Covid-19 infections are rising sharply in South Africa—and Latin America. This is fitting: South Africa resembles the countries of South America more than those of its home continent.
Liberalism is meant to be about freedom for all individuals, regardless of race. But linking liberalism to whiteness as is happening now is not new in South Africa. Most activists who fought for black freedom dismissed liberalism as a white ideology designed to tame black people, not to free them.
South Africans are about to vote in the most competitive election they’ve had since democracy began in 1994. But, despite this, the poll will have far more impact on the factional battle within the governing African National Congress (ANC) than on the contest between it and other parties for control of government.
One day, if they follow instructions, Africa’s new democracies will grow up to be “real” like those of Western Europe and North America. This assumption makes little sense – but it influences the way many people in the West and in Africa think about African democracies.
If you want economic change in South Africa, create a crisis—then stand by to negotiate a way out of it.
South Africans are fond of debating whether public or private sector failings are the bigger problem. It does not take too long to realise that they are really talking about race.
The only thing radical about South Africa’s ruling party’s understanding of “radical economic transformation”, a commentator once suggested, is its use of the word ‘radical’. The comment was made a few years ago, when the African National Congress was in the habit of using the slogan to describe very modest change. Now it’s back.
