Little change in 23 years

I was in Houston, Texas, for SA’s first democratic election in 1994. I was an engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin. While I waited to cast my vote, a young man from Soweto, who had migrated to the US because he was upset by the manner in which the ANC put down the mutiny in Angola and disposed of the corpses, told me that he would never vote for the ANC.

He told me that SA would soon have a constitution: “Mark my words, that constitution will be used by the elites in SA to legitimise apartheid, normalise white lives and protect their narrow vested interests.”

Quite frankly, I thought he was out of his mind. But with the benefit of our 23 years of “democratic apartheid” I believe he was right and I was wrong.

The past 23 years has done very little to alter any of apartheid’s intentions beyond the calculated transfer of political power. White people still enjoy unfettered economic power and prosperity. They still enjoy better quality education and employment opportunities. They still live in better resourced residential areas while black people are drowning in the crime-infested townships, far from labour markets.

Interestingly, black elites and corrupt politicians have consciously chosen to join the gravy train rather than continue fighting for equality in society.

Mpumelelo Ncwadi

Parklands