Abstract
South Africa is a country that has gone through significant changes since 1994. The new government, led by the ANC, set out to transform the country. This chapter looks at the key initiatives that new government undertook to rebuild the country: the writing of a new constitution, the development of macroeconomic growth and development policies, the dismantling and restructuring of the higher education system, and the building of a national framework for gender equality and the empowerment of women.
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Notes
- 1.
Election Resources on the Internet: Republic of South Africa General Election Results, http://electionresources.org/za/provinces.php?election=1994 (accessed July 29, 2016).
- 2.
From April 27, 1994 to February 3, 1997, the country was operating under an interim constitution. South African Government Information. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/index.htm (accessed November 20, 2009).
- 3.
International Monetary Fund, Post-Apartheid South Africa: The First Ten Years (Washington, DC: IMF Publication Services, 2005), 1.
- 4.
Trevor C. Sehoole, Democratizing Higher Education Policy: Constraints of Reform in Post-apartheid South Africa (New York: Routledge, 2005), 84.
- 5.
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1240.
- 6.
Ibid., 1241.
- 7.
Ibid. Preamble, 1243.
- 8.
The Oxford English Dictionary http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50195905?query_type=word&queryword=racialism&first=1&max_to_show=10&single=1&sort_type=alpha (accessed February 12, 2010). The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines racism as the “belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” The term racialism defines racialism as the “belief in the superiority of a particular race.” The OED records racism as a synonym of racialism. At the end of World War II, racism acquired the same connotations as racialism where “racism implied racial discrimination, racial supremacism, and a harmful intent.”
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
Diane Eynon, “Interpreting the Economic Growth and Development Policies of Post-Apartheid South Africa: Its Influence on Higher Education and Prospects for Women” (Doctoral diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2010), 65.
- 16.
Marissa Herbst and Willemien du Plessis, “Customary Law v. Common Law Marriages: A Hybrid Approach in South Africa. Electronic Journal of Comparative Law, 12, no. 1 (May 2008), http://www.ecjl.org/121/art121-28.pdf, 2.
- 17.
Ibid., 5, 7, and 8. Ukuthwala is the abduction of a girl to another family household in order to force the girl’s family to give permission for the marriage. More often than not, the girl has agreed to the abduction. The Recognition Act requires permission of both individuals to the marriage. Lobolo is defined in the Recognition Act as “property in cash or kind…which a prospective husband or head of his family undertakes to give to the head of a prospective wife’s family in consideration of a customary marriage.” The validity of a customary marriage is based on the agreement to pay lobolo.
- 18.
Government Wooing Chiefs with New Ministry, September 1, 2009. www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article35967.ece?service=print. (accessed November 21, 2009). The new ministry will cost an estimated R135 million a year for taxpayers. The Minister for Provincial and Local Government, Sydney Mufamadi introduced the proposal. Mufamadi’s spokesman explained the new ministry is “about the work they do in communities around improving service delivery and working together with local government in achieving that goal.” It is not clear if the new ministry will be replicated in each of the nine provinces.
- 19.
Karen MacGregor, “Shocking results from university tests,” University World News, issue 0035 (August 16, 2009). The National Benchmark Tests Project was commissioned in 2005 by HESA. The objectives were to gauge entry-level literacy and math proficiency of students, to explore the relationship between university entry requirements and school outcomes, to assist in curriculum development, and to provide information which would help universities place students. More 13,000 students from the universities of Cape Town, KwaZulu Natal, Rhodes, Stellenbosch and the Witwatersrand, and Mangosuthu University of Technology in commerce, education, engineering, the health sciences, humanities, law, and science took the test.
- 20.
The World Bank: Data: Prevalence of HIV, total (% of population ages 15–49),http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.AIDS.ZS (accessed July 29, 2016).
- 21.
AFROBAROMETER, Summary of Results, Round 4 Afrobarometer Survey in South Africa (Cape Town, South Africa: Afrobarometer, December 2008), 4.
- 22.
AFROBAROMETER, Summary of Results, Round 6 Afrobarometer Survey in South Africa (Cape Town, South Africa: Afrobarometer, April 2016), 2.
- 23.
Eynon, “Interpreting the Economic Growth and Development Policies0f Post-Apartheid South Africa: Its Influence on Higher Education and Prospects for Women,” 68.
