When you want to show people how angry you are with an existing regime, the best method is to say, ‘It was better under … (add name of some ghastly previous regime)!’ An angry Russian, living in uncertainty after the fall of communism, would say,’ It was better under Stalin!’ A German in 1946, ‘It was better under Hitler!’ France was invaded and occupied by the Nazis in WW2; apparently in 1946, some Frenchmen, grumbling about a failure in their municipality, would say, ‘This would never have happened when the Germans were here!’ Some South Africans (usually black ones) now say, ‘This is worse than apartheid!’ The remark just means, ‘Damn, I’m so cross with the African National Congress!’
Unathi Kwaza’s recent tweet should be seen in this light. It said: ‘Black people were better off under apartheid. It’s time we admitted this. At least those with honour.’ But it might be useful to take her seriously and look at the data. The data also exposes the opposite nonsense, that apartheid was the worst tyranny in history and that the ANC has delivered us into heaven.
Nobody has better data on the welfare of blacks under apartheid and democracy than the Institute of Race Relations (IRR). It has shown in painstaking detail the improvements in the lives of black people since 1994. These include better housing, better provision of services, the lifting of millions out of mass poverty, and the enormous benefits of social grants to an otherwise destitute multitude. If, like me, you are not living on the edge of subsistence, you would say that the greatest improvement since 1990 was simply the scrapping of the wretched apartheid laws, including the Pass Laws, Population Registration, Job Reservation and Group Areas. The worst of these laws had been scrapped before 1994. This brought freedom. I believe that freedom under a just and efficient government inevitably brings prosperity, but the ‘just and efficient’ is all important. Sometimes, a dictatorship will feed people better than an incompetent democracy. In 1933, most German people seemed happy to surrender their freedom for jobs and food.
Deliberate debasement
Some things are worse now than under apartheid. Unemployment is worse. Industry has gone into decline. Eskom and other state-owned enterprises are collapsing. When South Africa has the world’s greatest mineral treasure, our mining is in full retreat. The ANC’s deliberate debasement of the education of most black children is a betrayal of the black people of South Africa. Massive bureaucracy and strangling labour laws are crippling our economy. The new racist laws of affirmative action, employment equity and black economic empowerment are shutting down businesses and sending investors into flight.
Nonetheless, as a privileged white male, looking at the data, I believe life for black South Africans is profoundly better than it was under apartheid. But I’m aware that, if I were a poor black woman, unemployed, badly educated, a single mother, frightened and hungry, I might feel differently.
The best indicator of people’s wishes is their movement. Working class people always choose to move from socialist countries to capitalist countries (and then often vote socialist). Under apartheid, ordinary black people did not move out of South Africa (only political activists did so); thousands of black people from other countries in Africa chose to move into South Africa. This did not change when democracy came. In Rhodesia/Zimbabwe it was different. Under Ian Smith, ordinary black people did not leave. Under Robert Mugabe, millions left.
Suppose the democratic South Africa of today were sitting right next to the apartheid South Africa of 1970. In which direction would ordinary blacks choose to move?
Would have been easy for ANC
If the ANC had ruled well, would South Africa be a much better country than it is? The answer is yes. In 1994, the ANC inherited the strongest, most developed, most industrialised country in Africa, with the world’s cheapest electricity. It would have been easy for the ANC to work from these successes, to achieve the 6% growth rate they promised, to provide the ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ they promised and to deliver good education, security and prosperity. They had the whole world on their side, eager to help and trade and invest. They didn’t have to do anything much once the apartheid laws had been scrapped. They just had to leave the people free to trade and do business with one another. The people are naturally enterprising and hard-working and would have delivered a high-growth economy.
Instead, the ANC used the dead hand of the state to choke enterprise and initiative. They passed a host of ruinous laws that strangled the economy and prevented poor blacks joining the formal economy. They didn’t wreck the country in the way their hero, Robert Mugabe, wrecked Zimbabwe, although some of them wanted to, and might still do.
In short, the ANC has done a bad job since 1994, but not as bad as Zanu-PF; we are now better off than we were under apartheid, but not nearly as well off as we should be.
[Picture: Annette Kurylo, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21715018]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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