What Went Wrong in South Africa

By Sandy Shaw

The book surveys and pinpoints the failures in governance over the past twenty five years. These range from poor leadership to institutional shortcomings, but most of all, to social disintegration, a failure to take into account the country’s psychohistory, and inappropriate Western structures of governance. The conclusion is that the mix of a modernist value system with traditionalist values has resulted in hybrid values which are characterised by feelings of inferiority, disorientation, vacillation, greed, mismanagement, an absence of ownership, and policies that promote nation-destroying instead of nation-building. A new Euro-African model of governance characterised by a massive devolution of power to nineteen “kraals” is proposed, along with a National Family Week, in which the values of communal solidarity instead of rampant individualism, voluntarism, ethical goals and leadership by example, are encouraged. A radical re-modelling of affirmative action, traditional rule and foreign policy is proposed.

About the Author
The writer, Dr Sandy Shaw, bases his survey on his 34 years as a South African diplomat, serving in Germany, Italy, Scotland, Lebanon, Malawi and Ethiopia; on his stint as Director of Human Rights at the Foreign Affairs Department; on his academic studies which include 120 articles on current affairs published in popular and academic journals; on his MA thesis on foreign aid in Africa, and his PhD thesis on nation-building in the Middle East; on his politics lectureship at the UKZN; on his current affairs columnist career at the Witness in Pietermaritzburg; on his 6-years as a Consultant Classifier at the Film Board in Centurion; on his on his 5-year secondment to the Department of Constitutional Development where he was a speechwriter for Roelf Meyer, the Chief Government Negotiator at the Codesa negotiations from 1991 to 1994.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandy Shaw
• Release date: Oct 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005872519

Book preview

What Went Wrong in South Africa

...and How Can We Fix it?

Copyright © 2021 Sandy Shaw

First edition 2021

Published by Sandy Shaw Publishing at Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Sandy Shaw using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Lorna King for Reach Publishers.

Cover designed by Reach Publishers.

Front Cover Image is the disintegration of the Union Buildings: a Metaphor for the Collapse of Government Administration since 1994.

Front Cover Artist: Helen Lӧtter.

Website: www.reachpublishers.org

E-mail: [e-mail]

Sandy Shaw

[e-mail]

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

What Went Wrong in our Psychohistory?

− Memories of Cooperation and Confrontation

− Our Colonial Legacy

− The Legacy of the 1980s

− The Legacy of Exile

− The Clash of Modernism and Traditionalism

− The Ideology of Pseudoism

− #FeesMustFall is a Manifestation of Pseudoism

What Went Wrong with our Constitution?

− The CODESA Compromises

− Democracy in South Africa and Beyond

− Parliament is Dysfunctional

− The Electoral System has Failed Us

− Chapter Nine Institutions are Lapdogs

− Political Power has been Centralised

− The Separation of Powers Principle has been Compromised

What Went Wrong in our Administration?

− Mismanagement

− Poor Judgement

− Delays in Policy Implementation

− The Evolution of a Parallel Government has taken Place

What Went Wrong Socially?

− We have serious Social Ills

− We Need a National Family Week

− We have allowed Crime to get out of Control

− Corruption has become Endemic

− Greed is at the Bottom of our Social Malaise

What Went Wrong Psychologically?

− Do we need Three Conflictual Value Realms?

− Who are these Three Realms?

− Past Humiliation makes Change Management Difficult

− Our Dysfunctional Leadership has Failed Us

How do we Fix our Governing Fabric?

− We need a new Model of Government

− A Cantonal System of Government is the Preferred Model

− We should Reconfigure our Provinces

− A Mzansi Confederation of Southern African States should be our Goal

− We must get rid of Cadre Deployment and Golden Handshakes

− Affirmative Action must be drastically Remodelled

− We can and must Solve Issues of Land Ownership

− Anti-democratic and Allied Ideologies should be Banned

− Traditional Rule should be a Cultural Activity

− Our Foreign Policy should be Re-oriented towards Neutrality

− Our Africa Union Alignment should be forfeited in favour of the Southern Africa Development Community

How do we Fix our Psycho-social Fabric?

− We must rid ourselves of the Disease of Pseudoism

− Education must become a Priority

− We are Creating a Middle Class, but not Egalitarianism

− Promote Ownership so that we feel we Own the Country

− We need better Nation-building Initiatives

− Tolerance and Respect should lie at the Heart of a Diverse Society

− Ban the Resort to whiteness as an excuse for Failure

− Anti-apartheid does not equate with Forced Integration

− Redefine Freedom of Expression within the context of Dignity

− Predicting the Future

Epilogue

Sources and Bibliography

Abbreviations

ACDP African Christian Democratic Party

ANC African National Congress

ANCYL African National Congress Youth League

APRM African Peer Review Mechanism

AU African Union

AZAPO Azanian People’s Organisation

BBC Black Business Council

BEE Black Economic Empowerment

BLF Black First Land First

BMF Black Management Forum

BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

CCB Civil Cooperation Bureau

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CGE Commission for Gender Equality