- 24.
Julian Kunnie, Is Apartheid Really Dead? Why Apartheid Changed Its Character in 1990 (Oxford, UK: Westview Press, 2000), 77.
- 25.
John Weeks, “Stuck in Low GEAR? Macroeconomic Policy in South Africa, 1996–98,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 23 (1999), 795–811.
- 26.
Sehoole, Democratizing Higher Education Policy: Constraints of Reform in Post-apartheid South Africa, 81.
- 27.
African National Congress (ANC), RDP White Paper, http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy/white.htm (accessed November 21, 2009).
- 28.
Ibid., 6.
- 29.
The RDP White Paper is the document which sets out strategies for the implementation of RDP by establishing a policy-making methodology and outlines the government’s implementation framework. However, when presented in September 1994 it had not been adopted by Parliament in order to allow further discussion and debate provided by the Base Document.
- 30.
Republic of South Africa, A Basic Guide to the Reconstruction and Development Program, http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy/short.htm (accessed January 12, 2009).
- 31.
Claude Kabemba and Tobias Schmitz, Understanding Policy Implementation: An Exploration of Research Areas Surrounding the Reconstruction and Development Programme, Centre for Policy Studies, Johannesburg, South Africa, research report number 73 (2001), 16.
- 32.
Gerald Meier and James Rauch, Leading Issues in Economic Development, 8th Edition (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 76.
- 33.
George Mavrotas and Anthony Shorrocks, eds., Advancing Development: Core Themes in Global Economics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 235–240.
- 34.
The 30 member countries of OECD are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
- 35.
Mavrotas and Shorrocks, 235–240, and Omano Edigheji, “Globalization and the Paradox of Participatory Governance in South Africa: The Case of the New South Africa,” African Journal of International Affairs 7, no. 1& 2, 1–20 (2004).
- 36.
African National Congress, “The State and Social Transformation,” discussion document (1996), http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy/s&st.html (accessed October 22, 2009).
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
Alan Hirsch, Season of Hope: Economic Reform Under Mandela and Mbeki (Scottsville, South Africa: University of KwaZula-Natal Press, 2005), 25. Omano Edigheji, The Emerging South African Democratic Development State and the People’s Contract, Center for Policy Studies, Research Report 108, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2007, 10.
- 39.
Republic of South Africa, Growth, Employment and Redistribution: A Macroeconomic Strategy, www.treasury.gov.za/publications/other/gear/chapters.pdf, 4.
- 40.
Sehoole, Democratizing Higher Education Policy: Constraints of Reform in Post-apartheid South Africa, 82.
- 41.
Edigheji, The Emerging South African Democratic Development State and the People’s Contract,, 11. Silvia Federici, George Caffentzis, and Ousseina Alidous, A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000), 12. Antoinette Handley, “Business, Government and Economic Policymaking in the New South Africa, 1990–2000. Journal of Modern African Studies 43, no. 2 (2005).
- 42.
COSATU. “Creating Jobs in South Africa: Key Issues and Strategies,” April 1999, http://www.cosatu.org.za/docs (accessed April 9, 2009).
- 43.
Edigheji, The Emerging South African Democratic Development State and the People’s Contract, 13.
- 44.
Organization of Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), Reviews of National Policies for Education: South Africa (Paris, France, 2008), 19–23.
- 45.
Sehoole, Democratizing Higher Education Policy: Constraints of Reform in Post-apartheid South Africa, 13–24.
- 46.
OECD, Reviews of National Policies for Education: South Africa, 40.
- 47.
OECD, 320.
- 48.
Republic of South Africa, National Plan for Higher Education in South Africa, 2001, http://www.education.gov.za/Documents/policies/NationalPlanHE2001.pdf (accessed February 18, 2009).
- 49.
