Profiles in Diversity: Women in the New South Africa

Afterword

Afterword As WE CONCLUDE OUR JOURNEY through the profiles of the women in this volume, we find a thread of commonality that runs through almost of all their concerns for the future, and that is their focus on education. Most stress the need for the improvement and extension of education to the masses of the urban and rural underclass. This daunting task has been acknowledged by the current government, although the means of achieving these goals have not yet been worked out satisfactorily. In an attempt to overcome the First World-Third World dichotomy that plagues South Africa, the government introduced the policy of nationwide equity in education . In principle, the concept is worthy. In practice, it is likely to produce what one pundit predicted would lead to uniform mediocrity, when the country needs to generate a well-educated cadre of elite to lead in the twenty-first century. In promoting the talented and privileged, however, the government will have to continue to exclude those at the bottom of the social and economic ladder-a danger of which everyone is aware. Beyond the burden of dealing with the crisis in public education, the spiraling crime rate was ofconcern to the majority ofthe women whose profiles are included here. Political violence appears to be on the wane. Despite predictions from the doomsayers, South Africa managed to get through a series of local elections, including that in KwaZulu-Natal, with only minor eruptions between factions. After he took office in 1994, Nelson Mandela reached out to all ethnic groups in his country, ranging from Betsie Vorwoerd in Orania to the traditional chiefs and the business community, whose support was essential to maintain economic stability . In stepping down as head of the ANC, and paving the way for Thebo Mbeki to win a majority of the votes in the 1999 general election, Mandela may have opened a pandora's box. Some predict the dissatisfaction evidenced by the labor 221 PROFILES IN DIVERSITY unions in combination with the small but militant South Mrican Communist Party, may cause the ANC to splinter. The National Party no longer appears a creditable opposition, but new coalitions are being formed between those who have left the NP and other smaller parties. Then, too, there is the wishful thinking on the part of some that Buthelezi's IFP will muster sufficient muscle to reemerge and affiliate with the old NP or some combination of parties to win next time. Despite her embarrassment to her former husband, is the disgraced Winnie MadikizelaMandela to be written off in 1999? When Parliament adopted the constitution in May 1996, gender equality was assured: "every citizen is equally protected by law." In September, the High Court struck down some provisions in the constitution-those pertaining to the ongoing controversy of federalism versus nationalism-but the issue of equality was not questioned. In the new constitution a crack was left in the door concerning women's right to make their own decision regarding abortion. Three clauses seem to support women's right to choose, but no one of them specifically supports abortion . The abortion issue is just beginning to heat up in the country, and as Patience Tyalimpi pointed out in her profile, many of the church leaders are opposed to abortion, regardless of their denomination or their ethnicity. A major challenge in the future-no matter who is in power-is the still-unresolved problem of land redistribution. The Land Commission has already worked out some compromises regarding Cape Town's District Six, but that pales into insignificance (except to those affected) by comparison with the rural claims that have been put forth. In the meantime, rural blacks still have no large parcels ofland, if they own any at all. This, in turn, means that wive's and children's lives are barely affected by the changes that are sweeping over the urban and suburban areas of South Mrica. Attempts to unionize rural workers have so far been unsuccessful, as have those to bring domestics and their madams to the bargaining table. While the far right has been mostly silent, and although a few have trekked elsewhere , the large majority of Mrikaners are worried now that the tables have been turned. Two years after the ANC came to power, one woman spoke plaintively about the future of the Mrikaner children, who, as everyone recognizes, were not responsible for the old apartheid policies that hobbled black youths. "My son will never get a job.... He...