It is often said that when black South Africans came to power, the economy plummeted. This is also not true. In April 1994, the ANC won South Africa's first non-racial competition. On May 9, after the results of South Africa's first multiracial** event were announced, Mandela became the first black person in South Africa's history**.
If we look at the annual GDP growth rate, the average of apartheid from 1970 to 1993 was 219%, compared to 2 from 1994 to 202242%, which also includes the -6% recession caused by the pandemic in 2020.
Although it is not high, the average growth rate has actually increased slightly after the transformation, and there is no such thing as "the economy is booming under white rule and plummeting under black rule" as some people have the impression. So overall, South Africa's transition has achieved a soft landing.
According to the World Bank, South Africa's GDP per capita was $4,330 in 1994 and $6,018 in 2022.
If we look at GDP per capita, it increased from $9,692 to $13,470.
Today's South Africa is by no means an ideal country, with a wide disparity between rich and poor, high unemployment, and social security, but it is a miracle in one respect: since the transition in 1994, it has established and maintained a democratic system of government, and there has been no Egyptian-style democratic collapse, let alone Libya-Syrian civil wars. In fact, there is a significant decline in violent conflict in South Africa today compared to the violent conflicts that flourished before the transition. For example, in the case of Cape Town, there were 30 large-scale** or riots in the 10 years of the 80s of the 20th century, but only 9 in the 10 years from 2000 to 2010.
As we know, the Gini Index measures the degree of economic inequality, and the highest Gini Index in the world is **?Whether it was in 1994 or now, it is South Africa, and it is the kind of lone champion who is far away from the second place.
So after Mandela came to power, shouldn't he start fighting local tyrants and dividing the land?Look at the example of Zimbabwe next door.
After Zimbabwe's Mugabe came to power, he first suppressed his comrade-in-arms Nkomo, who had fought side by side with him in the anti-colonial struggle, and launched a campaign in his hometown in order to purge Nkomo's political forces. Then there is the crackdown on whites and the promotion of the so-called "rapid land reform", which is actually to encourage blacks to "fight local tyrants and divide the land", and the result can be imagined: whites have fled, and the proportion of the population has dropped from about 5% all the way to today's "negligible". Since then, Mugabe** has carried out various repressions and harassment against the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. After all this repression, has Zimbabwe achieved so-called "authoritarian growth"?No. Politics did not bring economic growth to Zimbabwe, but to economic collapse, and inflation to the top of the galaxy.
It is said to be a miracle because all the social conditions in South Africa seem to have cursed its transformation. We know that South Africa was preceded by more than 40 years of apartheid, and that the result of this institutional humiliation was that South African society was pervasive with violence. Especially after the 80s of the 20th century, in the face of the continuous rise at home and abroad, the embattled white South African regime increasingly resorted to violent repression to maintain order, and various kidnappings and assassinations also emerged one after another.
The police-civilian clashes during apartheid in South Africa were the so-called "necklace trials", in which tires were hung around the opponent's neck, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Moreover, the contradictions are not only between blacks and whites, there are also struggles between the extreme right and moderates within whites, and there are also fierce conflicts within blacks, especially separatism in Zulu ghettos, which once developed into fierce armed conflicts.
South Africa's transformation is based on decades of hatred and uncontrolled violence in South Africa's Zulu colony of armed fighters from the Kata Freedom Party. In the early 90s of the 20th century, during the negotiations between Nc Mandela and De Klerk**, negotiations were often carried out in the house, and all kinds of roars and incendiary bombs were outside. On one occasion, a far-right group simply rushed into the negotiations in a heavily armed car.
Compounding the ethnic conflict is the economic rift. As we know, the Gini Index measures the degree of economic inequality, and the highest Gini Index in the world is **?Whether it was in 1994 or now, it is South Africa, and it is the kind of lone champion who is far away from the second place. So, with racial hatred and the disparity between the rich and the poor, South Africa's social rift is not a gap, but an abyss.
If rift mobilization can upend Egypt's emerging democracy, it should be upended by the same logic. In this regard, other countries with similar transition conditions can also constitute a frame of reference. For example, South Africa's neighbor Zimbabwe was also born out of the white regime, and the transfer of power to the black majority is also a deep ethnic rift, what is the result of the transformation?Civil war, ethnicity**, reverse racism, economic collapse, hyperinflation. Another example is Rwanda, like South Africa, also started the peace negotiation process in the early 90s of the 20th century, but in the same year that South Africa was held, Rwanda had a world-famous **, and nearly one million people were **. Therefore, South Africa's peaceful transition is by no means "inevitable".
We all know that the victors of South Africa's transformation are Nelson Mandela, the ANC and the black people. In 1994**, the ANC won 63% of the vote, compared to only 20% for the former ruling South African National Party. In fact, elections are a desperate game for whites, who made up only about 14 percent of the country's population in 1994, and since then this percentage has only gotten smaller because of differences in birth rates. So, as long as the political parties are divided by ethnicity, it is impossible for whites to break back through the "next election" in any case.
