Panorama Soruyor

Happy and (Hope)y Birthday Africa – Volkan İpek

Happy and (Hope)y Birthday Africa

1. How do you evaluate postcolonial politics in Africa? Have there been any turning points since the beginning of decolonization? 
2. What are today’s most significant political and economic issues/problems in Africa? 
3. What does the 30^th anniversary of the end of apartheid in Southern Africa mean to you?

The hopes for the termination of these issues as soon as possible are more dominant than enthusiasm for the current situation. The hopes are not rootless; however, they remind us that Africa survived almost 400 hundred years of slave trade on its Western and Eastern coasts and nearly 70 years of colonial rule that was applied by the European empires. To contribute to these hopes, we wanted those five distinct scholars to extinguish the candles on the African Union’s 61st birthday cake (not the exact cake described by Leopold the Second) by responding to the three questions addressed. 

***

Postcolonial politics in Africa has witnessed twists and
turns. Some countries have scored victories, while some have failed. The case
of Senegal is remarkable. Much can be zoomed out from it, but not in this
write-up. Although Africa has been painted for a long time as static and has
made no substantial developments in the political sphere since the era of
re-democratization, the Senegalese election was a volte-face in West
Africa. Since decolonization, Africa’s politics have not operated on a level
playing ground. Africa is a heterogeneous continent with a multifarious mosaic
of ethnic groups and different colonial historical backgrounds. The politics of
this continent has, to a very large extent, been an outcome of its colonial
heritage. Thus, its politics after decolonization reflected what most of the
colonial powers had left.

The period immediately after the political decolonization,
in the 1960s and 1970s, witnessed a simmering of some Western-style democracy.
Western democratic structures operated in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and
other British colonies. Six years into independence, coups d’états became as
frequent as breakfast. Even Kwame Nkrumah, the architect and father of
Pan-Africanism, was consumed by a coup in 1966.

The one-party state also became a norm. Most post-French
colonies embraced one-party states by justifying that a multi-party system was
anathema to growth and development. Cameroon took the lead, and so throughout
the independence stretching into the end of the Cold War, these post-colonial
states produced authoritarian leaders and military leaders; the poverty levels
were high, and unemployment figures were astronomical.

The year 1990 saw the end of the Cold War. America and her
European powers came up with the doctrine of democratization in African
countries. Accordingly, African countries were asked to democratize their
institutions and open political space before they could qualify for any
financial aid. Africa then jumped onto the bandwagon of the neo-liberal period.
Creating political parties and elections became fashionable as the incumbent
leaders found ways to cling to power. Some were backed by the same Western powers
to stay on. The opposition parties in some countries were very vibrant;
meanwhile, their wings were clipped in some.

There have been some turning points worth noting. The case
of Senegal at the beginning of this paper is just one. Botswana and the
Republic of South Africa have been success stories. On the other side of the
spectrum, the post-colonial state in Africa has been a mirage. Irredentist
claims have pre-occupied the nation-state as well as artificial borders.
Fundamentalist movements have also become honeycombed all over the continent.

Regarding the second question, the post-colonial state in
Africa has been bedeviled by political and economic challenges. Politically,
terrorism has been at the forefront of the continent in the past decades or so.
Terrorism
is considered as the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of
fear in the population and government and thereby achieve a particular
political objective. In concrete terms, its definition has been wrapped in
obscurity and debate, making it cumbersome for a universal definition.

In
the Central Africa region, which consists of Cameroon, the Central
African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo Kinshasa),
the Republic of the Congo (Congo Brazzaville), Equatorial Guinea,
Gabon,
Rwanda,
and São Tomé and Príncipe, terrorist aggressions constitute another major to the security of
states and populations. It harbors one of the
largest countries in the entire continent, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
which has also turned out to be the wealthiest country in terms of natural
resources. Countries in Central Africa are members of the Economic Community of Central African States
(ECCAS). Six of those states (Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the
Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon) are also members of the Economic and Monetary Community of
Central Africa (CEMAC), and share a common
currency, the Central African CFA franc. The power and influence of the terrorist
organizations in Central Africa is remarkable. They have, in a way, mapped out
the continent into different provinces, such as the Islamic State of Central
African Province (ISCAP), the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP)

This
period starts with a melodramatic incident in the Kampala city center. On
Tuesday, 16 November 2021, three bombs were detonated in Kampala, the political
capital of Uganda. A terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Central
Africa Province (ISCAP) claimed to have been responsible for the two separate
suicide attacks that killed three people and injured thirty-six. The Islamic
State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) affiliated with Amaq News Agency confirmed the
news by reporting that three fighters set out with bags loaded with explosives.

