Destiny's Children
10 Years After The End Of Apartheid
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA--At 23, Joy Methula is too young to fully remember the dark days of apartheid. Too young to remember her mother risking her life to demonstrate against oppression. Too young to recall her elder brother's treason trial and two-year prison stint for organizing student protests. "To me," she says with a shrug, "they sound like folk tales."
Methula is a "born free," part of the generation of 17 million post-liberation blacks who came of age after Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990 and inherited a free, though deeply troubled South Africa. Theirs is a South Africa where 1 in 10 blacks is malnourished, 1 in 4 black children are stunted, and 1 of every 2 blacks lives below the poverty line. Despite such statistics, theirs is also a nation where, for the first time, large numbers of young blacks are getting a good education, finding a good job, and joining the middle and upper classes.
Their journey from shantytowns, mud hovels, and modest brick homes to the suburbs demonstrates how far this country has come toward egalitarianism and nonracialism in a remarkably short time--and how much remains to be done. Their challenges arise from a legacy of 300 years of colonialism and four decades of apartheid that will continue to plague this nation for generations to come. And their aspirations show how young South Africans are breaking with past traditions and cultural norms to remake their country.
A new dawn. In his state of the nation address in February, South African President Thabo Mbeki painted a compelling portrait of the old South Africa, a land that as recently as 15 years ago seemed tragically destined for a race war. "Since time immemorial, the overwhelming majority of our people had known nothing but despair," he said. "They knew this as an incontestable matter of fact that tomorrow would not be better than yesterday; it was also . . . given that the following day would be worse. But then April 27, 1994, came and things changed radically . . . . Suddenly a new dawn broke."
The new dawn was the end of apartheid. Finally, blacks could vote, receive equal schooling, get good jobs, run businesses, and walk their country's streets with pride. Now, as the nation marks its 10th anniversary of freedom and equality, politicians like Mbeki are looking back, taking credit for averting a crisis as apartheid collapsed.
Young blacks, however, are looking forward. To them, the political struggle that so consumed their elder siblings and parents is ancient history. Now, they believe, is the time to enjoy the fruits of their elders' struggle. "Politics gave my brother and my mother a sense of purpose," said Methula, a law student at the University of the Witwatersrand, one of South Africa's top universities. "But for me, it is not interesting. If you get caught up in it, you lose yourself in the process. Now, everyone is looking out for themselves. . . . For me, money is the most important thing. You don't want to say it, but it is true."
During apartheid's waning years, police regularly invaded the University of the Witwatersrand, breaking up demonstrations with tear gas. Students took to holding secret political meetings between classes. They became the "lost generation," giving up their schooling, their freedom, and, in some cases, their lives for the cause of black liberation. Methula's brother, Gordon Nkgathi, who is 11 years her senior, was once also a promising young student. But his education came in fits and starts in between trials, detentions, and demonstrations. "My love for my country and its people," he says, "took precedence over my own needs." He doesn't begrudge his younger sister's materialism or the unprecedented opportunities she enjoys. These are the things for which he and others fought. But he is saddened, he says, by the younger generation's turning away from politics: "I think this materialism slows down our progress as a nation."
Though her brother and mother risked their lives to win the right to vote, Methula, like many young people, doesn't plan to cast her ballot in this week's contests for the national Parliament--only the third time South Africa has held democratic, nonracial elections. Just half of 18- to 25-year-olds are registered to vote, a significantly lower rate than that of any other age group. Two thirds of South African youth, according to a recent survey, find politics unimportant. Now, the preoccupation is with making money: More than 90 percent of youth think money makes people happy, the same survey shows. In the new South Africa, people are judged not by the color of their skin, many of these young people say, but by how much is in their wallets. Blacks used to need a special pass to even walk through the exclusive white suburbs; now they seek the cash they need to buy a house there.