In this case, the posture of the victors is very important, whether they settle accounts with a posture of "beating the water dogs", or whether they create a sense of political security for minorities in a tolerant posture, directly determines whether the social rift will widen or be healed. On this issue, Mandela**'s approach is exemplary.
His approach is first and foremost power-sharing. Since it is difficult for the white minority to become elective winners, it is important to carve out a certain "power reserve" for them through institutional design. For example, in the federal system, although the ANC has an absolute numerical advantage at the national level, due to the arrangement of the federal system, in some provinces, such as the Western Cape, where the white population is relatively high, the South African National Party is still the largest party after the first time, while the Zulu-populated KwaZulu-Natal province has gained a dominant position because of the Kata party.
Another example is administrative decentralization, in many countries, executive power is winner-takes-all, such as the United States, once the Republican Party wins, then all ministerial positions are appointed by the Republican Party, and half of the positions will not be given to the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party wins half of the popular vote. But South Africa adopted the principle of proportionality, so that, in the new **, the South African National Party obtained the position of deputy ** as well as the positions of several key cabinet members, thus giving them the right to consult and even veto on key policies.
The second is the guarantee of property security. An important reason for white South Africans' fear of democratic transitions is their fear of a killer redistribution of property. After all, the disparity between rich and poor in South Africa is extremely high, and it is understandable to fear that the population will "rob legally" through democratic votes. Zimbabwe's campaign of "fighting local tyrants and dividing up the land" that began in the late 90s of the 20th century just illustrates the rationality of this concern. In order to appease this fear, the ANC accepted the inclusion of a property protection clause in the Constitution, namely Article 25 of the Constitution: private property may be expropriated only for public purposes, and that the expropriation of private property must be justified with compensation. This can be regarded as a reassuring pill for the white people of South Africa.
Finally, there is emotional reconciliation. Mandela placed great emphasis on the elimination of hostility and hatred through symbolic acts. For example, he would go to rugby games and cheer on the players, which is traditionally seen as a "white man's sport." He also went to visit Vivord's widow, who was Vivord?He was precisely the architect of apartheid in South Africa. He even went so far as to learn Xi African, the language of white Africans, ......Don't underestimate these symbolic acts, which seem prosaic and can have a multiplier effect on a country's leader because of the enormous influence he wields. Don't think that it is not easy for a leader to put on a show, the fact is that putting on a show will win him a lot of hearts, and it will also make him lose a lot of hearts. To this day, many South Africans criticize Mandela for being too flattering to whites. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe criticized Mr. Mandela, calling him "too saintly". In the words of many people today, it is too "virgin".
The gesture of tolerance is also reflected in South Africa's famous "Truth and Reconciliation Commission". What to do with the oppressors of the apartheid regime for decades at the time of transition?It's a headache that can't be avoided. It is contrary to the principle of justice to let them go completely;But judging one by one may make history a wound that will continue to tear apart society. The ANC's final choice was the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", which would allow the perpetrator to "confess in exchange for amnesty": not to hold him legally responsible, but to require him to explain his crimes clearly to the public, so that the victims can receive some spiritual comfort. What is especially commendable is that the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" not only targets white rulers who are black people, but also interrogates black people who participated in violent activities, making this reconciliation process more balanced.
It is precisely because of this series of practices of Mandela ** that South Africa's nascent democracy did not slide into the "revenge politics" or "majority**" that many countries feared, and many people today miss Mandela because he promoted South Africa's democratic transition. In fact, I have always believed that the real value of Mandela is not that he initiated the transformation process, but that he landed the plane safely. Because there are actually many revolutionary fighters when it comes to initiating transformation, but the problem with "fighters" is that they are so militant that they often can't stop the car and can't transform "revolutionary politics" into "normal politics". In a popular phrase, "with a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail at the end".
When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, Mugabe was also an anti-colonial "African hero", at that time he also called for reconciliation and unity, if he died of illness in 1980, he might have been another Mandela in history, but it was because he was too combative, too capable of "beating the water dogs", and finally failed to make the story of Zimbabwe end well.
Of course, transformation can never happen once and for all. Today's South Africa, in many ways, is not progressive, but regressive, compared to the days of Nelson Mandela and De Klerk. Corruption scandals among politicians continued, economic growth declined compared to the beginning of the transition, and the economy has stagnated since 2010. To make matters worse, politics is increasingly hijacked by extremist voices, Mugabe-style left-wing populism is on the rise, and expropriatory land reform is on the agenda. It reminds me of the words of Larry Diamond:
Democracy is not only the most widely praised political system, but it can also be the most difficult to uphold. Of all the forms, only democracies rely on the least coercion and the most consent. Democracies eventually find themselves trapped in an internal conflict of paradoxes and contradictions. ......Building a democracy and upholding it are two different things. ......If democracy does not work, people may prefer to rule without their consent, and they may choose not to endure the pain of making political choices.References:
1.Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (former South African**, Father of the Nation of South Africa) Encyclopedia (baiducom)
2.World Bank.
3."The Art of Possibility" Liu Yu.