In 1994 the Government of National Unity, consisting of the African National Congress, the National Party (a long-time pillar of apartheid) and the Inkatha Freedom Party replaced the South African apartheid regime. ANC leader Nelson Mandela took the place of F.W. De Clerk as president.
John Pilger, a respected investigative journalist, returned to South Africa 30 years after he was banned for his reports on apartheid to find out what changes have taken place since 1994. His findings were shown nationally in a documentary entitled, "Apartheid Did Not Die," aired on Britain's ITV station April 21.
Pilger says: "Yes, apartheid based on race is outlawed now, but the system always went far deeper than that. The cruelty and injustice were underwritten by an economic apartheid that regarded people as no more than cheap, dispensable labour. International corporations in South Africa, Britain, Europe and the United States backed it. And it was this apartheid, based on money and profits, which allowed a small minority to control most of the land, most of the industrial wealth and most of the economic power. Today the same system is called, without a trace of irony, the free market." This film, he adds "asks why apartheid continues by other means."
Pilger's insistence that "apartheid did not die" confuses the issue. Apartheid has ended, but capitalist oppression continues. The ANC, like bourgeois nationalist movements throughout the world, have proven incapable of putting an end to the legacy of poverty and exploitation in the oppressed nations. That is the task of the South African and international working class.
Source: World Socialist Web; International Committee of the Fourth International
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