06/10/2025
The Betrayal of Mandela’s Apartheid Liberation Movement ⚡️
Nelson Mandela, in his first month as president of South Africa in 1994, promised a ‘rainbow nation at peace with itself,’ a country where everyone could live with dignity after decades of apartheid’s brutality. But 31 years after liberation, that dream feels elusive. Andile Zulu writes that while political freedom was won, economic liberation was traded away. Zulu asserts that before the African National Congress (ANC) took power in 1994, Mandela had locked South Africa into a neoliberal framework that prioritized corporate interests over the people’s needs. Apartheid died, but capitalism evolved, and the consequences have been devastating for millions. Today’s South Africa tells a brutal story: 43% unemployment, 30 million living in poverty, and a staggering wealth gap where ten per cent of the population owns 85 per cent of the country’s wealth. The promised redistribution never came. Instead, the ANC’s Black Economic Empowerment policies created a new Black elite who, like their apartheid predecessors, exploit and repress Black workers. The Marikana massacre of 2012, where 34 Black miners were killed by police protecting a multinational mining company’s interests, stands as the most tragic symbol of this betrayal. But the fight isn’t over, Zulu writes. The next generation must build coalitions powerful enough to make governments fear disappointing citizens more than disappointing shareholders. True liberation, the author says, requires dismantling economic subjugation, not just political oppression.
Read the full story here: https://rpublc.com/october-november-2025/nelson-mandela-apartheid/
________________
📝: Andile Zulu ()
📷: Photo Illustration by Ezinne Osueke (.o.osueke) / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: WIKIMEDIA.
🔍: Chidinma Nebolisa (), Yusuf Omotayo (), Wale Lawal (); Editors.