CODESA Convention for a Democratic South Africa

COPE Congress of the People

CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

DA Democratic Alliance

DDG Deputy Director-General

DIRCO Department of International Relations and Cooperation

DPPA Directorate for Public Prosecutions Authority

DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo

ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States

EFF Economic Freedom Fighters

ESKOM Electricity Supply Commission

EU European Union

FDI Foreign Direct Investment

FF+ Freedom Front Plus

GEAR Growth, Employment and Redistribution programme

GNP Gross National Product

HRC South African Human Rights Commission

HSRC Human Sciences Research Council

ICC International Criminal Court

ICJ International Court of Justice

IDASA Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa

IEC Electoral Commission of South Africa

IFP Inkatha Freedom Party

IMF International Monetary Fund

IRR Institute for Race Relations

JSE Johannesburg Stock Exchange

MEC Member of the Executive Committee

MP Member of Parliament

Nadeco National Democratic Convention

NDP National Development Plan

NDPP National Director of Public Prosecutions

NDR National Democratic Revolution

NEC National Executive Committee

NEDLAC National Economic Development and Labour Council

NEPAD New Partnership for African Development

NFP National Freedom Party

NGO Non-governmental Organisation

NHI National Health Insurance

NP National Party

NPA National Prosecuting Authority

NSFAS National Students Financial Aid Scheme

NYDA National Youth Development Agency

OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

OUTA Organisation Against Tax Abuse

PAC Pan-Africanist Congress

PIC Public Investment Corporation

PSC Public Service Commission

RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme

REC Regional Economic Community

RLC Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities

SAA South African Airways

SABC South African Broadcasting Corporation

SACP South African Communist Party

SADB Southern Africa Development Bank

SADC Southern Africa Development Community

SANCO South African National Coalition

SANDF South African National Defence Force

SANEF South African National Editors’ Forum

SAPS South African Police Service

SARB South African Reserve Bank

SARS South African Revenue Service

SASSA South African Social Security Agency

SCA Supreme Court of Appeal

SCOPA Standing Committee on Public Accounts

SIU Special Investigating Unit

SOE State-owned Enterprise

SONA State of the Nation Address

SSA State Security Agency

UDF United Democratic Front

UDHR United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights

UDM United Democratic Movement

UJ University of Johannesburg

UN United Nations

UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

UNISA University of South Africa

UNSC United Nations Security Council

UP University of Pretoria

USD United States Dollars

VAT Value Added Tax

VIP Very Important Person

WEF World Economic Forum

What Went Wrong in our Psychohistory?

Memories of Cooperation and Confrontation

Memory is a potent force. We are all prisoners of our history. It was the American poet and philosopher George Santanya who said: Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. If we could erase our historical memories, we would unite far easier. Just the opposite is happening - globalisation accentuates our differences and our past histories. Any analysis of what went wrong in South Africa has to start with an understanding and acknowledgment of our past. History determines memory. All nations draw on their history in their understanding of where they are. Some of their histories go back to antiquity. The Israelis of today claim that what was known as Palestine until recently, is actually a Jewish homeland. Why? Because the land was known as Judea and Sumeria 3 000 years ago, and occupied by Jews. In 40 AD the Traug sisters liberated Vietnam from Chinese rule and the event is still celebrated to this day. The Roman General, Benito Mussolini invaded Abassinya (now Ethiopia) in 1935 to colonise that country – repeating policies of his forebears 2 000 years previously when they created a mighty Roman Empire. Vladimir Putin invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014 to re-create the geographical borders of the Czarist Empire of Peter the Great and those of the subsequent Soviet Union. In April 2021 Britain accused Russia of malign intrusions - clearly, history repeating itself. Similarly, the EU is a recreation of the Empire of Charlemagne. In 2018 Turkish populist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan turned back the clock with authoritarian constitutional changes that moved the country away from Kemal Ataturk’s 1924 secular state. Ataturk had imposed the alien but successful governance model of Germany’s Frederick the Great. Turkey still yearns for influence over territory lost by the Ottoman Empire under the Sykes/Picot Agreement of 1917 which divided the Middle East between colonial France and colonial Britain. Turkey’s memory of treating the Armenians as untermensch now re-surfaces in its seeing the Kurds as terrorists. And its overreach in opening 17 new embassies in Africa alone since Tayyib Recep Erdogan assumed office in 2003. In a 1919 anti-colonial protest in Amrista 400 Indians were killed by the British. In 1997 when the British queen visited India, a repeat memorial protest was held at exactly the same spot.

When I lived in Scotland in 1985 I was shown battlefields just outside Inverness, at Culloden, and was told that this is where we battled the English in 1746 – like it happened yesterday. Arabs still refer to Westerners as crusaders and infidels 800 years after the Crusades took place. Balkan inhabitants still speak of their having pushed back a Moslem invasion in the 13th century. Serbs have not forgotten a war they lost to the invading Moslems in 1278. In 2017 the Catalans in Spain demanded independence; the origins of this demand being the 1714 ban on the use of the Catalan language by Spanish King Philip V, in an effort to halt calls for geographic separation. Little did the king realise that his language intolerance would come back to haunt the country. On 12 July every year in Northern Ireland, Orangemen still celebrate the defeat of King James by Prince William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Even though their public marches are sectarian and provocative as they glorify the defeat of Irish Catholicism, the Protestants feel compelled to resuscitate their triumphalist history. More recently, in March 2019, Mexico demanded that Spain and the Papacy apologise for human rights abuses committed 500 years ago. At the same time Greece demanded reparations from Germany for crimes committed 70 years ago during World War Two.

