.South Africa marked an important milestone with recent
elections and the African National Congress (ANC) easily won the right to rule the
country. The ANC should be congratulated on that victory and good wishes should be
extended toward President-elect Thabo Mbeki as he prepares to be sworn in June 16.
The euphoria of the first all-race elections in 1994 has
been replaced with a desire for the masses to see a change in their lives. ANC officials
say with hundreds of thousands of houses, improved education and improvement in things
like water in rural areas, they have started that job. It’s a big job and South
Africa could use a hand to get the job done.
Some of that help should come from Blacks in America, who fought to end apartheid. The
thing needed now is not so much protests as investments and paying attention to U.S.
policy toward South Africa and all of the Motherland.
At the same time, South Africa’s ruling party and Blacks who are able to benefit
from the immediate changes should keep some things in mind. The ANC is talking about free
markets and creating economic change from the ground up That sounds like something out of
the Reagan-Bush years. Remember the 1980s? When the poor suffered but an economic
elite—think yuppies—and corporations made a killing.
That can’t be allowed to happen in South Africa where the masses of poor Black
people sacrificed their lives and futures for the liberation struggle. They won’t
stand for being left behind and for having a class gulf replace the racial divide.
It’s not an easy problem to solve but clearly something has got to
give—especially with whites and corporations still controlling the land and economy
of the Rainbow Nation.
Sacrifices in South Africa have to be as evenly distributed as possible. The poor have
suffered enough and white South Africans have to understand its in their best interest to
willingly share the wealth. Otherwise a volatile mix of poverty, class differences and
race could explode.
