Freedom Betrayed In South Africa
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday May 26, 2008
SOUTH AFRICAN police firing into squalid townships as frenzied mobs "necklace" their hapless victims with burning tyres. Not scenes from a documentary about the apartheid years, but South Africa today. The President, Thabo Mbeki, and his Government would like the world to believe that a mysterious criminal "third force" is responsible for the wave of xenophobic violence against foreigners that has claimed more than 40 lives and forced 25,000 people to flee their homes in the past fortnight. But the violence stems directly from Mr Mbeki's failed leadership.
Eminent South Africans, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have long warned of a backlash against poverty and inequality in the townships. Yet the ruling African National Congress has turned a blind eye to a tidal wave of some 5 million illegal immigrants and refugees who have fled poverty and tyranny in other parts of the continent in search of a better life in South Africa. Three million of them have come from Zimbabwe, where the economy has collapsed, with inflation running at 165,000 per cent, under the disastrous misrule of Robert Mugabe, whose despicable regime is being propped up by none other than the South African President. Clearly, Mr Mbeki's chickens are homeward bound. He ignores the Zimbabwean crisis - which he says doesn't exist - because Mr Mugabe gave refuge to ANC leaders during their freedom struggle. By supporting a failed dictator, he becomes the co-author of the crisis he ignores. Fourteen years after apartheid was overthrown, South Africa's official unemployment rate is 23 per cent, with unofficial estimates much higher. Poor South Africans, who expected more from the ANC, now turn their anger against the newly arrived poor from elsewhere, whom they blame for taking their jobs. But the blame is misplaced.Mr Mbeki and his colleagues today live in great comfort, waited on by servants. They can afford to repay favours to old comrades while ignoring the plight of their own people. The price of this solidarity among superannuated freedom fighters is being paid in lives. Some 5.4 million South Africans are HIV-positive (Mr Mbeki holds the fatuous view that there is no link between HIV and AIDS), and some 5 million migrants and refugees now fear for their lives. Like many post-colonial nations, South Africa must face the challenge of outgrowing the generation of leaders who won its freedom. The alternative is to betray the noble principles and aims of one of the great uprisings of human history.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
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