Race and Ethnicity

Violence attributed to online hate speech has increased worldwide. Societies confronting the trend must deal with questions of free speech and censorship on widely used tech platforms.

The birth of Archie, the first son of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, has led to British media speculation, picked up by the New York Times, that the Queen (actually, in conjunction with the Theresa May government) may dispatch them to Africa for a undetermined period. Their role, beyond lubricating the UK’s ties with its former African colonies, would be to build support for the Commonwealth of Nations. It would also get the Royal couple out of the media circus surrounding Archie’s birth. There is further speculation that Archie’s mixed race would make the family particularly attractive to Africans. Perhaps. The Times quotes Trevor Phillips, a historian of Caribbean migration to the UK and himself from British Guinea, as saying that the idea is an “open-and-shut brilliant notion.” For Phillips, the family “symbolizes leaving behind the colonial inheritance” and that they “will create a narrative that is about modernity and glamour and diversity.” On the other hand, Kehinde Andrews, professor of black studies at the University of Birmingham, said that “they send her (Meghan) out to the dark parts of the world to shore up the Commonwealth….Using Meghan Markle as part of a P.R. campaign to maintain those links is the worst possible outcome.” What about the Africans? Of the Commonwealth’s fifty-three members, nineteen are in sub-Saharan Africa. By and large, Commonwealth membership is not a political issue. It is largely irrelevant to African political concerns. However, African elites like the stage that the Commonwealth conferences, games, and other activities provide them. A Nigerian, Emeka Anyaoku, was the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, resident in London, from 1990 to 2000. South Africa almost immediately rejoined the Commonwealth, from which it had withdrawn during apartheid days, after its transition to “non-racial” democracy in 1994, in a glittering ceremony at Westminster Abbey attended by the Queen. Many Africans appear to be as fascinated by Harry, Meghan, and Archie, as everybody else world-wide. But the royals’ handlers will need to take care that the family’s mixed race is not presented in a patronizing way. Further, Africans will pick upon British racism that has surfaced with respect to the family, such as radio host with the BBC tweeting an image of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee captioned “Royal baby leaves hospital.” The BBC immediately fired the host, but the image was already viral on social media. Doubtlessly it circulates in Africa.  It is well known that Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Commonwealth, is concerned that it survives. Supporters of the UK’s departure from the European Union also see the Commonwealth as providing more palatable partners than the Europeans, though, of course, the European Union is a far more powerful economic bloc than all of Africa. At this stage, it is unclear whether Meghan, Harry, and Archie actually will be off to Africa or how long they would stay. British media speculates they would be gone for anywhere from “a few months” to “two or three years.” If they do assume the role of emissaries to the Commonwealth, they would also, presumably, visit the powerhouses: Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and others. But, a royal focus on Africa and the Commonwealth, if done carefully, could be a net positive for its African members and for the UK.

Today, South Africans will vote for national and provincial assemblies, who in turn will form national and provincial governments. Polls open at 7:00 a.m., and close at 9:00 p.m., though those in line at the closing will be able to vote. South Africans will choose between parties, not candidates, under South Africa’s system of proportional representation. Counting begins immediately, and final results are likely to be released by Saturday, May 11.  The media is focused on the elections as a referendum on the governing African National Congress (ANC) and its reformer leader Cyril Ramaphosa. At the beginning of 2018, he orchestrated the ouster of the scandal-ridden ANC leader and state president, Jacob Zuma. There is particular interest in how the ANC will do in Gauteng. It is the most populous and richest of South Africa’s nine provinces and includes Johannesburg and Pretoria. The media is also focused on the black middle class as the key to the fortunes of the ANC in Gauteng and perhaps the country in general. The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA) is also seeking black middle class support, while the third major party, the left-wing radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), is pitching to the urban poor. ANC support in Gauteng has been declining over the past decade. This time, the ANC could be frozen out of the provincial government, or forced to enter into a coalition to form a provincial government. The ANC has long since lost to the DA in the Western Cape—the second wealthiest and most developed province—including in the city of Cape Town. Loss of Gauteng risks the ANC becoming a party with an overwhelmingly rural base. At election time in South Africa, the media frequently “discovers” a voter demographic and exaggerates its political importance. In the local government elections of 2016 it was the “born frees,” blacks born after the end of apartheid in 1994, whose political behavior was anticipated to be “different.” However, that demographic, like others of that age in most western democracies, failed to vote in large numbers and by and large had little impact on the outcome of the elections. This year it is the “black middle class,” which is “growing.” A story in the New York Times states that blacks are 90 percent of South Africa’s population. However, that number would include Coloureds, identified by outsiders as of mixed race, by some others as “black,” but often by themselves as a separate race. In any event, their electoral behavior is very different from black Africans; Coloureds usually support the opposition DA, while blacks have overwhelmingly supported the ANC. Further, the black middle class is unlikely to be monolithic in its voting preferences.  The Unilever Institute for Strategic Marketing at the University of Cape Town estimates that the size of the black middle class is 5.6 million out of 58 million South Africans, or just under 10 percent of the population. Other estimates are substantially lower, but all such estimates involve definitional issues—what is “middle class” and who is “black,” for example. But, taking the Unilever figure at face value, the “black middle class” is small compared to the black Africans that live in townships and rural areas. It may be large enough to be significant in Johannesburg, though even that can be questioned, but it is unlikely to be so elsewhere in the country.  