Ansaru
al-Sunnah, formerly known as Ahlussunnah Wal Jama’ah and locally as al-Shabab,
is the official name of the Salafi-Jihadists in Mozambique’s Delgado Province.
It is distinct from the Somali terrorist organization – al-Shabab. Like its
counterparts operating in the Sahelian region of West Africa, in its attempt to
establish an Islamic state, the terrorist group has employed a violent
interpretation of Sharia law to justify and carry out attacks on military and
civilian targets. Obviously, like anywhere else, the consequences have been
devastating, and they were able to control a swath of land and ports in
Mocimboa da Praia through religious propaganda and exploitation of local
grievances.

Economically,
the continent is also burdened with profound challenges. Most states have their
own currencies, making trade very difficult. The trade within the continent and
amongst African states is less than 1%. In terms of inflation, the continent is
again facing numerous challenges. In Eastern and Southern Africa, inflation
peaked at 19.4% in November 2022 but decelerated in July 2023 when it fell to
15.5%, after peaking again at 20.6%in June. In addition to inflation is
unemployment. Unemployment statistics suggest that between 2022 and 2024,
unemployment moved from 6.62% in 2012 to 7.03 in 2024.

Apartheid was a
system of institutionalized and legitimized racial segregation that existed not
only in South Africa but Southwest Africa, which today is known as Namibia. Dr Daniel Francis Malan, the head of the
National Party, was much credited with such a system. It survived from 1948 to the early 1990s when the resilient,
indefatigable, and dogged Madiba Nelson Mandela was released from prison in
Robben Island, where he had spent more than a quarter of a Century (27 years).
The system of Apartheid was characterized by an authoritarian political culture
based on ‘boss-hood,’ which warranted that South Africa was dominated
politically, socially, and economically by the nation’s minority white
population. In this minoritarian system, there was social stratification, where
white citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and then Black
Africans. Paradoxically, Black Africans were in the majority. The 30^th
anniversary of the end of apartheid in South Africa could mean many things to
me. Some remarkable successes (democracy) and some dismal failures (Xenophobia)
are just a few in the list.

From the beginning of the end of this
obnoxious system, the country entered what was besprinkled as the “rainbow
nation.” This meant the combination of whites, Indians, coloreds, and blacks.

The thirtieth anniversary meant
Western-styled democracy, which became a standard practice as the liberal
constitution became the watchword. Freedom of speech and action was standard. General elections were held in South Africa between 26
and 29 April 1994. The elections were the first in which citizens of all races
were allowed to take part and were, therefore, also the first held with
universal suffrage. It was conducted under the direction of the Independent
Electoral Commission (IEC) and marked the culmination of the four-year process
that ended apartheid. Mandela became the first black President.

With liberal
democracy and politics on a level playing ground, the role of South Africa in
the Southern African region and the continent and the formation of the African
Union saw the heydays of its achievements. The African Union (AU) is a
continental body consisting of the 55 member states that make up the countries
of the African Continent. It was officially launched in 2002 as a successor to
the Organization of African Unity (OAU, 1963-1999) in Durban.

Despite the 30^th anniversary, all
have not just been “beer and Skittles. As a matter of fact, the official
unemployment rate has been alarming, with a rate of 32%, making it the highest
in the world. Besides, more than 60% of young people between 15 and 24 fall
within this unemployment bracket. While more than 16 million South Africans,
nearly 25% of the country relies on monthly welfare grants for survival. Above
all, South Africa is still the most unequal country in the world in terms of
wealth distribution, according to the World Bank, with race a key factor.

