SOUTH AFRICA ;- LIFE AFTER MANDELA!!!

SOUTH AFRICA LIFE AFTER MANDELA

Nelson Mandela.

The death of Nelson Madiba Mandela in his country home of South Africa on Thursday 5^th December this year has brought an end to an era in the liberation struggle against Apartheid regime. He was once regarded as a terrorist, but later become an icon for peace across the Globe. His battle against Apartheid in South Africa made him spend 27years behind bars.  He and the then President FW de Klerk, supervised the abolition of legal racial segregation in the country which earned them the Nobel Peace Prize. His death at the age of 95 has prompted tributes from around the world, with about 100 world’s sitting and past head of state, attending his memorial service.
After his release from prison, he won South Africa’s first all-race elections to become the country’s first black president; this earned him the most respected statesman of his generation,  liberating and unifying most of its people, having been voted for by both minority whites and majority blacks. He presided over the affairs of South Africa for a term of four years and handed over power to Tabo Mbeki whom he believed will maintain his none revenge philosophy  throughout the country.
However his struggle that released more that 80 percent of the black population from bondage has not led to greater equality across the Nations populace. Only a small minority of the liberated have joined the minority ruling class to have access to the reins of economic power.

 Mr. Mandela leaves behind a South Africa where political power is firmly in the hands of the majority, and this has helped steer the country away from what seemed to be the biggest risk at the time of the country’s transition to democracy: a race war that pitted blacks against whites.

But economic power is still largely in white hands. Unemployment, particularly among the young black people who make up a vast population here, is higher than ever. Inequality has grown, as a small group of black elites has joined wealthy whites in the upper echelons of society, leaving the masses far behind. The anger over this state of affairs, after building up for years, boiled over in August 2012 when the police killed 34 striking miners in the country’s worst police violence since the end of apartheid.

What is currently happening to South Africans is a far cry from the early days of Mr. Mandela’s release from prison after 27 years in 1990 and his victory in South Africa’s first non-racial election four years later.

It will be recalled that Mr. Mandela said in his inaugural address. “Let there be peace, let there be work, bread, water , salt and let there be justice for all”  It turned out these promises would be tough to keep, even for a man with Mr. Mandela’s gifts.

Mr. Mandela pledged in 1997 that South Africa would avoid the “formation of predatory elites that thrive on the basis of looting national wealth and the entrenchment of corruption.”

And yet that has happened. The African National Congress has slowly gone from a liberation movement to almost oppressive political machine. Corruption is endemic. Deep ties between big business and politicians have reinforced the perception that those in power seek only their own enrichment.

 In Soweto on Friday, the day after Mr. Mandela died, South African flags were few, but the emblem of the African National Congress — a hand clutching a spear on a field of black, green and yellow — was ubiquitous. “This Mandela belongs to the A.N.C.,” a man said through a microphone.

 Although Nelson Mandela preached tolerance and reconciliation, there are still divisions within South Africa. Some have warned that without his presence those divisions may spark violence.

But even members in a poor Afrikaner enclave appear cautiously optimistic about their future.

“At the end of the day we should listen to what Mandela taught us. And he was like always letting us join together and not be racist. And we must take that example. And people must take that example all over and just try and follow it,” said resident Sandra Batha.

When Mandela was elected the country’s first black president in 1994 many Afrikaners were uneasy about life under a black-majority government after decades of white rule.

But his talk of a united South Africa has commanded respect among wealthier Afrikaners such as Jan Bosman, Chief Secretary of the rights group Afrikaner bond:

“There are certain things wrong in this country at the moment and we must fix it. As Afrikaners and I speak from the Afrikaner community we are more than willing to assist and help build this country and make it what it can be. I think. I think that is what Mr. Mandela wanted.”

But some Afrikaners say they just want to be left alone with their own culture and language. They believe as long as they are law abiding they should not need permission to act as they do – an ideal they say Mandela himself respected.