North Korea’s cult leadership cannot be understood outside that country’s psychohistory of invasions and abuse by foreign rulers, ending in Japanese occupation for much of the last century. In Japan itself the quest for peace is built into the country’s constitution and the country’s quest for peace can only be understood against the background of the dropping of two American atom bombs on the country in 1945. Poland’s present-day anti-Nazi policies cannot be understood outside that country’s Second World War psychohistory. In Britain memories of an imperialist past live on today with its policy of Brexit. Most of the 52% who voted for Brexit are the older generation who are nostalgic for this past history. The adjustment from Queen Victoria’s colonial empire to a subsidiary part of the EU is traumatic. Of the 48% opposing Brexit 80% were from the younger generation.

Not only globally but especially in Africa ethnic memories of having been wronged, determine present-day mindsets. Neither are colonial governments immune. In 2019 the Belgian government issued a public apology for its colonial-era kidnapping of Congolese citizens. The French government appointed a panel to research whether there was French collusion in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Memories of earlier Ndebele power probably added to Robert Mugabe’s 1983 ruthless killing of 20 000 Joshua Nkomo supporters in Matabeleland. Similarly, the seizure of 500 white-owned farms in 2000 relates to an historical perception that the farms were stolen.

Moving to South Africa itself, examples of historical memories abound. The film critic, Sylvia Vollenhoven writes that film director Roberta Durrant, in telling the story of Krotoa, slave of Jan van Riebeeck, is shaped by apartheid privilege and that ancient hurt growls beneath the surface. The psychologist Hélène Opperman Lewis observes that the consequences of this exploitation (by British imperialism) linger in South Africa today: the Marikana incident of 2014 has its roots in this exploitation (of black labour wages). An editorial in the Mail & Guardian on 18 January, 2013 puts our mining legacy thus: At the heart of the government’s failure on mining is a belief that mines are literal treasure chests of hoarded wealth that can be raided to secure redress for the gross injustices of apartheid, to support the fiscus and to create jobs in benefication. That belief may flow from the fact that the struggle against a grossly exploitative labour practice on the mines is indissociable from the struggle against apartheid.

Afrikaner memory includes the bludgeoning to death, on the command bulalani abathakathi, of hundreds of unarmed Voortrekker families in 1828 by Zulu King Dingaan, whose army was subsequently defeated by the Boers at the Battle of Blood River in 1838. The impact of our psychohistory explains why Gatsha Buthelezi felt compelled to apologise to Afrikaners for these murders on behalf of the Zulu nation, at the 1997 TRC hearings. It also explains why, at CODESA, there were calls for self-determination for the Afrikaner community who had lost their two independent states to British imperialism. Our history includes ethnic cleansing during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902, during which Horatio Kitchener and Alfred Milner oversaw a brutal scorched earth policy in which 30 000 Boer farms were burnt to the ground, livestock slaughtered and farmhouses looted. Following this, 250 000 Afrikaner women and children and 22 000 black women and children were separately interred in appalling conditions in 111 concentration camps. The memory of this can be seen in the 27 800 graves of Boer women and children at Bloemfontein. When Ramsay MacDonald, future British Prime Minister, visited South Africa shortly after the war, he wrote that there was no earthly reason why a policy of hate for the Boers should have included the burning of towns such as Linley, to the ground. Nor is there any reason why Major-General Smith-Dorrien should have raised the village of Dullstroom to the ground on 23 November 1900. When Boer prisoners-of-war returned to their farms in 1902, they found that the British colonials had burnt them to the ground. Speaking in 2013, Pik Botha commented;the intensity of the trauma suffered by our Boer forefathers in the most destructive anti-colonial war ever fought on the African continent, moulded an inflexible determination amongst Afrikaners to regain their republican statehood.

Like Boer memory, black memory too is locked in a negative past – discrimination, denigration and humiliation. With its source in colonial racial segregation and the worldwide belief at the time that black Africans were inferior because of the continent’s technological backwardness, the colonial policies of racial and ethnic separation morphed into apartheid. Even attempts to reform and reformulate apartheid as a policy of separate but equal, by creating ethnic homelands, failed. The zeitgeist of the time manifested itself in the UDHR of 1948 and the promulgation of the American Civil Rights Act and the rescinding of the American separate but equal principle in education in 1965. Diabolically, apartheid went in the opposite direction because of the imperative of existential security. As a result South Africans now suffer psycho-historical memories of having been dehumanised and brutalised. In a UNISA governance survey conducted in 2014, Kennedy Mudzuli reports that political memories were being carried over from generation to generation ... showing a remarkable link of salient issues with historical political moments