Meanwhile, its xenophobia is not parallel to
that of the continent. Thus, 30 years after the end of apartheid could be
quipped as South Africa’s Exceptionalism. South Africa plays an instrumental
role positively in the continent. In South Africa itself, there is liberal
democracy, yet at the same time, unemployment is very high, and xenophobia hitherto
unseen in the continent.

***

I also have good connections with several universities in South
Africa, Nigeria, and Tanzania, where I have been lecturing and cooperating on
research projects. Finally, I have been involved in evolution and human
development issues for as long as I can remember. And as common knowledge has
it today, “it all began in Africa.” It was primarily the
paleo-archeologist family, the Leaky’s, who discovered our oldest known,
already bipedal predecessor, Anthropithicus, in the Olduvay gorge – today’s
Northern Tanzania, aka the cradle of humankind.

Among my early teachers were Nobel laureates
paleo-anthropologist Dutch Niko Tinbergen, German Konrad Lorenz, and later in
London, Jerome S. Bruner, with whom I collaborated in Man a Course of Study
(MACOS). That was an extensive cross-cultural and evolution-based introduction
to Psychology. But because the course started with a teaching film about the
common ancestors of the Big Apes, our closest cousins, and Homo sapiens
sapiens, Bruner (also a convinced atheist) got into much serious trouble –
particularly from the side of fanatic Roman Catholic and Evangelical
fundamentalists. They massively assaulted him, and the staff often blocked and
damaged his Center for Cognitive Studies at Oxford and Harvard. That forced him
to migrate to the UK, where he started working with Niko Tinbergen and his wife
Elisabeth, particularly on learning, child, and language development. There, I
had the privilege to join the research group whose work became the topic of my
doctoral thesis in psychology.

Hence, I will focus on my first-mentioned connection to Africa
because of limited space. Mainly since the Arab Spring, Mass Migration and
Forced Displacement have been on the political agenda, notably since 2015, when
millions of refugees were fleeing from war-torn countries in the Near East,
Northern Africa (NEMA), Central Africa, and Southeast Asia. Most hoped to find
refuge in European countries, which was mainly refused.

Since the mid-17^th century, that was very
different. First, the direction of mass Mmgration was utterly reversed. In my case, it started
with 10,000 plus Dutch Boeren (NL farmers) moving to Zuid Afrika, which they
considered to be their colony, material property with what they could do
whatever they liked – though they also were ‘pious and God-fearing Calvinists
at the same time!  One of the main
impacts was the use of large-scale slavery, servitude, and other forms of
enforced work. However, slavery already widely existed and was conducted mainly
by Arabic, often also Islamist tribes, in all of Africa long before.

In Zuid Afrika, whole black families
were coerced to do backbreaking work on the colonist’s palm, coffee, cotton,
and other farms – under temperatures up to almost 40 degrees Celsius in the
summertime, 365 days per year. It has been estimated that from the 17th century
on until the abolishment of slavery at the end of the 19th century, more than
30 million Africans were kidnapped or sold and sent to America’s, Europe
including the UK’s colony of India; and that around 1/3 of them died or were
murdered. It was in this barbarian environment that my ancestors were living.
However, and utterly contrary to their co-Boers, they had several black
families living on their compound. Also, contrary to the standard Boers
(un)culture, the personnel were not considered private property but hired and,
often, fairly paid workers. They had between 8 and
10 working hours, schooling for the kids, medical service, and a free Sunday.
Not surprisingly, this was a thorn in the side of the other Blankes (White). Hence, my
previous kin was being mobbed, threatened, and isolated. Ultimately, they could
not bear this strife any longer and returned to Holland, where they set up a
new farm in Brabant, my home country.

Let me
resume where I ended my comment on the first question. Although, at least
officially, slavery, defined as enforced work, coerced marriage, human
trafficking, debt bondage, and sexual exploitation, was abandoned in the late
19th century with Mauretania as the last country in 1981, in reality, it has
never stopped to exist. In the past decades, modern slavery has even been
dramatically on the rise.

