Apartheid – What is it’s Legacy?

Listening to radio talk shows in South Africa is an interesting occupation.  Many of the items of ‘fact’ known to those who phone in, as well as to the moderators, are, at least, questionable.  The largest of these is the legacy of Apartheid.  Apartheid was, and is, without question abhorrent to modern thinkers.  It was based on a belief that there are differences between the races that would be best accommodated by separating the races.  There is nothing new in this, either in history or in geography.  People have always tended to stay with those they consider to be like them.  This is clear in India, where the caste system continues to dominate, based on an accident of birth; in Germany, where a person with German ancestry, even if three generations in the past, is entitled to citizenship while a person with Turkish ancestry, even three generations earlier, is not; in Switzerland, where a French-speaking Swiss treats a German-speaking Swiss with contempt, even though the Swiss Federation has existed for nearly eight hundred years; in Zimbabwe, where membership of one tribe entitles one to benefits that are denied the members of another tribe; in Nigeria, where religion plays a similar role; in Britain, where noble birth separates a man from his equally competent peers.  Examples of Apartheid in its various guises are legion.  They can be found throughout the world and throughout history.  They are inherently wrong, but they exist.

The problem in South Africa today is that it is an article of faith that Apartheid is the reason for everything that is not working properly today, seventeen years after Black majority Government came into effect. 

The education system is a disaster ‘because of the legacy of Apartheid.’  Perhaps the real reason is that the new Government dismantled all that was good, together with the bad, of the education system it inherited, a system that worked better then, in terms of the products it delivered, than it does now.  Ask anyone who gained a degree in Apartheid days if he or she considers the current crop of degrees comparable in quality.  The verdict has been handed down by the international business community.  A pre-Apartheid degree is accepted as a quality statement, a post-Apartheid degree is viewed with suspicion.  Even the Law degree, the Ll B, is now treated with some disdain, as is evidenced by a recent statement by the Law Society that new Ll B graduates are unable to use language effectively.  This in a degree that is reliant on the effective use of language more than most degrees!

The Local Government administration is in disarray, ‘because of the legacy of Apartheid’.  Local Government under Apartheid worked well, because the people running it were professionals.  It was not inspiring, but it worked.  After the new Government came into power, the experienced and competent managers of Local Government were replaced by people who were incompetent, corrupt or, most likely, not sufficiently experienced to recognise a problem and find a solution to it.  That skill takes many years to develop.  It is no accident that a young person joining an organisation could not expect to reach a senior level without having undergone years of training, exposure, mentoring and experience-building.  The new Government decided that this was subsidiary to its goal of ensuring that the management of the economy would pass quickly into the hands of the majority.  Laudable certainly, but unrealistic.  That cannot be ascribed to the ‘legacy of Apartheid’.

Central Government has suffered equally.  MPs claim to work hard, and, in many cases, they do.  However, any competent Management Consultant will tell you that the secret of success in any enterprise is to work smart, not hard.  Again, a question of experience, compounded in many cases by a question of honesty and integrity.  Do MPs strive to attain the position of trust in order to serve their fellow man, or in order to ensure the maximum benefit for themselves?  In many cases, the answer is clear.  Is this the ‘legacy of Apartheid’, or the result of a system that has been fostered by corrupt politicians who seek to draw others into their net?

The training of nurses and teachers, both now recognised as key functions of Government, was undertaken by specialist Colleges, which turned out graduates of such high quality that they were poached by many other countries.  A qualification from one of these institutions was recognised as an entry ticket to Australia, Britain, Canada and many other First World countries.  These ‘legacies of Apartheid’ were dismantled under the new Government, and are now being rebuilt, at great cost.  The same applies to the Atomic Energy Corporation, which, at its peak under the Apartheid Government, was recognised worldwide as a centre of excellence in its field.  It was dismantled, losing the millions of man-years of knowledge and experience and is now being rebuilt. 