Our historical legacy is not just one of confrontation; it also includes positive co-operation such as the Boers and the Tswanas working together in the 1800s to defend their authority against outside threats – this leading to the defeat of Mzilikazi’s forces at the Battle of Mosega in 1837. They then fled across the Limpopo. The Boers were also welcomed by Chief Moroka the Second of the Basotho; by Chief Makwana of the Bataung in Venda; and by the Bapedi and the Zulus who they helped recover stolen cattle from Chief Sikonyela of the Bathlokua on the Basotho border. The Voortrekkers actually helped King Mpande assume the Zulu throne, and he in turn asked the Boers to help him drive the British colonialist out of Natal. The first thing Prime Minister Louis Botha did in 1910 was to have King Mpande released from prison, where the British had put him. Their History records numerous co-existence agreements between the Boers and tribal chiefs. Instead of emphasising these positive examples of nation-building, we tend to recall the suffering of the past in order to gain sympathy, promote entitlement and apportion guilt. That is why, at the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument in 1948, Prime Minister Jan Smuts is reported as saying that there is gold in our history. This gold contributed to the success of the CODESA negotiations. The negotiations represented a coalescing of Euro-African values. Nowhere in the history of post-colonial negotiations has such meaningful constitutional success been achieved. No wonder the negotiations were dubbed a miracle and we the rainbow nation. No wonder South Africa can boast 25 years of peace and stability as a new nation.

What remains in contention is the original ownership of land. Are the indigenous KhoiSan who have been living in South Africa for the past 20 000 years the original land owners? They are said to have fled to the Kalahari to escape Mzilakazi’s warriors? Are the Bantu-speaking tribes who migrated from Cameroon and southern Nigeria, settling in Mapungubwe between 1075 and 1300 the original occupants of the country? Did the Voortrekkers settle on vacant land, or was it land used from time to time for grazing or for itinerant settlement? It appears that the land was regarded as terra nullius – without sovereignty in international law – and that there were no Deeds Offices to record land ownership. In fact there were no state boundaries, the South African/Mozambique borders having been formalised as recently as 1891, hence the EFFs intention to abolish inter-state border controls. What is clear is the itinerant nature of communities – 65 000 Bakoni people lived in the present Mpumalanga between 1500 and 1820, then moved elsewhere – but no one knows exactly where? In the absence of reliable Deeds Office records before 1913, the land question remains in contention and a past memory of a wrong that now bedevils good governance.

Our history and our memories are a patchwork of both confrontation and cooperation, beginning not in 1652, but in 1488 with the first Khoi/European contact. Black education was – according to Mamphela Ramphele – better under apartheid than in the post-1994 period. Double the number of blacks were enrolled for the matric examination in 1980 compared with 10 years earlier. According to Struggle writer Stanley Manong who was employed in the Ciskei homeland government, the apartheid government actively promoted black education opportunities, especially mathematics, provided the recipients of these educational opportunities served their own ethnic groups. It was this obsession with ethnicity that both white liberalism and black nationalism found abhorrent, and this abhorrence intensified the anti-apartheid struggle and has brought us to where we are now – turning us away from our history of ethnic exclusivity, as we seek to build a post-1994 society based on tolerance and respect.

What is clear is that our apartheid legacy can only be understood in the context of our psychohistory, as when, in 1959, Japan requested full diplomatic relations with South Africa. Foreign Affairs and its Minister approved the request, but at Cabinet level the Prime Minister, Hendrik Verwoerd, refused because, having been born in Holland, his memories of Japanese ill-treatment of Dutch prisoners of war during World War Two, remained with him. The respected researcher Brian Lapping concludes his 1986 authoritative Granada Television study of apartheid by pointing out that whites did not suddenly go wrong in 1948, or in any other year. Nor did they go wrong because they were uniquely evil or racist or authoritarian people. They went wrong because the experiences of the previous three hundred years had brought them to a state of frustrated and enraged nationalist fervour that desperately needed a target. The only way to make sense of apartheid,he says, is by looking at its roots in history. Any historical interpretation has to be done in the context of the time.

Our Colonial Legacy

Colonialism is regularly blamed for much of the country’s ills. Everyone’s dignity was impaired under colonialism. We all suffered humiliation. We were all undervalued, regarded and treated not as equals, but as either superior or inferior. We now suffer scarred psyches. We are left to pick up the pieces of colonial policies that have left behind mindsets of racism and classism. Joseph Chamberlain, the British Colonial Secretary, declared in 1895 – just four years before the Anglo-Boer War, that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever known. Alfred Milner, prime minister of the Cape Colony from 1895 to 1902, repeatedly denigrated Afrikanerdom, and is seen as a precursor of Hitler in so far as he sought world domination by his chosen race, the English people. He initiated the first apartheid-style statutes in 1895 during his Premiership at the Cape, building on the colonial pass laws of 1809. Social Darwinism – the theory of race superiority – was prevalent at the time and clearly influenced British colonial policies, as did the science of eugenics, the study of human breeding. The book The Psychology of Apartheid, published in 1980 by the English psychologist Peter Lambley, in which he denigrates Afrikanerdom, is inspired by Social Darwinism. Even as recently as 2018, commenting on a royal marriage, Kehinde Andrews, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Birmingham University and a scholar on the race issue, sees racism as British as a cup of tea.

