Faizel Patel – 02/08/2021
University of Johannesburg professor and political analyst, Steven Friedman says while the negotiated settlement of 1994 it is claimed ended racial domination and created the foundation for a prosperous democracy, greedy politicians betrayed the promise of a new society.
Professor Friedman was speaking to Radio Islam about his new book ‘Prisoners of the Past’.
In the book, Professor Friedman offers an incisive analysis of South Africa’s incomplete transition by demonstrating how ‘path dependence’ has entrenched a political economy of insiders and outsiders that reinforces the racial and social inequalities of the past.
Professor Friedman says the story we often told is that South Africa solved its problems in 1994.
However, he says this is not the case.
“The point is we didn’t solve terribly many problems in 1994 at all. We solved only one problem in 1994 and obviously it was a problem we had to solve, we couldn’t tackle any other problems unless we solved that problem and that was of course the problem that ninety percent of the country did not have basic human rights.”
Professor Friedman says there has been some changes in South Africa.
“I’m certainly not saying that nothing has changed since 1994. A lot has changed, but the basic patterns remain the same and as that academic description says the most important thing that remains the same is that the society is divided into insiders and outsiders.”
Professor Friedman argues in his book that the root of the problem is that both the old economic power holders and the new political leadership have believed for twenty-seven years that what South Africa is trying to do is give every citizen what whites had under apartheid.
Listen to the interview with Professor Steven Friedman
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