On May 8, South Africans will vote in national elections for the sixth time since the end of apartheid and the transition to “non-racial” elections in 1994. Most observers judge the quality of South African elections as on par with those in Japan and the United States. Hence, issues about the conduct of elections are not about the possibility of rigging or voter fraud. Rather they are similar to those in the United States, such as transparency around campaign finance and concerns about declining voter turnout. Proportional Representation The constitution mandates a proportional system of parliamentary representation. Voters will cast ballots for parties at the national and provincial levels, not individual candidates. There are four hundred seats in the National Assembly. Each party’s leadership draws up a list of candidates and then rank orders them by name. If, say, a party wins 25 percent of the vote, it wins one hundred seats in the National Assembly, and the first hundred names on the list of candidates take seats in the National Assembly. If a minor party wins 1 percent of the vote, it would still get four seats in parliament, and several did so in 2014 and are likely to do so again on May 8. This system is designed to promote party unity and concentrate power in the party leadership, who rank-orders the party’s candidates. Moving up the rank order list requires a candidate to be in good graces with the party leadership. If a MP breaks with their party, they must resign their seat; voters did not vote for them, but for the party to which they belonged.  While voters vote for a party, not an individual, the party leader is the “face” of the party. Ballots in fact have a small photograph of the party leader as well as the party symbol by each box that a voter would check. Once new members of the National Assembly are in place, they elect the president. If one party has a majority of seats, it will elect as president the first person on its electoral list.  While there are forty-eight political parties contesting, only three have a reasonable chance of forming a government. They are the African National Congress (ANC), the Democratic Alliance (DA), and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). But proportional representation provides for representation of very small parties, so an additional seven might win up to three or four seats each.  South Africa is a constitutional democracy, not a parliamentary democracy. Therefore, while the ANC has had a large majority in the National Assembly since 1994, and each president has been the party leader, South Africa’s constitution limits what the National Assembly and the state executive can do.  The African National Congress The ANC is the party of Nelson Mandela and is seen as the leader of the anti-apartheid struggle. It is an umbrella coalition, comprising the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). They field parliamentary candidates that run on the ANC electoral list. The SACP is a clandestine organization, so it does not publish the names of its candidates. However, many of them are widely known. Where their candidates are placed on the ANC electoral list is the result of horse-trading.  In theory, the ANC is a non-racial party, and its leadership includes a few whites (mostly from the SACP) and a few more Asians. But its electoral support is overwhelmingly black. It is centrist on economic policy, despite the SACP and COSATU component. Much of its senior leadership is suspicious of the United States, seeing it as a fundamentally racist society. Race is the greatest predictor of how a South African will vote. About 80 percent of South Africans self-identify as black—hence the ANC’s substantial margin of victory in every national election. However, by no means all blacks vote for the ANC. In the last elections it won 249 seats with 62.15 percent of the vote. The party leader and state president is Cyril Ramaphosa, a close colleague of Nelson Mandela. Within the ANC he is opposed by the supporters of the former party leader, Jacob Zuma, who presided over a semi-criminal government until he was removed by the ANC from office in 2018 in a move orchestrated by Cyril Ramaphosa. The Zuma wing is populist in rhetoric and makes successful use of patronage to retain power even after Zuma’s departure. Ramaphosa is trying to reform the party and state-owned enterprises (SOE), such as South African Airways and the electricity utility Eskom, but faces serious pushback from Zuma’s allies dependent on SOEs for patronage. According to polls, Ramaphosa is the most popular of the party leaders, and because he is the “face” of the ANC, that will benefit the governing party. Nevertheless, because memories of the Zuma administration’s poor governance are fresh, most observers think the ANC’s percentage of the vote will decline, perhaps to the mid-50s. The Democratic Alliance The official opposition is the DA. Formerly a party of whites, its electoral support comes from the racial minorities: whites, Coloureds (not a pejorative label in South Africa), and Asians. It is seeking to shed its predominantly white image and appeal to blacks, especially those that are urban and middle class. Its party leader is Mmusi Maimane, a black African and former member of the Johannesburg City Council. However, thus far, the DA does not appear to be successful in its racial rebranding. That effort has been set-back by episodes of blatant white racism from individuals who identified with the DA. The party is center-right in economic policy and strongly emphasizes the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and good government. It governs the Western Cape (including Cape Town), generally regarded as the best governed province in the country. The DA is viscerally pro-American. In 2014, it won 22.23 percent of the vote, or 89 seats. Most observers—including this one—think it will get about the same number of votes on May 8, while others predict a DA electoral collapse if the EFF surges.  The Economic Freedom Fighters The EFF is headed by Julius Malema, who left the ANC when he split with Zuma in 2012, largely the result of personal rivalries. He formed the EFF shortly after to contest the 2014 elections, in which it won 6.35 percent of the vote. The party bills itself as radical and left wing. It advocates expropriation of white wealth without compensation and its distribution to blacks and Coloureds. It calls for a greatly expanded role of the state in almost everything. It views itself as the advocate for the very poor, especially in the townships and urban areas. The party has used anti-democratic tactics on the floor of the National Assembly, and its stock-in-trade is anti-white rhetoric. Some observers characterize it as Afro-populist. The irony is that despite the feud between Malema and Zuma, their policies and approaches to governance have similarities. Malema, however, does like to say that he “loves white people.” Other than Malema’s support for Zimbabwe’s former dictator, Robert Mugabe, it does not seem interested in foreign affairs. Most observers think the EFF will increase its parliamentary representation—the question is by how much. The EFF tried to make land expropriation without compensation a central issue of the campaign, but despite domestic and foreign media hype, the effort has apparently largely failed. Instead, the issues appear to be corruption, jobs, and crime. Election Outcomes Opinion polling in South Africa is not strong, and moreover polling results are not consistent. For example, polls from different organizations predict outcomes in some cases ten percentage points apart. Nevertheless, a plausible hypothesis is that the ANC will win 56 percent of the vote, the DA about 23 percent, the EFF about 11 percent, with the remainder divided among the minority parties. That outcome would mean that the ANC could govern without coalition partners. Most observers think that about 70 percent of eligible voters will go to the polls. This may be overly sanguine. In the recent Nigerian elections, only 35 percent of registered voters went to the polls. Nigeria is of course different from South Africa, but in both countries a substantial part of the electorate, especially the youth, are disaffected from the political system and, as in Nigeria, many South African youth may stay away.  Despite media hype that these elections are potentially “transformative,” they are unlikely to change dramatically the South African political landscape. Nevertheless, if the EFF gets more than 10 percent of the vote, if the DA gets 20 percent or less, and if the ANC percentage falls to near 50 percent, there will be apocalyptic headlines, even though the ANC will continue to govern. It is expected that new EFF votes will likely be at the expense of the ANC. If the EFF “does well,” receiving between 12 and 15 percent, Ramaphosa’s critics within the ANC will be emboldened to move against him, and his reform program will likely be set back.  Twenty-five years after the end of apartheid, poverty in South Africa is still mostly black and Coloured—who together make up almost 90 percent of the population—and they are the electoral target of the EFF. Yet in the townships and rural areas, there appears to be skepticism about the EFF’s ability to govern, and the ANC is given credit for the system of welfare payments that have greatly reduced extreme poverty. There has been no erosion of the economic privilege of whites, who are about 9 percent of the population. Nevertheless, the country does not appear to be close to a revolution, even at the ballot box. Racial minorities will continue to vote for the DA, while blacks will continue to make up the bulk of the ANC’s support, and virtually all of the EFF’s.  

