South Africa questions its very being. Yet a difficult change has reinforced its young democracy
South Africa is in a moment of deep soul-searching after an election that brought a jarring split from the African National Congress party
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa is in a moment of deep soul-searching after an election that brought a jarring split from the African National Congress, the very party that gave it freedom and democracy 30 years ago.
In the days after rejecting what was once the country’s most beloved organization, South Africans were dealing with essential questions over not just where they were going, but what they'd achieved in their young democracy since ending the racist apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994.
Despite having Africa’s most industrialized economy, the injustices of South Africa’s past have not been made right three decades after Nelson Mandela and the ANC were elected in the country's first all-race vote and promised a better life for all. That has driven discontent among millions of the poor Black majority.
“We remain the pyramid society that apartheid and colonialism created,” said Thuli Madonsela, a professor of law who helped craft a new, post-apartheid constitution for South Africa in 1997 that was meant to guarantee everyone was equal from then on.