It is tantalising to imagine what South Africa would now be like had the Dutch or French or Portuguese colonised the country. The social history of all three of these European colonisers lacks the race and class divisions of the English. In fact, in the 1730s on the French island of San Domingo, the European settlers were actually encouraged to procreate with the islanders. Similarly, in South America there was racial mixing between the Spanish colonisers and the local Aztec people. In contrast, there were few inter-racial marriages in the Dutch Cape, and none in English Natal during the colonial era. Imagine if the Portuguese colonial plan to create a colonial New Brazil covering the whole of south-eastern Africa had not been stymied by the machinations of Cecil John Rhodes. It was only through the intervention by French President Patrice de MacMahon in the 1890s in favour of Portugal that southern Mozambique became part of that Portuguese colony. Unlike the superiority of English colonialism, Portuguese colonialism was more about prestige. That is why Prime Minister Antonio Salazar once stated that without it (colonies) we would be a small nation, with it we are a great country.

We are wrong in blaming colonialism for our social ills, and then branding the white ethnic minority colonials. A syllogism arose – the colonial government was white; the governing minority are white; therefore the governing white minority are colonials. It is disingenious to apply the concept of collective guilt to all those who happened to reside in South Africa between 1652 and 1994. This propaganda was promoted by the SACP which has functioned as the intelligentsia behind the ANC since 1948, with their definition of apartheid as colonialism of a special kind, as they saw the Bantustans as colonies of white South Africa. Nothing could be further from the truth as it was the ethnic white minority that waged war against British imperialism in the Anglo-Boer War and who set up Bantustans not as colonies, but as part of a policy of drastic ethnic separation. That is why Karl Marx refers to the Anglo-Boer War as the greatest example of an anti-imperialist struggle. But the SACP propaganda has been so successful that the BBC TV World News, in 2018, refers to the democratisation of South Africa in 1994 as Africa re-claiming its last white colony.

South Africa ceased to be a British colony in 1910; ceased to be beholden to British law in 1932; and ceased to be linked to the British monarchy in 1963. The late historian Stephen Ellis refers to the 1948 election, won by the Afrikaner, as anti-colonial, as the victorious election results finally freed this community from the yoke of British dominion and big-money domination, known as the Hoggenheimers. The Afrikaner community did not get back their two defeated countries at the end of the Anglo-Boer War in 1902. Nor were they accorded a form of ethnic or territorial self-determination in the British-inspired 1910 Union constitution. Instead, the period between 1910 and 1948 was marked by British colonial symbols such as the Union Jack flag, God Save the King as a national anthem, the British monarch on postage stamps, and everywhere reminders of a past Afrikaner struggle, such as the use of the same khaki uniforms in the Union Defence Force, as those used by the British imperialists to defeat the Boers. We even celebrated British history, such as the Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot on 5 November every year. This 1910 to 1994 period should have been used to create a new model of co-existence; instead of the perpetuation of quasi-colonial policies with contrived allegiances.

Contrary to SACP propaganda, it was the forebears of the current so-called white minority that put down roots in the country and contributed to its development. Thomas Pringle demanded freedom of the press in the Eastern Cape, while John Robinson did the same in Natal. Exploitation and plunder came from the British colonial government, not from the Thomas Pringles and John Robinsons who had come to make a new home, just as immigrants have done, and still do, throughout the world to this day. Thomas Pringle was, incidentally, a staunch anti-slavery activist. They came, often to escape persecution, to contribute, not to exploit. One of my forebears, Francois Villion, like many others, arrived in the Cape in 1671 with DEIC sponsorship, and as the first Protestant refugee escaping Catholic persecution in France.

It was the colonial government that conquered the Xhosa between 1835 and 1859. Colonel John Graham (after whom the former Grahamstown, now Makhado, was named), the British commander on the eastern frontier, was praised for his brutality in breaking the backs of the natives with his scorched earth policy of starvation. The British colonial government conquered the Griqua nation in 1874; the Pedi, under Sir Garnet Wolsley in 1889, imprisoning Paramount Chief Sekhokhune; then went on to conquer the Zulus also in 1879; then the Afrikaner between 1899 and 1902. Again, in 1906 Zulu resistance in the Bambatha Rebellion was quashed by the British. The respected author Allister Sparks writes that though the Afrikaners acquired the notoriety, it was the British who first broke black power, crushing the tribes in war, annexing their territory and eroding their institutions with Christianisation, education and finally industrialisation and urbanisation.

