The African National Congress

Nelson Mandela was able to focus the world's attention on the inequities between the impoverished black indigenous majority population in South Africa and the ruling imperialist white minority South Africans by his resistance to Apartheid through his dreadful years of imprisonment. The world, looking in on that mass travesty of justice and inhumanity, brought its censure to bear on the self-consciousness of the ruling whites, and Apartheid became history.

It was thought that South Africa, with Nelson Mandela in political charge - a tired, but triumphantly feted and much older man on his release - would illuminate the way forward for other African countries, many of which were doing fairly well on their own recognizance, like Kenya and Ivory Coast. And for quite a while, under the celebrated Bishop Desmond Tutu, with his conciliatory societal emphasis, allied with the avuncular even-handedness of Nelson Mandela, South Africa discovered itself.

It is that country's great misfortune that despite its best intentions it has never been able to alleviate the extreme poverty of the majority of its people, through responsible self-rule. Nor has it been able to cope with the vicious violence and a rising tide of crime in the country. Land re-distribution was slow to begin, and it never did manage to solve most of the country's problems.

But, through the good work of the ANC the country forged ahead and did what it could, battling the double scourges of poverty and endemic disease, particularly the spread of HIV-AIDS. Now, after years of management and some mismanagement, its second president now deposed, (following Nelson Mandela's retirement) is denouncing his party as corrupt, riddled with nepotism and engaged in a cult of personality.

Well, it might be said most certainly that South Africa's first black president was regaled by the world at large as his country's liberator, and that spoke of a cult of personality. Now that the Zulu-representing Jacob Zuma is about to ascend to the presidency, to the wild jubilation of the Zulu population, tribalism raises its ugly head. Bishop Tutu too has had his say, outraged at the party's unusual moving aside of former president Thabo Mbeki before his term ended.

It's true that Jacob Zuma is no sterling citizen of the world; he has engaged in corrupt dealings, he was accused of rape, he certified himself as ignorant of the cause of AIDS prevention. But he also condemned the atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe against his own people, while Thabo Mbeki continued to placate Mugabe, who refused to accept the majority vote for his political adversary.

As president, Thabo Mbeki's government did little to prevent his own disaffected people from preying on and sometimes killing, refugees from Zimbabwe, desperate people who had sought refuge in South Africa. As president, Thabo Mbeki appointed an utter scientific ignoramous as health minister for the country, one who herself fired a health director who sought to educate South Africans properly in AIDS prevention.

Unfortunately, South Africa now appears to have regressed. It is split once again across tribal lines of ancient animosities, it is promising to become less responsibly functional than it has long aspired to become. Why do these failures occur and recur constantly on that continent?