South Africa Is Repeating Its Original Sin

Apartheid was a crime against humanity and built the foundations of much of the problems we face today. But the solution isn’t to flip the script and continue to embrace racialised legislation...

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

South Africa’s original sin is racialised legislation. This took the form of white supremacy under Apartheid, where the government seized land from racial groups its deplored, and passed regulations that barred black people from high paying jobs and positions of power.

Apartheid was a crime against humanity and built the foundations of much of the problems we face today. But the solution isn’t to flip the script and continue to embrace racialised legislation in the same manner that the African National Congress (ANC) and the left so vehemently continue to do.

While the ANC hasn’t embraced the sheer authoritarian tenacity of Apartheid, this is not for lack of trying. The National Democratic Revolution (NDR), official policy of the ANC, creates a roadmap to strip white people of their assets and positions of authority. In the 1990s, white people were pressured out of jobs in law enforcement, the military and the civil service. And legislation such as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and its associated regulations and companion laws make the colour of ones skin the most important aspect of doing business.

There are over 140 race laws in the modern South Africa, ranging from petty acknowledgements of race, to enabling and even necessitating discrimination. The Employment Equity Amendment Act (EEAA) is particularly heinous, necessitating that large enough businesses will have to base the demographics of their employees on the demographics of the nation.

Minority groups like Indians will struggle to find legal employment as they do not make up a sufficient percentage of the national population. This punishes a group that was also severely discriminated against during Apartheid.

All these race laws accomplish is continuing the cycle of racial conflict and resentment, while simultaneously scaring away investors and making it as hard as possible to do business in the country.

BEE, EEAA and other race laws are not only bigoted against those they discriminate against but also spreads a soft bigotry against those who it is meant to benefit. So-called previously disadvantaged groups are not helpless and stupid victims that need a handicap to make it in life. They are made up of vibrant, intelligent, creative and hardworking people who don’t need discriminatory legislation to succeed.

They are being held back not by white people and no longer by the direct legacy of Apartheid, but by crime, overregulation and a grossly incompetent and corrupt government.

If South Africans of all races are to flourish, then we need to shut down barriers to commerce and ensure safety for all. Rather than becoming the arbiter and enforcer of arbitrary racial justice, the government should be focusing on getting the basics right. Protecting property rights, fighting crime and ensuring that South Africa becomes a safe and efficient environment to conduct business.

What South Africa needs now is not another round of social engineering driven by racial bean-counting, but a clean break from the very logic that poisoned the country in the first place.

A society cannot heal by endlessly reopening old wounds and re-inscribing race into every aspect of economic and social life. The moral victory over Apartheid was not merely the end of white supremacy, but the rejection of the idea that the state may sort people into categories and dispense rights, opportunities and punishments accordingly. By clinging to racialised legislation, the ANC has betrayed that victory and entrenched the same thinking under a different banner.

Real redress does not come from demographic targets, ministerial decrees or compliance certificates. It comes from growth. It comes from jobs. It comes from a state that works. When businesses are free to hire on merit, expand without fear of political interference, and invest without the constant threat of expropriation or regulatory punishment, opportunity expands naturally to those who have been locked out by history.

The tragedy is that South Africa does not lack talent or ambition. It lacks a government willing to treat its citizens as individuals rather than as representatives of racial blocs. Every new race law pushes us further from non-racialism and closer to a brittle, resentful society where success is viewed with suspicion and failure is endlessly excused.

Apartheid’s great crime was not only what it did, but the logic it normalised. South Africa will only move forward when that logic is finally abandoned. Until then, we are not correcting the sins of the past, we are preserving them, repackaged and rebranded, at the expense of the country’s future.

Nicholas Woode-Smith is the Managing Editor of the Rational Standard and a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation. He writes in his personal capacity.