If the Afrikaners were colonials, why would they go about abolishing everything colonial, starting with severing constitutional ties (unlike other colonies such as Australia) with the British monarchy? Then on to other customs such as judges wearing wigs – a custom still adhered to throughout Africa? And why would Alfred Milner, in 1902 have vowed to eradicate the last vestiges of Afrikanerism in South Africa? To this end he imported young British civil servants, known as his kindergarten, to uphold English customs and eridacate Afrikaner customs. In doing so he was simply perpetuating the 1822 policy of Governor Charles Somerset who introduced an English-only policy in government, and neutralising Paul Kruger’s policy of importing Dutch technocrats to help run his country. And why was it that the Afrikaner who, in the 1930s, complained about the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town campus, long before the #FeesMustFall campaign claimed ownership of the decolonisation movement in 2016? Why is it that there are 70 000 African artifacts in the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, never mind London and Berlin, while there are none in South Africa? The only Zimbabwean soapstone artefact stolen by the colonial Cecil John Rhodes, was returned from Cape Town to Zimbabwe in 1981 by the apartheid government. A colonial mindset still prevails in the West - that is why, when conservationists such as Richard Attenbouough, name new plant and animal discoveries in Africa, after themselves, or fellow-westerners, oblivious to the hurt it causes those of us living in Africa.

We were wrong in accusing our colonial masters of policies of divide and rule. Instead of the blame game, we should, as Steve Biko proclaimed, be picking ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The colonials did just the opposite of divide and rule. They found no pre-existing unity in South Africa; only loose tribal structures. Nowhere in Africa did they find boundaries. They sought to create order, albeit in their own image. To our north they created the Central African Federation by joining the two Rhodesias and Malawi, which should have improved the lot of those affected. They left a physical infrastructure. RW Johnson describes colonialism as a major source of skills and infrastructure. Baleke Mbete’s claim that colonialism left us underdeveloped is a blatant cop-out. The colonials also brought to their colonies administrative efficiency, modern institutions, financial discipline and a sense of orderliness. I was reminded of this when visiting Jordan, also a former British dependency. While the custom of jay-walking across busy urban streets is prevalent throughout the Middle East, I stopped at a robot in Amman to await a green pedestrian light before crossing. A Jordanian sidled up to me and asked, You must come from a former British colony. He was simply acknowledging the colonial legacy of order, discipline and a law-abiding sense of duty. When I was employed in the British colonial government in eSwatini, we concluded all outgoing letters with I am, Sir, Your obedient servant. In South Africa we seem to have forfeited this sense of public service the British colonials left with us. In India the inhabitants look back fondly on their British colonial era, and are openly appreciative of the infrastructure the colonials left behind. When France withdrew from their colony of Haiti, they demanded, and were paid compensation by the independent Haiti. In Hong Kong they are fighting tooth and nail to retain, against creeping Chinese control, their open society status that is their British colonial legacy from 1997. In June 2019 the Hong Kong populace resorted to violent protests to retain the liberal democracy that was their colonial legacy.

Significantly, the only two African countries not to have been colonised – Ethiopia and Liberia – are among the most backward countries in Africa. When I lived in Ethiopia between 1994 and 1999 modern infrastructure was non-existent following Haile Selassie’s feudal rule, followed by Soviet communist rule. Had South Africa not been exposed to the advanced technologies of Europe, both via colonialism and via European immigrants, the country’s development would now be on a par with the Central African Republic. It would certainly not have been invited to join, because of its diversified and sophisticated economy and its modern industrial and financial systems, the BRICS grouping of countries. Had a solid pre-1994 institutional base not been established, we would have taken the DRC path, which went from the second most developed country in Africa in 1960, to number 146 in the world in 2019. Had we not benefitted from colonial technology and know-how, former colonies certainly would not have set up the Commonwealth in order to continue this beneficial relationship.

More important than the physical infrastructure legacies, the colonials also left behind a modernist mindset. They came with the mindset of the European Enlightenment; from a culture of exploration, experimentation and invention, and it was only natural that they would want to share their knowledge, skills and talents. Only the most churlish will not acknowledge this. Simply acknowledging, does not mean you are grateful for colonialism. This churlishness extends to not acknowledging that the colonials established Fort Hare University in 1841 – that Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, Seretse Khama and Naledi Pandor are among the university’s alumni. As many as 3 000 Zimbabwean students graduated from Fort Hare between 1995 and 2016 on presidential scholarships. Lovedale College and many other centres of learning were established by European missionaries. One of the reasons for the end of colonialism and apartheid was the creation of an educated class by the colonials, who then demanded freedom. Karl Marx unashamedly recognised the progressive and modernising forces of colonialism, while Queen Victoria is said to have pushed for the industrialisation of the British colonies. And that is why the official history book used in South African schools lists all the benefits of colonialism, concluding that part of the legacy is the development of Africa into a network of modern, independent states. It was also at the height of colonialism in 1836 that the colonial governments themselves pushed for and succeeded in having slavery abolished. The abolition of slavery was first petitioned by Thomas Clarkson in 1787 as part of the European Enlightenment.

