The South African army underwent a radical reform after the end of apartheid. Parallel to the renunciation of the nuclear offense program, the ANC government has integrated the ranks of the army of the separationist regime with soldiers from Umkhonto we sizwe (the armed wing of the ANC), from the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress) and the self-protection units of the Inkhata Freedom Party. 70% of the soldiers are therefore black, Indian and colored, while more than 60% of the officers are white. South Africa boasts one of the most modern, efficient and best equipped armies in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. For South Africa defense and foreign policy, please check prozipcodes.com.
The crime is an element central to the debate on internal security since 1994. In the rankings of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, South Africa it is at the top for the per capita incidence of murders, armed robberies and rapes. Other data, on the other hand, appear less exceptional, when compared with those of developing countries. The incidence of these crimes records the South African duality: attention to the protection of sexual and reproductive rights collides with feminicides and sexual violence perpetrated against homosexuals; the frequent robberies and assaults restore the image of an unequal society, in which psychosocial malaise, frustration and inadequate economic conditions generate criminal attitudes.
The new bets of the ANC
Despite having won the elections, the ANC presents itself as a party traversed by numerous tensions and in permanent transition, which continues to count on the tripartite alliance with Sacp and Cosatu, without losing its unifying position as a moderate and inclusive party. In post- apartheid its leaders sought a compromise between social justice and attention to the attractiveness of the economy, the emancipation of the black majority and the equality of all citizens. Even when the more conservative wings feared a possible turn to the left in 2008, Zuma reassured the country’s productive forces by adopting policies paradoxically closer to the interests of investors than to the party’s electoral base. Julius Malema, former president of the Anc Youth League and young dolphin of Zuma, relied precisely on the growing disconnect between the base and its representatives, generated by the multiplication of corruption cases within the ANC and the inability of the top to give satisfactory responses to unemployment and widespread inequality. The radical positions of Malema, who also broke some taboos, such as that of openly confronting the land ownership regime in South Africa and Zimbabwe, being accused of inciting racial hatred of whites, costing him his expulsion from the party in 2012 (aggravated by a trial for tax evasion). Malema’s criticisms, however, strike a nerve with which the party will necessarily have to deal. In the future, the ANC will have to decide whether to insist on a moderate political line, pandering to social tensions as collateral effects, or to take stronger positions in the field of redistributive policies, which could cost it the progressive removal of the middle class and entrepreneurs. being accused of inciting racial hatred of whites, they cost him his expulsion from the party in 2012 (aggravated by a trial for tax evasion). Malema’s criticisms, however, strike a nerve with which the party will necessarily have to deal. In the future, the ANC will have to decide whether to insist on a moderate political line, pandering to social tensions as collateral effects, or to take stronger positions in the field of redistributive policies, which could cost it the progressive removal of the middle class and entrepreneurs. being accused of inciting racial hatred of whites, they cost him his expulsion from the party in 2012 (aggravated by a trial for tax evasion). Malema’s criticisms, however, strike a nerve with which the party will necessarily have to deal. In the future, the ANC will have to decide whether to insist on a moderate political line, pandering to social tensions as collateral effects, or to take stronger positions in the field of redistributive policies, which could cost it the progressive removal of the middle class and entrepreneurs.
Nelson Mandela’s political legacy
On December 5, 2013, at the age of 95, Nelson ‘Madiba’ Mandela, the first president of South Africa to be freed, died of a lung infection, a legacy of tuberculosis contracted during his eighteen years of captivity on Robben Island. Several heads of state and political representatives took part in the imposing funeral ceremony and many ordinary citizens celebrated their mourning for a long time, especially in Johannesburg and Qunu, the native village of Madiba. Mandela, once considered a dangerous subversive subject, was remembered with a state funeral and with informal, collective and shared rites. President Zuma, speaking to the nation immediately after Mandela’s death, recalled the struggle for equality, justice and democracy of the father of the new South Africa, urging the population to walk in the path he traced, and renewing the promise of building a society in which no one can claim to be exploited or oppressed. Zuma’s speech, with which the president actually reiterated his direct descent from the ANC leader in terms of ethics and political affiliation, was yet another demonstration of how South African leaders find themselves having to deal with the legacy of Mandela, in a competition from which it is difficult to come out as winners. Although much has been said and written, also highlighting Madiba’s limitations both as a politician and in private life, and thus debunking the most mythical representations, Mandela continues to be the inspirer and ideal custodian of a political practice that is managed to make reconciliation a real strategy, able to lay the foundations for a real coexistence and integration of all segments of the population, without however censoring or re-reading the past. The more the leaders move away from this model, the more civil society calls them to be consistent with the commitments made by the ANC in the years of the struggle against apartheid. The egalitarian society envisioned by Mandela thus survives as the ultimate, and highest, reference on the basis of which public opinion evaluates the work of politics.
Il Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment
In an attempt to remedy discrimination on the basis of apartheid structure of the South African era of ‘ apartheid, the Mandela government launched an ambitious policy of ‘positive discrimination’ called Black Economic Empowerment, which was then extended to other disadvantaged groups, not only for racial reasons, present in South Africa (hence the name Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment or Bbbee). The Bbbee provides for a stringent system of quotas, to be implemented in a few decades, both for access to universities and public posts, and above all for the transfer of ownership and management of private companies into the hands of previously discriminated minorities. The Bbbee has been widely criticized as, far from reducing inequality, it has instead favored the creation of a black elite (representing a quarter of 4% of the South African population with a salary more than a hundred times higher than the average salary). A system has also been created in which the right of access has almost eliminated meritocracy and competition, discouraging specialized training and continuous updating by black officials and entrepreneurs. Although the Bbbee has undergone numerous revisions, increasingly focused on developing and transferring skills and expanding businesses, its detractors argue that radical intervention on national education would lead to better and less counterproductive outcomes.