The present Local Governments battle to provide services to a massive influx of people from the land, South African as well as foreign.  An interesting news item recently reported that the Police had been stoned by a mob of ‘land invaders’ demanding the provision of services.  Influx control, one of the hated systems of the Apartheid years, was introduced in an attempt to prevent this exact problem, one that the Apartheid Government feared, as it knew that it would be impossible to provide adequate services to the millions who would otherwise flock to the cities.  Even so, the Apartheid Government provided four-room houses to the rapidly-growing Black population, in contrast to the tiny RDP houses, that are now being renovated at a cost of about R100 000 a piece, and the cardboard and plastic shanties of the squatter camps that now surround almost every town in the country.  Another ‘legacy of Apartheid’?  At the same time, the farmers, who produced sufficient food to make South Africa a consistent net exporter of food, even under the sanctions imposed by other countries at the behest of the ANC, are being driven off the land by a wave of farm killings, or simply by the policy of land redistribution of productive farms to people who have a history of subsistence agriculture, and who have managed, in most cases, to destroy the highly-productive agricultural ventures they were handed.  This has removed the employment of millions of agricultural workers, driving them to the cities to find employment, and made South Africa a net importer of food.  Another ‘legacy of Apartheid’?

The subject of ‘hate speech’, of attacks by people against gays and lesbians, including ‘corrective rape’, has recently been described as a ‘legacy of Apartheid’.  This ignores the fact that similar events take place regularly in Zimbabwe, in Uganda and in numerous other African countries.  It seems to be a characteristic of Black countries, or possibly of underdeveloped countries, as the same phenomenon does not seem to be as widespread in Europe or other European dominated countries.  Surely this cannot be a ‘legacy of Apartheid’?

Apartheid was a system that was accepted, if not supported, by Whites who saw the examples of other African countries that became independent of their ‘colonial masters’.  With only Botswana as an exception, these countries fell into decay, bringing death and misery to millions, and incredible wealth to the few corrupt leaders of the countries.  The problems in those countries seem to have related to exactly the phenomena that have been identified here.  Strong, corrupt leaders took control of Government, maintaining their power by violence and corruption, lying to their electorate and rigging the system where lying did not appear likely to achieve the objective of prolongation of political control indefinitely.  They applied policies learned by their tutors in Communist Russia, Communist Cuba and Communist East Germany, all countries which are marvellous examples of the benefits of socialism, all countries which have proved conclusively that these policies do not work in the real world.  They have conglomerated small, viable social units to form large Local Governments which fail their electorates on a large scale while increasing the payoff to corruption, they have applied policies to advance the strength of the Trade Unions, concentrating economic power in the hands of allies of the governing Party at the cost of economic growth and millions of jobs.  Unemployment has grown from 1 600 000 in 1994 to over 4 500 000 presently.  Is this the ‘legacy of Apartheid’ working against us after 17 years of these policies?

One is reminded of a television interview of Joe Slovo, then the leader of the South African Communist Party, in 1995.  The interviewer asked a question.  “Mr Slovo, you are advocating the application of Communist principles in South Africa, a Capitalist country.  It has been shown throughout the world that Communism simply does not work.  Every country that has espoused Communism has failed miserably.  What makes you believe that Communism will work in South Africa?”  “Well,” replied Mr Slovo, “You must understand that any economic system, even Communism, requires capital to work.  In Russia, in East Germany and in Cuba, that capital has been exhausted.  That is why those countries failed.  South Africa has a very large capital, that will, ensure that Communism works here!”  “But, Mr Slovo, what will happen when that capital has been exhausted here?”  “Then we will try another system!” replied Mr Slovo.

Perhaps South Africa will soon be reaching the point where it will be necessary to discard the excuse of the ‘legacy of Apartheid’ as a reason, and start looking for some real reasons that can be resolved.  In this search, it may be wise to look at the Apartheid times, and extract the many elements that were good, while we continue to reject the elements that were bad.