A theme of commentary on South Africa’s May 8 elections is that many voters will be motivated by anger at corruption and growing economic and social inequality, particularly the continuing poverty of the black majority. Commentators are also noting the low levels of voter registration among young people. There is speculation that such factors will lead to an erosion of support for the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed South Africa since the transition to “non-racial” democracy in 1994. At present, it is anticipated that the principal beneficiary of a decline in ANC support will be the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and, less likely, the formal opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA). While polling shows that President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is the ANC party leader, is much more popular than the EFF’s Julius Malema or the DA’s Mmusi Maimane, under South Africa’s system of proportional representation, voters vote for a party, not an individual. In the run-up to the elections, the BBC has done a service by presenting statistical data on how South Africa has changed since 1994. The data is drawn from Stats SA, the official statistics office, and think tanks. South African statistics, official and non-official, are credible. The BBC’s selection of statistics shows greater social progress since the end of apartheid than the current political debate would indicate, but that poverty remains mostly black and coloured. (Coloureds often regard themselves as a separate race, not of mixed race.) Between 2006 and 2015, poverty declined across all races. For blacks, it declined from 76.8 percent to 64.2 percent; for coloureds, from 56.1 percent to 41.3 percent; for Indians/Asians, from 20.9 percent to 5.9 percent, and for whites from 1.4 percent to 1 percent. It is worth noting that much of this progress was achieved between 2006 and 2011, at which point the declines stalled or even reversed. Hence, for some, progress has not been seen or felt for eight years.  Other data also shows some improvement. For example, in 1996, 58.2 percent of households had access to electricity and 60.8 percent had access to piped water; in 2016 it was 90.3 percent and 83.5 percent, respectively. Despite improvement since the end of apartheid, poverty and unemployment remain high. It can be politically dangerous for a government in power when a positive trajectory is interrupted, as poverty reduction among Blacks and Coloureds has been. South Africa’s rate of economic growth has also been low. The country has recovered only slowly from the global recession of 2008, and the prices of some South African export commodities have fallen. Further, the poor governance and bad economic policies of the 2009–2018 administration of President Zuma undermined domestic and foreign investment necessary for growth. All of that said, voting behavior is still largely determined by race, and the ANC has been the political party of blacks, and is institutionally robust. It may not perform as badly as the pundits predict on May 8. 

