I well remember how, as the 1980s dragged on, writing about SA and its fundamental unignorables all those problems that were as obvious as they were perennially in need of urgent attention often suffered from tedious repetition.
Fifty-seven years ago, the British Labour Party government panicked over black immigration to Britain. It passed the 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act. An immigration expert commented, “This extraordinary piece of legislation” was passed in “a parliamentary atmosphere reminiscent of emergency measures passed in the shadow of war”. It was passed because the black government of Kenya was making life difficult for Asians living in Kenya and the Labour Party was terrified they would flee to the UK. A previous Tory government had explained that such laws were necessary to “prevent the arrival in this country of many people of wholly alien cultures, habits and outlook”.
When Sébastien de Place, president of the Foreign Trade Advisors for France in South Africa, warned the government last week of the risk to foreign business investments in South Africa posed by the country’s fundamental economic challenges, one of the most revealing – and most reckless – responses came from within the governing
Nelson Mandela’s conviction – expressed in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech 30 years ago this month – that in their new democracy all South Africans would enjoy the right to “life, liberty, prosperity, human rights and good governance" remains true today, despite the catastrophic and tragic failure of the ANC to make good on this vision.