President Mandela is in Britain seeking more investment in South Africa. Marti n Woollacott gives the view from London
IT is only 12 years since the apartheid regime began tentatively conferring wi th the imprisoned Nelson Mandela. It is only 10, to show how much times have c hanged, since the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group flew out of South Africa in protest after PW Botha ordered military raids on African National Congress bases outside the country. It is only seven since the ANC’s Harare Declaration opened up
the possibility of serious negotiations, and only six since Mandela was relea
sed.
Now he is the guest of the Queen and the toast of Brixton. But his visit has a nother significance, marking the transition, internationally, from a time of c elebration to a time of hard bargaining and hard choices for South Africa. The completion of the Constitution and the withdrawal of the National Party from
the government earlier this year ended a period during which the basis for a n ew state w as worked out between former opponents without notable violence, except in Kwa Zulu-Natal, and without crippling disagreements.
But these achievements are already yesterday’s work, and Mandela himself is al ready, in some sense, history. The generation of which he is a part has alread y gone. His longevity, his will, and his qualities mean he will for some time longer play an important role, but inevitably the work to come will be done by men and women who are young enough to be his children and grandchildren. Diff
icult thou gh the political settlement has been, the problems that now have to be tackled will be more difficult.
South Africa has to engage again with the formidable inter-related issues of i nternal stability on the one hand and of its place in the world economy on the other. Again, because these are old problems in South Africa, whose economic
life has always been managed politically and yet whose political life has alwa ys been buffeted by economic changes, sanctions being only the most extreme ca se of such pressures. That is why Mandela is accompanied on this trip by 100 businessmen
and economic negotiators. South Africa has to bid for investment and trade in
a world where capital can pick and choose much more widely than in the past,
and it has to bid for it in a way that does not lead to political and social c atastrophe.
There are two views about the South African economy. One is that it is a wealt hy country whose wealth just needs to be divided more fairly. The other is tha t it is a potentially poor country, a country on the edge, a place where polit ical mismanagement could lead on to economic disaster. The latter is closer to the truth than the former. The new government inherited a protected economy w
ith some d istant similarities to Russia. The old regime had always seen self-reliance as a virtue, even more so as sanctions came in. Now, as the tariff barriers come
down, many firms are threatened, and with them the jobs needed to meet the as
pirations of the black urban population. Investment from abroad is needed to u pgrade South Africa’s capacity to supply its own market and stop job loss, eve n though t he government’s plans, of course, assume that major increases in jobs are goin g to be possible.
Battle has already been joined between the unions, which want to preserve and extend to new workers the relatively reasonable wages some workers receive, an d the business community, which argues that investment will not materialise un less there is a two-tier labour market, with one tier largely unregulated. It has also been joined on privatisation, with the government edging closer to an option wh
ich would bring it considerable income.
But privatisation, if it follows the pattern elsewhere, would strip out jobs a nd reduce the wages of those who remain. Both the two-tier and the privatisati on options run against the political grain. The ANC did not make a revolution in order to turn South Africa into a low-wage labour camp. It is dedicated to narrowing the gap between white relative wealth and black poverty.
On the land, similar choices have to be made. More than four-fifths of agricul tural land is owned by 55 000 commercial white farmers, with 1,2-million micro -farmers on the rest. There is a landless rural population, which wants land — but if it gets land at the expense of the commercial farms, food productio n and some rural jobs, could be undermined. Similarly, tourism, a big source o f jobs, de pends to some extent on features to do with the politics of the old regime, ba sically the hiding away of population and poverty.
It must sometimes seem as if everything that is economically dictated, or dema nded by business or outside investors, is politically dangerous or involves a betrayal of the people. Or that everything that is politically desirable const itutes a step on the road to economic ruin. The broadest choice of all is betw een a “southern” approach to the economy, emphasising small businesses, small capital re quirements, and limited regulation, and a “northern” approach which tries to i ncorporate black workers into a high-income European and American model, a mod el which also gives advantages to the big, highly organised firm. South Africa already has both models in different sectors. The difficult answer may be tha
t the “southern” emphasis is the right one, while a “northern” economic sector is nevert
heless preserved.
The skilled compromises that policy will involve over the years will demand a high quality of leadership, both in the technical sense of good judgment and i n the capacity to inspire people and get them to endure hardships and disappoi ntments. Undoubtedly South Africa has a much larger, better-educated leadershi p in the ANC than any other African liberation movement or party had or has. T he consequ ence is a diverse and well-educated political class; but it has weaknesses. Mi nisters of great quality contrast with far lesser men.
But more important than the question of individual talents is whether the over all organisation of government maximises or minimises ability and engages loya lty. Policy now sometimes seems to wait on decisions from above, and those ANC members who recall the extended debates of the past, from which they emerged,
as one put it, feeling that the decision was “common property”, wonder at the
direction
of events. South Africa has a resilience which all races display. It will und
oubtedly need it.