In the 1990s, a commonly held view was that South Africa had achieved a “miracle” because of its relatively peaceful political transition from apartheid to democracy in 1994.
The “miracle” was South Africans talking their way out of apartheid rule – the white minority relinquished power to a racially inclusive government in a constitutional democracy.
As psychology professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela put it – South Africans forged a vocabulary of compromise and tolerance [to settle] differences via compromise among equals.
The new Constitution contains a Bill of Rights – with non-racialism as a principle. But the global reverence for South Africa as a country that could generate “an alternative meaning of what our world might be” has dissipated.
Anti-Constitution pessimism and opportunism have been on the rise. A lack of meaningful redistribution of wealth has led politicians to proclaim constitutional democracy has failed.
Scholars influenced by decolonial theories have criticised the constitutional order as a form of “neo-apartheid” that perpetuates white privilege. Non-racialism has been dismissed as “colour-blindness” that hinders the correction of race-based inequalities. But is the pessimistic view accurate?
One of Africa’s leading scholars, Ugandan-born Mahmood Mamdani, believes not. In his latest book, Neither Settler Nor Native, Mamdani argues that South Africa has succeeded most in breaking out of colonial divisions and forging a new political community out of five countries he studied. Looking at South Africa, the US, Germany, Sudan and Israel, he finds South Africa’s solution to otherwise persistent colonial divisions to still be the most promising, if unfinished, project.
Mamdani especially lauds the project of non-racialism that bridges differences towards a united future.
He argues that the possibility for a new, politically forged community beyond the “settler/native” division was created – a decolonised political identity. The interracial United Democratic Front – an internally based mass movement – was formed in the 1980s.
As Mamdani states (page 350): “This movement … demonstrated a diverse people working towards a united political future.”
Instead of pursuing punitive justice, Mamdani notes, “South Africans sat around the conference table”. He concedes the South African national project is an “incomplete success”. Nevertheless, its citizens used engagement to open the door to becoming adversaries rather than enemies.
Current naysaying of the political achievement of the 1990s loses sight of it being an essential step towards social justice, he says. He is correct.
Few anti-Constitution pessimists engage with what the breakthrough from apartheid to democracy enabled politically. These critics are rightly outraged by the socio-economic ravages most black South Africans continue to suffer. But they largely refrain from questioning the ANC’s failure to use its political dominance to shift state levers towards ending inequality. The party has pursued a predominantly neoliberal policy. This has kept the country’s race-based wealth gap intact, except for the upper echelons of society.
This lack of interrogation of ANC policies feeds into the agenda of opportunists wanting to undermine the law to escape accountability for corruption. Former president Jacob Zuma is one of them. He most recently called the democratic constitutional order a “judicial dictatorship” to justify his refusal to answer to corruption claims.
But recent developments show that many South Africans remain unconvinced by opponents of the Constitution. Instead, efforts are under way to rekindle its vision, suggesting that the new political community that Mamdani identified is stirring again.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC’s chief negotiator during the transition, has sought to reactivate the South African imagination of the 1990s. In his inaugural address in 2019, he quoted Hugh Masekela’s Thuma Mina (“Send me”), urging South Africans to come to one another’s aid.
Ramaphosa has also sought to bridge the vast social chasms – securing money for a “Solidarity Fund” to channel resources from the wealthy to the poor during Covid-19.
Other recent events suggest more South Africans may be returning to talking to one another. Earlier this year, the Thabo Mbeki Foundation met a large group of conservative Afrikaner organisations. The two sides had not met since 2016. The meeting suggested a renewed willingness among conservative Afrikaners to involve themselves in positive change. Indeed, they made commitments to contribute more actively towards solving SA’s myriad problems.
And in March, prominent South Africans from diverse political backgrounds formed the Defend Our Democracy movement. This interracial civil society group has the express purpose of defending the Constitution.
The transition to constitutional democracy was not a miracle. As Mamdani argues, it was an act of political imagination which invoked a future society that refused apartheid’s divisions. Now South Africans have to actualise that future.
* Professor Christi van der Westhuizen is an Associate Professor at the Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy (Canrad), Nelson Mandela University.
** Read more on our #UnmuteFreedom campaign here.