In a pique of guilt we have overlooked the redeeming features of our own colonial past when compared with the psychohistories of other former colonies. This self-flagellation by idealist white liberals such as Peter Hain sees our pre-colonial history as a period of milk and honey. His idealism is contradicted by the respected anthropologist Isaac Schapera whose researches reveal 26 tribal wars prior to 1820. This milk and honey idealism is now compounded by race nationalists such as Mathole Motshekga and Zindzi Mandela who conveniently overlook the reality of internecine tribal warfare in our psychohistory. And equally by race nationalists such as Steve Hofmeyr who burden national cohesion with derogatory interpretations of black history. As recently as 1854 5 000 warriors were killed in such a battle between Cetewayo and Mbulazi at Tugela. The Nigerian scholar Claude Ake writes that ethnic conflict has always existed in Africa. The reality is that we have all prospered since 1652 when commercial, nomadic and pastoral civilisations first came into contact with a technologically-advanced European civilisation. The European settlers were imbued with a sense of justice as many had fled religious persecution in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Our legacy of prejudices that came with colonialism should not stand in the way of creating a post-1994 nation based on tolerance and respect.

While we in South Africa were interacting and mostly prospering, Spanish conquistadors plundered and wiped out indigenous populations in South America. They were responsible for the appalling exploitation of Aztec treasures. So mesmerised have we become that our perception of colonialism is focused on these atrocities. In America the English Mayflower settlers invaded and brutally attacked the Red Indians. It is reported that in 1780 there were 10 million Indians; in 1880 only 25 000. By contrast, in South Africa there were two million Bantu-speaking inhabitants in 1780 and four million in 1880. And the white population in South Africa dropped from 21.1% in 1904 to 7.9% in 2019 according to Statistics SA.. In America the Indian Land Act of 1828 deprived the Indians of their land far more drastically and violently than happened in South Africa under the 1913 Natives Land Act. Little wonder that feelings of guilt put America in the forefront of the anti-apartheid struggle. In America the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, but it was not until 1968 that white domination ended – the same year as the last negro lynching.

In Australia the Aborigines numbered one million in 1788 – by 1920 they were 60 000 as a result of colonial massacres and disease. They are said to have been treated as non-human. In the period 1910 and 1933, between 10% and 33% of Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their homes and placed in government foster homes and state training centres. This was done to Westernise them; the implication being that the Australian colonial culture is superior to that of the Aborigines. Australia went even further. As recently as 1928 they introduced an official breeding programme to breed out the darker shades. No wonder the Australians adopted, 50 years later, a holier than thou attitude in opposing apartheid policies. Aborigines were hunted down as vermin until 1938, and in 1967 they were not even included in the national census as they were not regarded as human. Despite memories of hurt Australia still insists on celebrating Australia Day on 26 January – the day the British fleet dropped anchor in Sydney Cove in 1788, thereby initiating an era of colonialism. Citizenship ceremonies are still held on Australia Day, in contrast to South Africa where historically-sensitive days such as 6 April, 31 May and 10 October were removed from the public holiday calendar in 1994.

In Namibia the German Government set about exterminating the Herero population – between 1904 and 1908 a total of 85 000 Herero were killed – 80% of the entire population. The German colonials also decimated 10 000 Namas 50% of their entire population. In 2004 the German government apologised for the massacres,which they recognised as genocide in 2021,and agreed, after five years of negotiations between the governments of Namibia and Germany, to compensation in the form of a thirty-year programme of infrastructure investment involving disbursements of R18.4 billion. The Dutch colonial record in the Far East is not that much better. They were responsible for the 63 000 slaves imported into the Cape between 1652 and 1804. Thankfully, they did not corral the Khoi and San into slavery. In the Congo, owned by King Leopold II of Belgium, it is reported that 10 million people died as a result of ill-treatment. These horrific colonial experiences can be compared with the equally horrific anti-colonial Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902. In the War white imperialists violently overthrew two independent white Afrikaner states. Records reveal that in 1860 the Boer Transvaal was 90% Afrikaans-speaking, but following the discovery of gold, foreigners poured in, dramatically changing the country’s demographics, not unlike the present experience of Europe with the inflow of refugees from the Middle East and Africa. We have suffered violence in South Africa, but mostly escaped the appalling racial atrocities of these other colonies.

We are wrong in claiming that the colonial governments were only out to exploit us. Continually transferring blame elsewhere, discourages accountability and promotes poor governance. The work of the missionaries alone contradicts this view. The infrastructure the colonials left behind contradicts this. We locals were in awe of what the colonials had to offer, and we welcomed them and their schooling, medical and banking systems. Their technological superiority was there for all to see and we borrowed from it as all civilisations have done throughout history. What we can ask is – if Africa had colonised Europe, would they not have introduced their own mores and systems of governance? The one example we have is of freed black American slaves returning to Liberia in 1847, taking over the running of the country and going on to oppress the local Liberians for the next 133 years up to 1980, when the corrupt William Tolbert was overthrown. The respected Africa researcher Greg Mills observes: The tiny elite (freed slaves) essentially colonised the indigenous population. The respected author Jonny Steinberg, in his book Little Liberia, describes the country as deeply rotten and corrupt. Our colonial narrative overlooks the fact that we in South Africa never suffered the indignity of being a slave-exporting country. And where slaves were sourced elsewhere in Africa, it is said to be the local African tribal chief who did the selling of the slaves to either Arabs or Europeans.

