The Race Against Racism-Africa, Nelson Mandela, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Hannes Wessels,

While I was not living in South Africa when the ANC, led by Nelson Mandela, came to power in 1994 it was plain to see that almost the entire white community of over four million people, even those who had aggressively opposed the transfer of power to a black majority, had resigned themselves to the new reality.  They wanted to help, rather than hinder, the new leadership make a success of the new dispensation. Many whites were ecstatic; a new ‘Rainbow Nation’ had been borne that was going to show the world what a multi-racial democracy could become when shod of white-minority rule. Handed on a plate was a sub-Saharan super-state; the continent’s most developed country, infrastructurally and economically; boasting a mighty military, and its most efficient civil-service.

The hubris that surrounded the national  team winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup with President Mandela resplendent in a Springbok jersey took national euphoria to unprecedented levels. With home-grown goodwill in abundance, peace on the country’s borders, and the entire world proffering generous support for the ‘born-again’ country, once blighted by apartheid, it was difficult for even the most dystopian to entertain the prospect of failure.

Unfortunately, the adage, ‘don’t fix what is not broken’ was ignored by the new rulers. What they, and their multitude of supporters, chose to ignore was that the previous regime, despite their racist pedigree, and favouritism directed at the upliftment of Afrikaners, had spent the last 46 years, not enriching a privileged political elite, but developing the country based on the fundamental premise that merit cannot be wholly ignored and economic growth is unachievable without a skilled workforce to drive and grow the public and private sector. To this end, the country was churning out over 70,000 highly trained technical personnel every year. These were the people needed to manage and maintain armies, air forces, navies, railways, harbours, airlines, roads, a nuclear reactor, and run electricity and water utilities.

Some of the finest universities in the world were staffed by home-grown and trained academics and generously subsidised by the state to educate highly qualified graduates to fill the professions with lawyers, doctors, scientists, engineers, architects and academics.

Mostly forgotten is the fact the best universities in Africa for blacks were made available by the Afrikaner Nationalists providing a stepping stone to power for people (many of whom would later use their elevated intellectual status to come back and haunt them) such as Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, Kenneth Kaunda, Govan Mbeki, Chris Hani, Seretse Khama and Julius Nyerere to name only a few.

It was this complicated, costly, painstakingly constructed infrastructure that provided the platform for South Africa to take pride of place as a member of the sophisticated First World of nation-states.

Merit, the simple fundamental underpinning this progress, the gargantuan elephant in the room, was unfortunately completely ignored by the new leadership. Probably because, apart from running stolen car and drug rackets, it boasted few members who had ever built or run a business. Instead, competence and acumen was replaced by skin colour as the absolute pre-requisite, followed by political affiliation. And that was the catalyst for almost total infrastructural collapse; and with that came a collapsing economy, leading to increased poverty and a massive increase in crime.

What has happened in South Africa is far from unprecedented; in some shape or form, the same has happened in every sub-Saharan nation North of the Limpopo, with Zimbabwe’s ‘land reform’ policy providing the next most recent example of the devastation wrought when people are persecuted simply because they are of European ancestry.

As a Zimbabwe-born white man I am just one of many thousands of my compatriots who has been unfairly discriminated against on purely racial grounds. In fact, for most of us who have elected to live our lives in Africa, discrimination has become a way of life and we have accepted it as part of the price payable for being where we want to be. I am one of the fortunate ones; many have died violently and many more have been rendered destitute.  But despite this horrible injustice, I know of few, if any, who harbour any animus against the black people, with whom we co-exist peacefully.

For me, and my generation, I think the greatest pain comes, not with the losses in lives and livelihoods which brings its own sadness, but having to survey the wreckage wrought by the craven desire to dispossess and marginalise white people.  Britain, America, Canda, Australia and New Zealand are only just beginning to feel the heat of ‘decolonisation’.  Those of us from countries we considered home, like Zimbabwe and South Africa, know only too well from bitter experience, what that means. We wish that, that was taken, had only been cherished and nurtured and used sensibly to enhance and enrich the lives of others, even if we were to be denied any of those rewards.

In most of Africa, all is but lost, however South Africa finds itself at the Rubicon at this moment.  Will the new ANC, as the ‘senior’ partner within the coalition with the DA and others, find the courage and the selflessness, to put the country ahead of their party and their personal interests, and stop the destruction of this once formidable union? Or do we have to bear witness the same, racially motivated, wanton destruction being visited upon Africa’s last hope?

source:The Race Against Racism – Africa Unauthorised