Of
course, Africa has many more severe problems, so some have called it the
‘forgotten continent.’ Among them are the enormous discrepancies between the
vast natural resources exploited by neo-imperialist Western nations and their
few domestic sycophants on the one hand, and the enormous
socio-economic-political inequalities without any benefit for the native
people, the ongoing lethal poverty, the highest number of young child’s
mortality in the world, AIDS and other pandemics, the unintended but devastating
consequences of UN financial support for African Union peace operations, and so
forth. Given the extremely little space, I will limit my comments to the
connection of slavery with the other severe problem of terrorism.  I will also partly link this with already
apparent consequences of climate change, scarcity of water, food, and other
resources, violent conflicts about borders, forced mass displacement, and the
relations between tribalist armed violence and religion in Africa.

According
to recent reports from IOM, UNHCR, WALK FREE, CNN, University of Nottingham,
ACCORD, and the World Bank regarding the above-asked question, 50 million people
around the globe suffer from this atavistic form of barbarism. That is some 20 million more than the
total count between the 17th and 19th century. Are we talking about progress in
culture and society? It is estimated that of the above total, around 7 million
men, women, and children in Africa are kept in slavery today; Africa is the
continent with the highest number of forced, unpaid labor, human trafficking,
and enslavement in the world—a high number of concerns refugees.

Since
Europe is still the main continent of destination, while EU and national
governments have drastically aggravated their police and military measures to
keep refugees out, migrating-for-survival
routes have also changed.
Different trajectories from Western and Central Africa go to the North.
Particularly in Libya, a chaotic, ungoverned, terrorist-directed lost state,
hundreds of thousands of refugees, not only women, are sold to be kept for
unpaid labor and sexual exploitation for private profit (e.g., IOM report
2023-24). One appalling example is Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, and Burkina Faso.
Here, terrorist and other jihadist groups are not only jeopardizing refugees’
lives but also are the main drivers of armed group violence for which they even
forcibly recruit young domestic fighters. Mainly, Ghana is still the largest
hub for stolen or confiscated small arms and explosives and their illicit
circulation. Chieftaincy by numerous tribal warlords is another driver of armed
conflict and fatalities. They have large families they ‘request’ to collect
funds to buy arms. Kin often obey because they fear being ‘victimized’ or even
punished. In this way, they provoke different ethnic groups to fight one
another, which also leads to more arming for self-protection. In 2024, The
South African NGO ACCORD dubbed them ‘conflictpreneurs’.

Along
with the prolonged responses of governmental armed forces, if at all, they thus
prevent the setting up of non-violent, peaceful ways of safe co-existence,
socio-economic development, and education – the basics for any way out of the
misery. An accompanying, hopefully promising result is the ‘Empowering Young
Voices’ campaign by ACCORD, as said, a South Africa-based peace and conflict
resolution NGO. They try to combine action (field) research with children’s and
youth initiatives to fight xenophobia and other forms of intergroup violence,
as pointed out by Osman & Kruger in 2021 and by Nyamadzawo in 2024.

In
responding to the third question, my answer has very little to do with my
opinion; it is all about the objective facts, trends, changes, and resulting challenges. Since space
is scarce, I will focus on some of the expertise I have collected from my field
research and practical work on the ground. Today, the outlook for Africa is not
bright. A vast majority, if not all, researchers, politicians, and
practitioners on site agree that Africa, on the whole, is experiencing a
dramatic degression if not a vital relapse. That also begs whether it will ever
be possible to reverse this situation.

The situation was completely
different, even reversed after the end of WWI and notably after WWII. Those
were the times of national liberation upheavals and independence wars entailing
high hopes and grounded expectations of a better and safer future. It was the
time of Franz Fanon’s Les Damnés de la Terre on the revolutions in
NorthernAfrica; of Sékou Touré’, the first postcolonial
president of Guinea who also was, along with Senegalese Léopold Sédar Senghor
and Aimée Césaire from Martinique, a co-founder of Nègritude.
That was a cultural-political movement to restore the identity of Black
Africans, of Congolese Joseph Kasa-Vubu and murdered Patrice Lumumba, of Kwame
Nkrumah, the first Pan-African Prime Minister of independent Ghana and
nonviolence activist – to mention just a few. However, while 1960 was often
referred to as ‘The Year of Africa”, 60+ years later, we now see the opposite.
Apart from the fundamental problems analyzed mentioned in the previous two
questions, there are many more – perhaps too many to be addressed here.