While many lament the growth of consumerism and conspicuous consumption, it is in some ways a measure of the success of South Africa's transition. Black graduates are now receiving more than half of all university diplomas each year. In 1991, they received fewer than one quarter of the diplomas. Their income is soaring: The richest 10 percent of South Africa's population, less than 2 percent black a decade ago, is now 25 percent black. The black middle class, once almost nonexistent, is now bigger than the white middle class.
To join the exclusive club of BMW drivers, South Africa's young blacks negotiated deep cultural divides and economic fault lines that continue to make upward mobility a herculean feat. Luceth Nzima, 22, a first-year student at the University of the Witwatersrand, plans to become a chartered accountant. One of apartheid's legacies is that only 337 of South Africa's 20,000 accountants are black. Sitting on campus, wearing tight jeans and lime-green nail polish, she explains that while she may aspire to reach the top of the corporate ladder, back in her rural village in Limpopo Province, she is forbidden to wear pants, must kneel on the ground when she meets elders, and must speak only when spoken to, like the other young women. Maxwell Nqeno, a classmate of Nzima's, returns each night after class to his parents' home in an abandoned building in a squatter camp. He studies by candlelight, fetches water from a nearby communal tap to wash each morning, and uses public toilets.
The government is trying to bridge these two worlds: the rich, western world previously reserved for whites and the traditional, poor world where the vast majority of blacks remain trapped. It has made dramatic progress delivering basic services to the previously deprived black community. Since 1996, the government has provided running water to more than 1.7 million homes and hooked up almost 2 million homes to electricity. In 1996, only 60 percent of households had access to clean water, and only a third had electricity. Now, 85 percent have clean water, and more than two thirds of homes have electricity. The government has also built and given away free to the destitute some 1.3 million homes since the end of apartheid. Still, millions more blacks live in sprawling, filthy shantytowns. Inequality, in this country of extremes, continues to increase. The poverty rate for blacks is more than 60 percent; for whites it's about 4 percent.
Some argue that all the government efforts have served to enrich a small group of black elite--many of them, ironically, the former leaders of the communist-backed liberation movement--leaving the majority of blacks poorer. One of the frustrations of the new South Africa is that although the government has liberalized the economy, controlled inflation, and removed barriers to international trade, the foreign investment needed to jump-start the economy and create jobs has just not materialized. And the government faces the enormous challenges posed by crime, AIDS, and skills shortages.
People like Nzima, who have come into adulthood in the past decade, are acutely aware of the challenges that remain. Their materialism is not without conscience. They dream of mansions and fast cars but also of community centers and clinics for those left behind. "A lot of people died for us so that I can have better opportunities," says Nzima. To make sure many more follow in her footsteps Nzima has a plan. "Now, it's all about money, baby," she says with a smile. "I want to build a youth center and a school back in my village. You need money to do anything. It is the key."
Afrikaner Angst
Karen Zoid, belting out her lyrics rock-chick style, stomps across the stage, smashing guitars and setting things alight to the cheers of her audience. Her music and her antics tap into the angst that afflicts South Africa's former golden children, the young Afrikaners. Members of what some now call the Zoid generation--Afrikaners now in their 20s--were born into a world that promised them a good job, a decent education, and pride by virtue of their white skin. No more. The end of apartheid swept away white privilege and with it the Zoid generation's halcyon future. "We're afraid," says Zoid in an interview before her show, rhinestones glittering on her jeans. ". . . What will happen to us?"
Young Afrikaners are struggling with that question. They feel confused and alienated, uncertain about whether there is a place for themselves and hope for their future in this unfamiliar landscape of freedom and equality. In the new South Africa, where affirmative action ensures blacks space at the top universities and black economic empowerment gives black-owned businesses preference for government contracts, whites now compete not only for jobs but also for handouts at traffic lights. The majority of university graduates, the majority of high ranking government positions, and the most coveted new recruits in private businesses are now black. The number of whites employed by the civil service has dropped by half since 1994. Blacks' disposable income is now growing at almost twice the rate of whites'. By 2005, economists estimate, whites will no longer control a majority of the nation's income.