What the colonials did was to treat us as lesser beings, as inferior, as backward, without dignity, and with humiliation. This is the legacy we now deal with. Colonialism was far more invasive than apartheid. When I was a public prosecutor in colonial Swaziland in the 1950s, we had a law on the criminal statutes known as the Master and Servant’s Act – hardly better or even different from apartheid. If colonialism only took from us, then why is Ghana – which was wealthier than South Korea at independence in 1960 – now 10 times poorer? Why are Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark which were not colonial powers, now wealthier than their fellow European states which were colonial powers? Why are former colonies Canada, New Zealand and Australia now thriving? Why is Portugal – which is said to have exploited Mozambique and Angola – now one of the poorest states in Europe? Why are Finland which gained independence in 1917, and Ireland which became independent in 1918, both flourishing economically, while African states continue to go downhill in governance? In short, if the colonial countries flourished on exploiting Africa, why have they done even better since 1960, and why have African countries gone backward since 1960? The answer lies in value systems that determine social stability and good governance. This is seen in the flow of economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East to Europe to live in societies that adhere to value systems that are conducive to good governance, and therefore thrive; as well as in the flow of migrants from central America to the United States where a modernist value system prevails. Many analysts claim these refugee movements are attracted to richer countries. This is a superficial interpretation – their motivation goes much deeper, to the desire to improve their lives in a modernist value system that encourages and rewards personal improvement, equality of opportunity, the rule of law, private property rights, a secure environment, social justice and entrepreneurship – all things absent in their home countries. As long as South Africa purports to adhere to the modernist values of our Constitution, migrants from across Africa will continue to seek a better life in South Africa and not in the Central African Republic. The day the EFF gains power in national government, and introduces its authoritarian pre-modern policies, migrants will opt for modernist countries elsewhere.

The Legacy of the 1980s

Much of our present malaise has its origins in the 1980s. The pivotal year was 1986 - the events of that year compelled the historian William Dicey to publish a book titled 1986 in 2021. The period from 1983 to 1989 in particular was seen by the outside world as a Hollywood drama – the good (black demands for justice) versus the bad (discriminatory apartheid policies). The outside world saw the confrontation purely in racial terms, likening it to the civil rights movement in America. For the Europeans, living in homogenous societies, the underlying clash of value systems did not feature. Add to this the hypocricy that emanated from the Cold War, and you understand why no single Western leader ever publicly criticised ANC-inspired violence. Little wonder that the peaceful resolution of what was seen abroad as a racial confrontation, took the anti-apartheid lobby completely by surprise. Living in Scotland in the 1980s, I was regularly implored to flee South Africa before the inevitable bloodbath. The respected journalist, Brian Lapping, opens his 1986 book Apartheid A History with the sentence South Africa is on the verge of a civil war. No wonder the outside world eagerly latched on to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s description of the South African transition to democracy as a miracle. Europeans, living in culturally inclusive states, assume that the minds of all South Africans are swayed by the same emotions as them. Westerners overlook the underlying values that make African politics a zero-sum game. Concepts such as political intimidation do not feature in the Western mind. In the 1980s Europeans would urge whites to integrate socially. Now, 30 years later, they are doing everything possible to avoid social and racial integration in their own countries, as refugees and economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East stream to their shores. No wonder German Chancellor Angela Merkel admits to Europe’s failed integration policies, and in July 2018 the Dutch foreign minister stated publicly that there is no successful multi-cultural state in the West. Yet most Western states insist on describing themselves as successful multi-cultural states, simply because it is politically advantageous to do so.

The 1980s resembled a low-level civil war with both sides desperate to defeat the enemy. The Police set up a CCB anti-terrorist unit at Vlakplaas with Dirk Coetzee and later Eugene de Kock in command. Throughout Africa public servants, like the CCB unit, ingratiate themselves with the governing elite by showing how effective they are in implementing government policy. Unelected officials throughout the world have a propensity to divert legislative power on themselves, and to trespass on policy terrain. Our intelligence operations during the Angolan civil war became so entwined in UNITA’s quest for power, that they got us sucked into a war not of our making. The same happened in Mozambique after the signing of the Nkomati Peace Accord in 1984, when the SADF again got us involved in that civil war. At the public broadcaster, journalist Cliff Saunders openly promoted apartheid propaganda in his SABC reports. In their displays of loyalty, these bureaucrats invariably took the law into their own hands. This is what the CCB did. These bureaucrats also serve as fall guys when the deeds of their superiors, or their own ill deeds, are discovered. Both these CCB functionaries and the ANC adopted violence and contempt for both the law and accountability, to achieve their goals. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela urged township residents to use their boxes of matches to liberate the country.

Rolling mass action as a form of violence to ensure success, has been carried over to the present day. Schools and public buildings were burnt down. A culture of non-payment for municipal services was promoted in the 1980s, and still prevails. ESKOM’s bankruptcy is due to non-payment by municipalities. They owed R14 billion