South Africa
| Author | Allison Drew |
| Published date | 01 April 2010 |
| Date | 01 April 2010 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-9066.2010.00014.x |
| Subject Matter | Country Focus |
London butcher’s counter, all going about the business
of daily life, shows a possible non-racial future, as do
some of Johannesburg’s artistic venues.
Old Inequalities Remain
South Africa is one of the world’s most unequal societies.
The gap between rich and poor is widening, particularly
among Africans. There are poor whites, but between
1994 and 2004 white household income rose faster than
that of black households, notwithstanding a growth in
the size of the black middle class. Real poverty has de-
clined due to redistribution – an increase in government
grants – rather than growth in the country’s productive
capacity. Yet this redistribution remains limited. Despite
the enormous scale of land dispossession – more than
80 per cent of the land was taken by whites compared
to some 50 per cent in neighbouring Zimbabwe – the
government’s aim that 30 per cent of agricultural land
be redistributed by 2014 is nowhere near being met:
by March 2009 some 5 per cent of such land had been
transferred.
Post-apartheid economic policy has failed to address
the structural unemployment that remains a long-term
destabilising factor – the jobless rate is about 24 per cent.
The country’s 20th-century development was based on
primary product exports, particularly gold and other
minerals; manufacturing developed gradually, stimu-
lated by state-led and private investment. The economy
is now dominated by fi nance capital and owners of min-
eral-energy resources, of which platinum has replaced
gold as the key mineral export. Although South Africa’s
manufacturing sector was strong compared to other
African countries, since 1994 it has deindustrialised, a
typical post-colonial African path. The economic liber-
alisation resulting from the country’s incorporation into
the global economy has meant a collapse of the tariff
barriers that protected manufacturing, and the infl ux of
cheap manufactured goods has led to the decline of local
industries. The local shoe and clothing manufacturing
industry, for instance, has been dramatically reduced as
a result of Chinese imports. Deindustrialisation accentu-
ates structural unemployment and increases the vast
urban and rural underclass. It also weakens the social
base of organised labour.
Country Focus
South Africa
To land in Johannesburg is to be struck by hectic
movement. Where this movement is heading is
far from obvious. The headlines of the English-
language press – on race and identity, class and inequal-
ity, and African nationalism versus communism – are
dizzying in their intensity and suggest an angry, deeply
divided society.
Indeed, almost 16 years since the country’s fi rst demo-
cratic elections, post-apartheid South Africa remains
sharply divided along racial lines. Johannesburg’s slick
cosmopolitan culture notwithstanding, black and white
middle and upper classes rarely socialise together, and the
city’s glitzy shopping complexes are staffed by personnel
from impoverished Alexandra and other nearby town-
ships. Downtown Johannesburg is solidly black, although
the white businesses that fl ed the city centre in 1994
are starting to move back, driving up property prices.
Elsewhere, the former Bantustans (so-called homelands
where Africans were forcibly relocated during the apart-
heid era) are almost entirely black, and the social gap
between rural and urban remains as stark as ever.
Given the country’s history, it is hardly surprising
that Nelson Mandela’s hopes for a tolerant rainbow na-
tion remain unfulfi lled. Nonetheless, there are pockets
where relations between black and white are relaxed.
The friendly camaraderie of black and white workers
and black and white customers on either side of an East
As it prepares to host the World Cup, South Africa remains one of the world’s most unequal
countries. As Allison Drew explains, whether South Africa continues its transformation to
stable democracy depends on how effectively civil society can pressure the dominant party
and contain its excesses.
Post-apartheid
South Africa
remains
sharply
divided along
racial lines
© Kim Ludbrook/epa/Corbis
24 Political Insight
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