Council on Higher Education, South Africa Higher Education in the First Decade of Democracy, The Council on Higher Education (CHE) Pretoria, South Africa (2004). The current institutional structure of public South African higher education includes eight separate and incorporated universities (University of Cape Town, University of Fort Hare plus Rhodes University East London Campus; University of Free State plus Vista University and University of the North Qwa-Qwa; University of Pretoria plus Vista University Mamelodi; Rhodes University; University of Stellenbosch; University of the Western Cape plus University of Stellenbosch Dental School; and University of Witwatersrand); three merged universities (University of Durban-Westville plus University of Natal—now the University of Kwazulu-Natal; The University of the North plus Medical University of South Africa—now the University of Limpopo; Potchefstroom University of Christian HE plus University of the North-West plus Vista University—now the North-West University); two separate and incorporated universities of technology, or technikons (Technikon Free State plus Vista University Welkom—now Central University of Technology; Vaal Triangle Technikon plus Vista University and infrastructure and facilities of Sebokeng—now Vaal University of Technology); three merged universities of technology (Cape Technikon plus Peninsula Technikon—now Cape Peninsula University, Mangosuthu Technikon plus infrastructure and facilities of the Umlazi campus of the University of Zululand—now Durban Institute of Technology, Technikon Pretoria plus Technikon Northern Gauteng plus Technikon North-West—now Tshwane University of Technology); two separate comprehensives (University of Venda—now University of Venda for Science and Technology; University of Zululand); four merged comprehensives (Rand Afrikaans University plus Technikon Witwatersrand plus Vista University East Rand and Soweto—now University of Johannesburg; University of Port Elizabeth plus Port Elizabeth Technikon plus Vista University Port Elizabeth—now Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University; Technikon South Africa plus Vista University Distance Education Centre—now University of South Africa; University of Transkei plus Border Technikon plus Eastern Cape Technikon—now Walter Sisulu University of Technology and Science); and two national institutes (Mpumalanga Institute of Higher Education; Northern Cape Institute for Higher Education).
- 50.
The World Bank: Data: Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament (%), http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SG.GEN.PARL.ZS?locations=ZA (accessed July 29, 2016).
- 51.
World Economic Forum, Which countries have the most women in parliament? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/09/countries-most-women-in-parliament/ (accessed July 29, 2016).
- 52.
SANGONet Pulse, South Africa Misses The Mark on Women in Politics, May 28, 2014, http://www.ngopulse.org/article/south-africa-misses-mark-women-politics (accessed July 29, 2016).
- 53.
Michael H. Allen, Globalization, Negotiation, and the Failure of Transformation in South Africa: Revolution at a Bargain? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 142.
- 54.
Office on the Status of Women, South Africa’s National Policy Framework for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality (Pretoria, South Africa: South Africa Government, 2000), 4.
- 55.
Reitumetse Mabokela and Kaluke Mawila, “The Impact of Race, Gender and Culture in South African Higher Education,” Comparative Education Review 48, no.4 (2004), 396.
- 56.
Office on the Status of Women, 10.
- 57.
Ibid., 27.
- 58.
Ibid., 28.
- 59.
Ibid., 34.
- 60.
Gisela Geisler, Women and the Remaking of Politics in South Africa (Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2004), 37.
- 61.
Pregs Govender, Love and Courage: A Story of Insubordination (Auckland Park, South Africa: Jacana Media Ltd., 2007), 157.
- 62.
Office on the Status of Women, 37.
- 63.
Program on Action on Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, Report on National Gender Machinery (Pretoria, South Africa, 2005).
- 64.
Matuma Letsoalo, “Fresh Crisis at Gender Commission,” Mail & Guardian Online, April 24, 2008, www.mg.co.za (accessed November 17, 2009).
- 65.
Rozenda Hendrickse, Reshaping Power South Africa’s Gender Machinery Reviewed, Paper prepared for presentation at the International Political Science Association 22nd World Congress of Political Science: Reshaping Power, Shifting Boundaries Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, July 12, 2012, 10.
- 66.
Amina Mama, “Feminism or Femocracy? State Feminism and Democratisation in Nigeria,” Africa Development 20, no. 1 (1995), 37–58.
- 67.
Eynon, “Interpreting the Economic Growth and Development Policies0f Post-Apartheid South Africa: Its Influence on Higher Education and Prospects for Women,” 95.
- 68.
Ibid., 94.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
Assie-Lumumba, 145.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Profiles of South African Women
Profiles of South African Women
Helen Suzman
Helen Suzman was distinctive in many ways—a white Jewish English-speaking woman from a privileged background who served in a male-dominated, Afrikaner-speaking parliament who adamantly and vocally opposed apartheid.