My namesake and countryman, Professor
Dr. Hendrik van der Merwe, better known as H.W., was a highly influential
political intellectual and peace activist during and after the years of the
Apartheid regime in South Africa. He was born in a conservative Calvinist white
Boer family with kinship relations to the Netherlands and Germany, the
country of origin of Hendrik’s wife, Elsbeth Siglinde. In the foreword to his
autobiography “Peacemaking in South Africa: A Life in Conflict Resolution,”
it was nobody less than his friend and brother-in-arms Nelson Mandela, who
described H.W.’s path towards the anti-Apartheid movement and African National
Congres (ANC), the United Democratic Front and Afrikaaner Vrijheid Fondasie (A,
Freedom Foundation) which he joined at a very young age. He also converted to
the Quaker faith, which made him a peacemaking activist. In those functions, he
also set up the Centre for Intergroup Sites in Cape Town, where he introduced
the first training courses in non-violent peace management – not only for
interested academics but specifically for politicians, practitioners on site,
mostly ‘whites-only’ military, police, and other security services. Since the
1980s, H.W. managed to bring Boer governments to meet and negotiate with their
Black opponents, which was an unprecedented and courageous move.

Van der Merwe organized conferences
and seminars to prepare for the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in 1994.
These TRCs were meant to bring surviving victims and former perpetrators
together and were led by independent judges, lawyers, and civilian assessors.
Provided the latter admitted fully and truthfully to their crimes, they were
offered the option of being repented. I attended several TRC sessions, mainly
in Eastern Africa, KwaZulu Natal, and Northern Mpumalanga. During these few
sessions, I heard the most horrifying stories and gruesome experiences in my
life. It was primarily elderly black women who had lost husbands, children,
other kin, or close friends – and now had to go through the torture a second
time. Most of them were not able to undergo this repeated torture and were
almost paralyzed in crying tremors, while others lost their conscience and had
to be soothed by relatives.

Moreover, often, one could see that
the pundits were openly lying, keeping things secret, twisting the truth, or
did not show any sign of regret. However, the surviving victims did not have
much of a chance to avoid this extreme strife. It had become Mandela’s
political slogan: “We have no time for revenge and retaliation. We must
reconcile at all costs!” On top of that, there was a discrepancy between the
actual number of involved perpetrators during the whole era of Apartheid and
the number of accused, let alone sentenced pundits. First, only crimes since
1960 were prosecuted – while apartheid, as everybody knows, lasted much longer,
long before the term was coined. Secondly, while some 5,000 plus were
prosecuted, less than 1,500 were denied pardon –a negligible quantity. I have
called this performance “a coup de farce.”

Along with many colleagues, I think
that Mandela’s true intention was not to achieve justice through truth for the
black population but to demonstrate particularly to the Western world that
Apartheid  ultimately had been
“terminated by all means!” This also played a crucial role in his divorce from
his wife Winnie Madikizela, who had accused the ex-husband of having betrayed
the whole anti-Apartheid movement.

***

Africa has been grappling with
neocolonialism, at best, since the mass decolonization in the 1960s. Colonial
legacy is still alive and well in our collective affairs and how we see
ourselves as a people. We haven’t healed. We just got better at recycling our
trauma. To use Bell Hooks’ rare insight, ‘imperialist
white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’ is firmly rooted like oak trees in
Africa, with more intriguing superpowers such as China on the scene, not to
mention the tenacity of Françafrique on the continent. We have not been able to resist the
pathogenic seduction of African resource-takers, and we have thereby continued
auto-piloting ourselves into survival mode by reinventing dysfunctional systems
that are antithetical to what we need to thrive in togetherness.