For this generation, "whites only" park benches and schools are fading memories. But the guilt of the apartheid system, created by their parents and grandparents, lingers. "This is our inheritance," says Anton Van Oosthuizien, 27. "I have to pay for my parents' sins."
They spoke their first words in Afrikaans at the same moment in history when young black schoolchildren in poor townships were shot by police for demanding that the language be scrapped in schools. They became eligible to vote just as their vote became worthless--its power diluted by millions of newly enfranchised black voters who outnumbered them more than 10 to 1. Now, they look for jobs as unemployment climbs and both companies and the government try to hire from the long-neglected black community.
While they don't pine for the return of white privilege, many young Afrikaners are greeting the 10-year anniversary of South African democracy with mixed emotions. "When I was young, I thought I had a bright future," says Louise Steyn, 21, a self-described member of the Zoid generation. "But then 10 years ago my future fell on its face. My parents had no education and got good jobs. Me, I have to go to university, and even then I might not get a job."
Even though whites here still hold overwhelming economic power--they occupy 75 percent of top private-sector management positions, are still overrepresented in government, and earn on average seven times what blacks earn--many, like Steyn, feel threatened. Part of this is the natural result of losing power, which they used not only for their own enrichment but also to promote and protect their language and culture. The fear sown during apartheid that whites would be overrun by blacks also plays a role. And part of this may be because of an overdeveloped sense of privilege. "Our parents see no good opportunities for themselves or their children," says Zoid. "What's happening to us is quite sad."
Frustration. Many are simply choosing to leave. Afrikaners constitute almost half of the 20,000 to 30,000 South African emigrants each year, though they make up only about 5 percent of the nation's population. Others have retreated into towns like Orania, a defiant all-white town built on private land in South Africa's desolate center. Still others have tried to reclaim what was theirs by force. On trial in Pretoria now are 22 Afrikaners accused of plotting to overthrow South Africa's black, democratically elected government. They are accused of detonating a dozen bombs in the Johannesburg area in 2002, killing one woman. They aspired to chase all of South Africa's blacks across the border into Zimbabwe and pack all of South Africa's Asians onto boats headed east.
Most Afrikaner youth, though, take up neither arms nor suitcases. Instead, they resign themselves. Like Zoid, many say they don't bother to vote. In the 1980s, Afrikaner jazz and blues musicians urged their white audiences to vote for ending apartheid. They did, and now, they don't have the political power to vote more than a few white faces into the nation's Parliament. All of South Africa's whites together--Afrikaners, along with whites of British, Portuguese, Greek, and Italian descent--constitute less than 10 percent of the population.
Zoid embraces her audiences' new-found powerlessness and without bitterness tells them to forget about politics with lyrics like "maak nie regtig saak nie," Afrikaans for "it doesn't really matter." Such apathy and disenchantment have prompted hand wringing among community leaders, intellectuals, and some in government. Jonathan Jansen, the dean of the school of education at the University of Pretoria and a leading black intellectual, argued on the op-ed page of a South African daily paper last year that there is "a deep and disturbing frustration among young white Afrikaner men. It is a frustration rooted in a sense of personal and group emasculation."
Jansen proposes offering young Afrikaners hope by increasing slots for them at schools and in the civil service, a radical proposal given that black unemployment remains about 35 percent, while white unemployment is still in the single digits. Max du Preez, the country's best-known Afrikaner newspaper columnist, urged the government to be more sensitive to Afrikaners. He wrote in a column last year: "They feel unloved and they feel unwanted."
It may seem irrelevant how the children of South Africa's notorious oppressors feel or fare, but it's an indication of whether the lofty goals professed by the "rainbow nation's" new Constitution can be attained. And it may tell us a thing or two about the possibility of resolution of conflicts worldwide, showing whether children of the oppressors and the oppressed can truly work together to build a positive future.
This story appears in the April 19, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.