Jack McCaslin is a research associate for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. An article from Fox News recently called attention to the killing of Christians in Nigeria by comparing it to the deadly Easter Sunday suicide bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. According to the article, the attacks “highlight the dangers that remain from asymmetric terrorism and violence against Christians in ethnically and religiously divided societies.” However, linking these tragedies to each other and to a perceived global trend of violence against Christians mischaracterizes the nature of the conflicts in Nigeria.  The appropriateness of a comparison between Sri Lanka and Nigeria is not clear. Their ethnic make-up, social statistics, and post-colonial experiences are vastly different. Not least, Christians and Muslims are a tiny minority in Sri Lanka, a predominately Buddhist country, while in Nigeria, Christians and Muslims each constitute about half of the population. Identifying the perpetrators of atrocities in both countries is difficult. Although the Islamic State has claimed responsibility, it is not clear what its role was in the Sri Lanka bombings or, for that matter, what its role is in northern Nigeria.  With respect to Nigeria, Fox cites the recent killing of eleven and the wounding of thirty in Gombe. A police officer got into an argument with a procession of children during Easter activities, which reportedly led him to drive into it. It is not clear what the police officer’s motives were; Boko Haram is active in Gombe but it seems that they were not involved. Boko Haram appears to be largely an indigenous movement, and there is little evidence of strategic or tactical cooperation between the Islamic State or al-Qaeda affiliates and Boko Haram, though they share a common belief system, are murderously hostile to Christians, and have exchanged various forms of communication, the significance of which remains unclear. The article also notes the killing of seventeen Christians and the wounding of eight in Nassarawa state early in April. No link is provided, but the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker (NST) documented an attack in Numa Kochu, resulting in the death of a pregnant woman and several children. This seems to fit the description in the article. According to reports, Numa Kochu is a predominantly Christian community comprised of those of the Mada ethnic group. The victims’ funeral services were led by local leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria, a prominent religious organization. As is often the case, the affiliation and motive of the perpetrators are not clear. They have been described as “gunmen” and “herdsmen” by various Nigerian media outlets, and reference is made to the farmer-herder conflict in Nassarawa, which has been intense and deadly. It is worth noting that in some statements made by community leaders and the security services, no reference is made to religion.  Christians are certainly murdered in Nigeria, and in some cases, they are murdered because they are Christian. But, despite Boko Haram’s murderous hostility to Christians, most of its victims have always been Muslim, not least because the insurgency takes place in a predominantly Muslim part of the country. (Boko Haram’s killing of such great numbers of Muslims, based on a wide definition of apostasy, is understood to be one of the reasons that the group split in 2016.) For what it is worth, data from the NST shows a decline in Boko Haram attacks on churches and an increase in attacks on mosques over time. Indeed, the smaller number of Christian deaths at the hands of Boko Haram likely reflects the fact that most of them have fled.  Today, most Christian deaths are occurring in the Middle Belt, where there are overlapping quarrels over land and water use, ethnicity, and religion—and where Christians are numerous. But when Christians or Muslims are killed in the Middle Belt, it is not clear exactly why. Is it because they are a farmer or a herder? Or because they are ethnically Fulani, many of whom are herders, or of a small ethnic group, who are often farmers? Or is it because they are Muslim, which most Fulani are, or Christian, which those of many small ethnic groups are? These questions are not easily answered. Ethnicity can often correspond to a particular religion, both of which can sometimes correspond to a distinct way of life. Or not. In Zamfara, where the violence is particularly bad, both herders and farmers are mostly Muslim and mostly Fulani. There is also an important criminal element involving bandits and cattle rustlers. Another way to think about it: violence may fall along ethnic and religious lines, but it is not necessarily driven by those distinctions.  Religious polarization is a real challenge in Nigeria, and it has likely increased. The government has been unable to destroy Boko Haram or end the local conflicts in the Middle Belt. Further, the economy remains in the doldrums, and the country now has the most people living in extreme poverty in the world. But linking Nigerian tragedies to the tragedy that occurred in Sri Lanka and a global trend of violence against Christians overlooks important nuances in Nigeria’s multiple ongoing conflicts. 