In today’s Africa, political violence,
xenophobia, homophobia, tribalism, femicide, gender injustices, religious
fundamentalism, environmental degradation, and absolute poverty flourish in
many countries. Our political system has not yet released itself from violent
oppression and chronic corruption to embrace Ubuntu leadership of fairness,
communitarianism, and interdependence, where posthuman security, environment
protection, and gender justice thrive as we intentionally move towards
sustainable sociopolitical transformation. In less than five years, we have had
up to seven military coups in Mali, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Niger. We
have life presidents in Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, the Republic of
Congo, Uganda, and Eritrea.

It is a dire situation, and I have
heard this excuse often, “The world isn’t at peace, and Africa’s problems are
not unique because there’s much chaos going on globally. From the US’s current
state of democracy to the Russian-Ukrainian war and the genocidal Gaza-Israel
conflict.” Why are we not asking ourselves about taking responsibility as a
beacon of light in this fundamentally troubled world through Ubuntu leadership?
Ubuntu is in our DNA, but we fail to act decisively to save ourselves.

Africa must heal, body, mind, and
heart to holistically transform our structural, cultural, and relational
systems by returning to the source of Ubuntu governance and leadership as
proposed by Prof. Slyvia Tamale in “Decolonisation and Afro-Feminism.”
We must be open to applying Sankofa’s wisdom by going back in history to
understand why we disconnected from each other and nature to reclaim our
interconnectedness and move Africa forward holistically, inclusively, and
interdependently. By attuning to kujijua or kwimenya
(self-knowledge), echoed by the late Peace Nobel Laureate and eco-feminist,
Prof. Wangari Maathai, in “The Challenge for Africa,” the strength in
our diversity will shine through and reunite us.

Responding to the second question, I
believe the most significant political and economic issue in today’s Africa is
tapping into our collective human and natural resources to drive our ingenious
and indigenous solutions. I cannot exemplify any country and say let’s emulate
Mauritius, Rwanda, or Senegal, because we are talking about Africa, where
progress and transformation should be borderless and sustainable. It cannot be
one step forward and thirty backward. Take a look at a typical example: The
Gambia, which has been doing so well in its commitment to eradicating all forms
of female genital mutilation (FGM) by 2030, is entertaining a repeal of the
same law protecting girls and women from genital mutilation.

There is a lot of leadership and human
rights deficit to contend with across Africa. Sudan is burning, Sierra Leone is
about to set itself ablaze, and bigoted laws are swimming free in Uganda,
Ghana, and Nigeria’s oceans, where we are making life harder for our sexual
minorities. Patriarchy is reinventing itself, and hardworking women have to do
a lot to prove their worth. Gender-based violence against womxn (women)
and sexual minorities is unabated.

Our political economy has not yet left
the ICU because freedom is development, and colossal distrust remains among
many African nations. Our borders are still porous for small arms and weapons,
yet unopened to free trade or genuinely supportive of free movement. Our
traumas are borderless, but our solutions are barricaded. The Bretton Woods
Institutions got us by the balls because we are still not free from dead aid
that Dr Dambisa Moyo called us to ditch. We are rich yet poor, and climate
change’s devastating effects are looming. 

Worsening security, leadership
deficit, and questionable commitment to human rights are heightening the
challenges faced in Africa. Unlike popular opinion, which often defers to the
West coming to our rescue, I say we need to go to our rescue. When I take a
look at the Mo Ibrahim Index, I would like to see all African countries
improving upwardly and decisively, and not six bouncing back, 11 increasingly
improving, five slowly improving, and 23 increasingly deteriorating.

Africa is highly resourced in natural
and human capacities, yet we look outside for help. We need to rise and
collectively address the foundational flaws keeping us in this vicious cycle. A
critical consciousness approach to leadership and governance will allow us to
embark on visceral healing and Ubuntu leadership to do right by ourselves. We
can’t be starting over every few years to treat the symptoms of curable
diseases. We have to nip it in the bud once and for all through our collective
actions.

Showing up in the world through
collaboration and partnership is far wiser than surrendering our agency to
those giving us crumbs. We are surrounded by untold and untapped abundance
within, and to borrow a sage insight from the late African literary giant
Biyanvanga Wainaina, we are failing to see that we are possible from the
beginning. We have to be ready to practice the Ubuntu economy and politics for
our collective well-being. It is high time we did away with excuses and stepped
fully into the required responsibility needed to transform our continent.

