Posted on 02/08/2004 8:06:49 AM PST by SBprone
EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE, South Africa – At the scenic foot of a troubled continent of almost one billion people, among whom any good news is welcome, South Africa's 45 million inhabitants are building a uniquely bold venture in democracy. In many ways it is the boldest since the United States was founded.
Ten years ago, this nation's liberated blacks voted freely for the first time. They stood eagerly under the sun in long serpentine lines that seemed to reach the horizon. Such photographs, taken on April 27, 1994, their day of independence, appear like trophies on the walls of government buildings and museums.
Nelson Mandela was their George Washington. Many wealthy whites left South Africa then; hundreds of them settled in the San Diego region. Whites in the home nation now number less than one in 10. Four of five residents now are Africans. The current president is Thabo Mbeki, a ruler over whom South Africans are as democratically divided as U.S. voters generally are.
Poverty certainly remains in South Africa as well as AIDS, although tuberculosis causes more deaths. A democratic rule of law, intact since the blacks' celebrated victory over apartheid 10 years ago, has assisted in Africa's most durable liberation and a buoyant economy.
Even tourism is increasing. This pastoral Eastern Cape province, a land of rolling hills, elephants and sea cliffs, was settled by the British. Their imprint saturates towns like East London and Port Elizabeth (about to become Mandela Bay). South Africa's gold has had a big price spike; diamonds continue to emerge from the nation's soil.
This free black nation is now ruled by the African National Congress party and a host of other patriotic parties and movements. Power is shared with a dozen parties and factions that participated in the bloody apartheid resistance, and are bound by their fanatic adoption of the democratic model. With five other American journalists, I spent 10 hectic days last month meeting South Africans in government, business and the arts. The nation is succeeding far beyond most Western expectations. Its heroes are the hundreds of others in the passive resistance that finally won the blacks' victory over white apartheid. These leaders are spread now through a dozen groups and parties.
"But we are all sworn to equal rights for the whites of South Africa," says Xolela Mangcu, an eloquent black African with a thick beard, eye glasses, and degrees from Harvard and Princeton. From the frame house near King Williams Town where Steve Biko lived before his brutal death in 1977, Mangcu heads a patriotic foundation.
As junior members of his staff, wide-eyed, throng the doorways to watch and listen, he sits at his small desk in Biko's house and talks of the man who died because he preached that the evangelic pursuit of black pride and consciousness is the necessary precursor of freedom. "The paradox of our generation, Mangcu says, "is that our job is at once much easier and much more difficult than that of Biko's generation.
"We now lack a common enemy around which to galvanize people toward these ideas. There are possessive individualists who threaten our notions of community. Yet it is made easier because we know now what went on before our time. Memory is a powerful tool for democracy."
As we drove hundreds of miles this year, crisscrossing two of South Africa's nine provinces, we saw thousands of small new houses rising across rolling hillsides. Blighted townships, which served as the instrument of apartheid, are slowly being upgraded. More schools are appearing by the day.
White businessmen to whom we spoke assured us of continued productive relations under the black government.
The contrast with Zimbabwe, across its northeast borders, is hammered home in South African newspapers. One day, Zimbabwe's Daily News, shut down four months earlier by President Robert Mugabe, appeared on the newsstands in Zimbabwe with an apology. Its news stories were a month old, but it was publishing them to assure its anti-Mugabe readers that it was still alive.
Yet, within hours, the government asked the highest Zimbabwe court to shut down the Daily News again.
These bright days, South Africans simply smile over their neighbor's plight. What they dread, especially in overcrowded Johannesburg, is the influx of sick and hungry millions from Zimbabwe and central Africa. It is a worry, we journalists agreed, that is not unknown back home in the world's largest democracy.
"It is a worry, we journalists agreed, that is not unknown back home in the world's largest democracy." Oh, the author is from India?
Yes, Morgan's definitely a contender in a crowded race.
These bright days, South Africans simply smile over their neighbor's plight. What they dread, especially in overcrowded Johannesburg, is the influx of sick and hungry millions from Zimbabwe and central Africa.
How nice, Clive, the South Africans are smiling. Take your tourist dollars and visit heaven in Africa. < /sarcasm>
This is the same country where the "Rocker Panel Flame Thrower Anti-Car-Jacking device was invented and is a best seller?!?! Amazing that such sweetness and light took over in such a short time.
Still, BHTZ (Better Here than Zimbabwe)
OBTW, where can I buy a pair of this guy's rose-colored glasses?
Dunno, but you could try borrowing his. Just bring a proctologist with you to extract them.
Are you originally from South Africa? I looked at your profile page and you seem to have a lot of links related to SA. How would you say society has developed there after 1994?
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