Mandela’s heirs
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA -- SOUTH AFRICA'S presidential minister bristled when asked how much the violence and instability in bordering Zimbabwe was occupying his time. The media have blown Zimbabwe all out of proportion, said Essop Pahad, friend and chief adviser to President Thabo Mbeki. South Africa is not the keeper for all of the continent. "We are not besotted with Zimbabwe," he said. Pahad proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes explaining precisely how Zimbabwe's troubles are contributing to trade imbalances, immigration pressures, and the decline of the South African currency - and to detail what the Mbeki government is doing to contain it.
With its modern infrastructure of roads and utilities, it is easy to forget that South African democracy is only eight years old and still very fragile. On a recent visit, a group of American journalists encountered a proud and mostly patient citizenry, still euphoric from the 1994 victory over apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela.
But in the current, more mundane "transition" period, the burdens are mounting for Mandela's ruling African National Congress: to mentor a continent where 48 percent of the people live on less than $1 a day; to avoid corruption and favoritism; to be more open to dissent; to get AIDS under control; to reassure the white minority that there is a future for their children; to deliver on the promises of majority rule. No wonder the president's minister is on the defensive.
Daunting social needs
Archbishop Njongokulu Ndungane, successor to Desmond Tutu and a dynamic leader in his own right, says that "an immense amount of hope" is on the credit side of the country's ledger. But he also believes that "we need to be deepening our democracy." Tolerance of dissent is not part of the revolutionary tradition: Black critics of Mbeki's government are still considered unpatriotic; white critics are racist. "The country's leadership has not yet made the transition from being a liberation movement to being a political party in a democratic state," he says.
Even more daunting are the country's social needs. "Now the focus really needs to be on delivery and on training and skilling of the people," says Lebo Ramafoko, 31, a producer with the South African Broadcast Corp. and one of 11 young leaders chosen by former president Clinton for a fellowship program cosponsored by the Boston volunteer group CityYear. "The question of whether this democracy becomes a Zimbabwe or a beacon of hope for the world is up to whether or not we deliver," she says.
The savage inequalities between the races during apartheid are in some places being replaced by gaps within the races - a new black elite of government and business figures occupy some of the same mansions, enclosed by razor wire, that once housed wealthy whites. Meanwhile, in Kliptown - a poor section of the Soweto township near Johannesburg - 60,000 people live in makeshift shacks without roads or electricity and one water spigot for every six families. The incongruous bright blue chemical toilets the provincial government has provided in lieu of plumbing are locked against crime.
The revolution of rising expectations is alive and well in Kliptown, heightened by the loss of apartheid as a unifying evil. "We voted for change," says Thandanani Mojozi, who works with the nonprofit group Soweto Kliptown Youth. "Eight years later things are still the same. We don't know who to blame."
'Anger is simmering'
The perversity of apartheid was never more evident than on Robben Island, the infamous prison off the coast of Cape Town where Nelson Mandela and hundreds of other activists languished for years. Today the island is a "living museum" where former prisoners detail their pasts for tourists. Eugene Mokgoasi spent seven years on Robben Island in the 1980s. He describes how even in prison the white government maintained strict racial divisions: Mixed race and Asian prisoners were given more meat than black prisoners and allowed to wear long pants in winter. Black prisoners slept on carpet remnants on the floor and were made to wear shorts and open sandals.
Of course, Mokgoasi feels a sense of triumph over apartheid. But he says the peaceful truth and reconciliation movement Mandela brought from this prison is still controversial among more militant activists like himself. "The anger is simmering," he says. "I think there is one more crisis awaiting us, and that is the death of Nelson Mandela." Indeed, the aging Mandela is a Gandhi-like figure, revered enough to keep tensions and divisions at bay. Lefate Makunyane, 31, a consultant for nonprofit programs in the townships and another Clinton democracy fellow, says the question of after Mandela hangs heavily. "It's going to catch up with us as a nation if we don't have a plan to address the injustices of the past," he says. "Things will definitely take a more militant approach."
Reasons for hope
Luckily for the fledgling democracy, tomorrow's leaders - the youth of South Africa - are fairly brimming with talent, energy, education, and commitment. At Orange Farm about 20 miles outside Johannesburg, Makunyane takes me to a youth center where 30 teenagers sitting on plastic chairs explain what they've learned in a five-day program in skills training, mentoring, safe sex, and self-esteem: "If you don't manage your life, someone else will do it for you," says one. Another: "If you fail to plan, you should plan to fail."
Civil society is vigorous in South Africa, the judiciary is fully functioning, and the press is free and disputatious. "Mandela opened the gate for us," says 20-year old Motthabi Mokgele, a peer leader at the Mofolo health clinic in Soweto. "Mbeki has to finish the job," she said. "It's killing us to keep comparing instead of moving forward. In the end we'll come up with our own solutions."
The world is rooting for her.