On the one hand, the 30th anniversary
of the end of apartheid in South Africa means freedom, agency, and progress to
me. On the other hand, it gets me to introspect about what has not changed
because it seems the more things change, the more they remain the same. To
quote the amazing Audre Lorde, “…the master’s tool will
never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us
temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring
about genuine change.” The political psyche and structure in South Africa is an
apartheid tool. The anti-apartheid activists turned politicians in contemporary
South Africa haven’t healed, and they are themselves consciously or
unconsciously perpetrating oppressiveness.

It means that while institutionalized
apartheid might have been dismantled, there is still mental, emotional, and
spiritual segregation to contend with. It speaks again to the healing justice
that is needed after years of traumatizing intergenerational and collective
abuse because it is within the same dysfunctional system that Blackness
ascended to power from Whiteness. So, what is driving the black
consciousness that is trapped in self-hatred and transferred aggression?

Similar symptoms are observed in many
postcolonial African countries that had become independent decades before South
Africa was free from apartheid. Intergenerational and collective traumas are
the big elephant in the brain. If otherwise, South Africa should exemplify a
happy country with the born-free generation thriving and enjoying all
possibilities, with open arms extended to their siblings across Africa. It
should also translate to the older generations relaxing and reaping the fruits
of their labor, but that is hardly the case. The post-apartheid South Africa
has had its share of sociopolitical, cultural, and economic problems. The
#FeeMustFall, #RhodesMustFall, and #TheTotalShutdown protests and xenophobia
incidents or Afrophobia, as provoked by Dr. Godwin Murungi, mean it is not yet
Uhuru (freedom).

This 30th anniversary, to me, is an
opportunity for the collective renegotiation of the way forward for the healing
reparation and justice that need to happen through Sankofa and kujijua wisdom
to usher in Ubuntu leadership in South Africa and, by extension, every African
country. Many South Africans have expressed misgivings about Madiba’s
leadership style and stance on peace and forgiveness during the post-apartheid
truth and reconciliation. The restorative justice approach seemed to have
missed the vicarious trauma associated with what every citizen has witnessed,
seen, heard, or endured. It also appears that constructive change processes for
intergenerational and collective healing were not adequately planned or
prioritized.

With what went down in
South Africa, collective and multigenerational healing has to be prioritized
and institutionalized to holistically transform structural and social
relationships, especially the intra and interpersonal dynamics of apartheid
trauma on people’s psyche, body, and heart. There is no expiration date for the
restorative healing needed to transform intergenerational and collective
trauma, which are chronically manifesting in the political, economic, and
social systems of contemporary South Africa.

What I am hoping for is
that this 30th anniversary becomes an opportunity for healing souldarity (this
is a deliberate spelling) to collectively embrace restorative healing in every
facet of the sociopolitical, economic, and cultural structures through Ubuntu
leadership that is attuned, compassionate, just, inclusive and interdependent.

***

Africa’s population is the youngest in the
world and growing. According to a recent New York Times article, “The World is
Becoming More Africa,” by 2050, one in four people on the planet will be
African. As I previously discussed, this era is transforming many African
countries and radically reshaping their relationship with the rest of the
world. Colonialism, slavery, and imperialism have deeply impacted Africa
and its diaspora. Communities of African descent across the globe live under
structural discrimination and bear the scars of poverty, underdevelopment,
social exclusion, and economic disparities. These historical processes have
influenced how Africa and its people are perceived and positioned within
racialized, capitalistic systems and structures.

The African
continent faces many pressing political and economic issues that
significantly affect its future development and prosperity. Some of the most
significant challenges include:

• Persistent political instability and
  conflicts, including civil wars, ethnic tensions, and insurgencies in various
  regions, undermine security and the rule of law.
• Weak governance structures,
  ineffective institutions, and high levels of corruption erode public trust and
  hinder effective service delivery.
• Human rights violations, restrictions
  on civil liberties, and the suppression of democratic processes in some
  countries threaten the consolidation of democratic progress.
• Uneven distribution of power and
  resources, leading to regional disparities and marginalization of certain
  groups, fueling social and political unrest.