She was first elected to the South African Parliament in 1953 and, by 1960, had become a controversial figure, as she was the only parliamentarian, until 1974, to oppose the National Party’s apartheid policies. And for 6 of the 13 years (1961–1974), she was the only woman in Parliament.
Helen also approached her opposition to apartheid in her own way. In addition to the moral arguments, she argued that South Africa’s economy would suffer under apartheid, as the majority of the country’s people would live in poverty and therefore not be able to contribute to the economy.
Helen not only gave speeches and fought with other members of Parliament against apartheid laws and policies, she actively worked with the poor—often meeting them in her office or in their neighborhoods, listening to their stories, and hearing first-hand of their hardships. As a result of her efforts, the police harassed her, her phone was tapped, and the BBC regularly reported on her work. It was very courageous of her to continue her opposition under such difficult circumstances, yet she persisted and became a beacon of hope to many South Africans and others opposed to apartheid. Helen was known for her fearlessness, energy, sense of humor, and commitment to the principle, “Let right be done.” She also used to quote Theodore Roosevelt: “I did what I could, where I was, with what I had.”
After serving in Parliament for 37 years, Helen left it in 1989, the year President F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on liberation movements and released political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, whom Helen visited several times during his imprisonment. She was present at the signing of the 1996 constitution and was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize.
On New Year’s Day, 2009, Helen Suzman died at the age of 91. Her legacy will be what Nelson Mandela called her “magnificent battle against apartheid.”
Sources:
The Guardian, Helen Suzman, January 1, 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/01/helen-suzman
(accessed August 2, 2016)
SUNY Cortland, Remembering Helen Suzman: A Life of Struggle Against Apartheid in South Africa, http://www.cortland.edu/cgis/suzman/
(accessed August 2, 2016)
Winnie Mandela
In the 1950s, Winnie Madikizela Mandela became involved in the ANC. She met Nelson Mandela in 1957 when he and 155 other people were on trial following the civil disobedience campaigns carried out during most of the decade. A year later, Winnie and Nelson were married and settled in Soweto.
Their marriage was interrupted when Nelson was imprisoned for 26 years on Robben Island. Winnie was forced to raise their two daughters alone, and although she had visitation rights, she was prohibited from having any physical contact with Nelson. Winnie was also subject to a series of legal orders and banned under the Suppression of Communism Act, restricting her to a township in Soweto.
That forced her underground, where she continued to attend meetings and circulate antiapartheid materials. It was during this period that Winnie sent her daughters to Swaziland to protect them from harassment and so they could continue their education. In 1970, Winnie was placed under house arrest, but she continued to violate the order resulting in numerous charges and additional arrests.
In 1976, Winnie established the Black Women’s Federation and the Black Parent Association. Those organizations became part of the Black Consciousness Movement, which rejected “white” values. It was for her involvement in those organizations and other antiapartheid activities that she was once again detained and later put under house arrest
Winnie returned home in 1986 and found herself surrounded in controversy. She publicly endorsed the use of the “necklace” method (placing a tire around the neck of a person, dousing it with gasoline, and setting it on fire) of killing dissidents and alleged police informants. She also was criticized for the behavior and acts of a group of young men who acted as her bodyguards.
In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison with Winnie at his side. The following year, she was elected to the ANC’s National Executive Committee but was also charged with the kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old boy, Stompie Seipei, whom she believed was a police informant. She was found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to six years in jail, but on appeal, her sentence was reduced to a fine.
In 1992, Winnie resigned from her ANC positions, including her position in Parliament. She also separated from Nelson, and the two divorced in 1996. When it came to her political involvement, however, she made a comeback and was elected president of the ANC Women’s League in 1993. After the 1994 elections, Winnie was appointed Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture and Science and Technology. But after she was accused of financial mismanagement, Nelson dismissed her in 1995.
Winnie was charged with fraud and theft from the funeral accounts of loan applicants in 2001 and sentenced to five years in prison. But, in 2004, an appeals court judge overturned the conviction for theft while upholding the fraud charges, resulting in a three- and- a- half- year suspended sentence. She resigned as president of the ANC Women’s League in 2003.
Source:
South African History Online, Winnifred Madikizela-Mandela
http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/winnie-madikizela
(accessed August 2, 2016)
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Eynon, D.E. (2017). Building the Rainbow Nation. In: Women, Economic Development, and Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53144-1_4
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