s brand of “affirmative action” has not produced the desired equalization among ethnicities, but rather the consolidation of a black bourgeoisie that is losing its ties with its original communities and is taking its place in the economic establishment, both financially, with a high standard of living, and physically, moving into residential neighbourhoods previously reserved to whites.

President Mbeki, who took office after Mandela four years ago and is all but certain of obtaining a new five-year mandate in next year’s elections, seems to be less worried than Mandela of maintaining amicable relations with the white population.
For example, he let pass a disquieting attack against the press, which a prolonged public inquiry accused of “subliminal racism” for insufficient vigour in promoting the economic situation of the black majority and for the accusations of corruption repeatedly levelled at the new management.
The government has also clamped down on television broadcasting, which after a short period of freedom has reverted to what it was under apartheid, the government’s mouthpiece.
Thabo Mbeki is a man of culture, competent and little inclined to assume extremist positions, and there is nothing in his personal history to suggest a concerted action against citizens of European descent. But more than Mandela, he feels the pressure of a constituency that is growing restless and dissatisfied with the present advancements, jealous of the white people’s prosperity compared to the misery of the black townships, and he fears that his own party may develop a leftist opposition looking to radicalize political confrontation once again.
His relations with the new leader of the white Democratic Party, Tony Leon, are not the same as those between Mandela and De Klerk. Furthermore, he probably sees the white resistance losing strength, since Afrikaner nationalism, that imposed apartheid after World War II and defended it to the last, is experiencing a profound identity crisis. The National Party, which dominated Parliament before 1994, is now defunct, and Tony Leon was never a part of it. Traditional Afrikaner organizations such as the Broederbond and even the Reformed Dutch Church are rapidly losing influence and membership.

Today Mbeki’s problems are of a different nature.
To begin with, he must face a crime rate among the highest in the world, which has made entire neighbourhoods in Johannesburg and Durban impossible to live in (Capetown, where the ethnic make-up is different, is better off, at least for now).
This criminality is born in part from desperation, but in part it has resulted from the breaking up of the previous regime’s hated police, which was replaced by inexperienced and incompetent officers. That left wide room for manoeuvre to all kinds of gangs, car thieves, drug dealers and professional robbers, who often buy their immunity with piles of banknotes.
There is also a school problem, a serious matter in a country aspiring to lead the continent’s economy. Under apartheid, schooling for black children was deliberately kept at low levels of quality, with unprepared teachers and dilapidated schoolhouses. Even now that schools are officially integrated, mixed classes are practically limited to the more well-to-do neighbourhoods.
But popular schools are lacking in everything, starting from the teachers, who have neither the vocation nor the necessary education to carry out their functions.
Government officials admit that, if all goes well, it will take at least one generation to fill these gaps.
South Africa’s economy is slowly losing competitiveness, for a number of reasons that in part can be attributed to the old regime: higher salaries than in the rest of Africa, insufficient flexibility (like certain European countries), a powerful trade union (COSATU) that, having played a fundamental role in the struggle for liberation, now lays unrealistic claims, and, like the CGIL in Italy, does not shy away from interfering in political matters.
Lastly, and perhaps mostly, there is the frightful incidence of AIDS, which was introduced in South Africa by workers coming from the North and spread like a prairie fire, especially during the transition from white to black rule.
The responsibility is shared by many: by the last white government, which underestimated the problem and failed to take timely countermeasures, by the population, that ignored the most elementary precautions for years and by President Mbeki himself, who adhered to a misleading medical theory according to which the drugs developed in Western countries were designed only to make money for the pharmaceutical companies and the disease could be treated by traditional African remedies.
The President’s unaccountable position caused years of delay in adopting strong measures of containment, allowing the epidemic to spread to every sector of society. The directives have finally been changed (thanks also to an authoritative intervention by Mandela), but the evil is done, and estimates are that there will be millions of deaths over the next 20 years.

Despite his shortcomings, Thabo Mbeki remains a moderate leader for the international community, competent and reliable, with the potential to help solve many of the continent’s problems.
In many African crises (Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone) he has provided constructive mediation. Unfortunately he has lacked the courage to confront the most serious crisis, in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe’s arbitrary and despotic government has destroyed a once-thriving economy and tramples daily on the political and human rights of whites and blacks alike.
Mbeki was expected to exert his authority to convince Mugabe to put an end to the abuse and to restore democracy, but this has yet to happen.
Gossips say that his inertia is due to a sort of “call of the wild”: like Mbeki, Mugabe comes from a war of liberation, and, like Mbeki, Mugabe’s cultural roots are steeped in Marxism; so after twenty years of orthodox administration Mugabe is doing what many exponents of the ANC would probably like to see done in South Africa as well: the expropriation of white people and the distribution of their land to their own supporters.

Translated by interpres sas