• Widespread poverty, inequality, and
  unemployment, particularly among the youth, limit economic opportunities and
  social mobility.
• Overdependence on the export of raw
  materials and primary commodities leave many African economies vulnerable to
  fluctuations in global markets and commodity prices.
• The need for more infrastructure,
  education, and healthcare investment hampering sustainable economic development
  and human capital formation.
• Limited integration into global value
  chains and the digital economy constrain the continent’s competitiveness and ability to
  diversify its economic base.
• Significant debt burdens and limited
  fiscal space hinder the ability of governments to finance critical public
  investments and social programs.

These
political and economic challenges are deeply interconnected, requiring a
comprehensive and coordinated approach. Strengthening democratic institutions,
promoting good governance, investing in human capital, and diversifying
economic structures are crucial steps towards building a more resilient,
equitable, and prosperous Africa.

The 30th
anniversary of the end of apartheid in South Africa is a testament to the
indomitable spirit of its people. It’s a time to celebrate the incredible strides the country
has made towards a more just and equitable society. The dismantling of a system
built on racial discrimination stands as a testament to the power of human
rights activism and the enduring human desire for freedom.

South Africa’s adoption of its 1996 Constitution
after the end of apartheid led to ushering in one of the world’s most progressive constitutions. One
of the key objectives of the Constitution is the transformation of South
African society. These elements of transformation included the dismantling of a
plethora of racist and sexist laws and institutions, redressing their legacy,
healing the divisions of the past, and building a new society committed to
social justice and the improvement in the quality of people’s lives. As I also indicated in my
latest book, Choice and Conscience: Lessons from South Africa for a Global
Debate (Pretoria University Law Press, 2023), the Constitutional Court
jurisprudential developments have embraced the concept of substantive equality,
emphasizing the need to address systemic discrimination and to promote
transformative change given the South African social and historical context of
persisting inequalities arising from the remnants of the structural oppression
of apartheid.

Despite the
end of apartheid three decades ago, South Africa continues to struggle with its
lingering effects. Racial disparities persist in education, income, and
residential patterns, creating significant economic inequality. Ongoing biases
within institutions and societal mindsets bolster this entrenched segregation.
This anniversary is a powerful reminder that the fight for human rights is a
continuous journey.

Looking ahead, as South Africa commemorates 30 years of democracy, it stands at a pivotal juncture. While celebrating the strides made, it must confront persistent challenges with unwavering resolve. Strengthening democratic institutions, fostering transparency, and ensuring accountability are imperative to fulfilling the democratic promise. South Africa’s story also holds valuable lessons for the global community. It underscores the power of collective action against oppression and the importance of sustained efforts towards building a truly inclusive society. As a human rights practitioner, I hope this anniversary inspires others to stand up for what’s right and work towards a world where everyone enjoys their fundamental human rights.

The
spread of multi-party elections from the early 1990s raised expectations that
Africa would fully democratize. Approximately three decades later, we now
understand that the democratization picture was always meant to be messy. Some
states have democratized more than others. Some states hardly democratized at
all. Some states democratized and then regressed. The democratization picture
is that messy. There is no single trend. Democracy remains a key political
issue, and if economic matters are brought to the fore, democracy is even more
contested because there is a growing popular sense that three decades of
democracy has not created jobs, addressing inequality, poverty, and a host of
other socio-economic problems. Persistent socio-economic issues are undermining
the standing of democracy in some African states.

Despite
the profound socio-economic challenges South Africa continues to face, it is
still a moment to celebrate and value freedom and give due recognition to a
just struggle for freedom that cost African lives and brought them tears, pain,
and suffering. It is also a moment to draw lessons. The kinds of effective
transnational mobilization and solidarity we saw in South Africa’s
anti-Apartheid struggle are relevant tools Africans need to confront some of
the major challenges facing Africa today, like countering rising repression in
some regions and furthering feminist struggles across borders.