South Africa’s national elections on May 8 are likely to be dominated by the governing African National Congress (ANC) and the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA). However, the third largest party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), is likely to continue to benefit from outsized media attention because of its economic radicalism and its anti-white stance. In the national elections in 2014, its first election after being founded in 2013, it won 6 percent of the vote, and in local government elections of 2016, it won 8 percent.  Most observers think that EFF’s will hit a ceiling of around ten percent of the vote. Among other factors, it does not have the grass-roots organization and funding that the ANC and the DA enjoy, nor does it have access to the patronage that does so much to sustain the ANC. On the other hand, its leader, Julius Malema, has charisma, and he is popular in the townships. The ANC is widely perceived as corrupt, while the DA is yet to overcome the perception that it is the political party of whites. Some South Africans see the EFF as providing the left-wing alternative that the country’s poor need. But, Malema’s behavior can be erratic and unpredictable, and EFF policies are little more than populism with an anti-white coloration. The EFF is also largely untested in the rural areas, the bulwark of ANC support. Further, its disruptive tactics that include the threat of violence and intimidation on the floor of parliament are seen by at least some South Africans as antithetical to parliamentary democracy. If, contrary to most predictions, the EFF exceeds ten percent of the vote on May 8, the ANC, in response, would likely move in a more radical direction. That could jeopardize Cyril Ramaphosa, now the party leader and chief of state. He is seeking to revive the economy through increased investment and other reforms in the context of free market capitalism, but he continues to face significant opposition within the party associated with the ousted Zuma. With a significant increase in parliamentary seats, the EFF could even contemplate displacing the DA as the official opposition sometime in the future, especially if the latter falls significant below the 22 percent of the vote it achieved in 2014. However, under even the most optimistic scenarios, the EFF is unlikely to be able to displace the ANC as the ruling party anytime soon.  If, however, the EFF’s results on May 8 are disappointing, internal pressure within the party to merge with the ANC is likely to increase. Julius Malema is a former leader of the ANC Youth League. He broke with Jacob Zuma in 2012, then the ANC party leader and chief of state, ostensibly because Zuma was not “radical” enough, that is, Zuma was not moving to redistribute wealth from the white minority to the black majority. Malema founded the EFF soon after and apparently received a subvention from Robert Mugabe, then president of Zimbabwe and known for expelling most of that country’s white farmers. But, there was also an important personal dimension to the Zuma-Malema quarrel, and Malema would go on to lead the chorus of those opposed to Zuma’s corruption and the “state capture” by his cronies. Now that Zuma is out, however, at least some of the original rationale for the split is gone. Should a merger happen, the EFF would likely constitute the new left wing of the ANC, further to the left than the South African Communist party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), both of which run candidates under the ANC umbrella as part of a parliamentary Triple Alliance. It is unclear whether the SACP and COSATU would remain in the Triple Alliance should the EFF merge with the ANC, especially if Malema’s influence were to increase. It is also unclear whether the EFF, merged with the much larger ANC, would retain much coherence beyond loyalty to Malema.

     

In 1994, retired South Africa Defense Force general and Afrikaner tribal leader Constand Viljoen threw his support behind the move to replace apartheid with non-racial democracy. Had he opted otherwise, South Africa’s history would likely have been different. At the same time, he created a political party, the Freedom Front, to provide a political home for white, conservative Afrikaners in the new, non-racial South Africa. (The party’s name and structure has evolved; it is now called Freedom Front Plus.) In the 1994 elections, South Africa’s first conducted without racial qualification, the party won 424,555 votes, or 2.2 percent of the vote. In 2014, the party won 165,715 votes, or 0.9 percent of the total votes. Under South Africa’s system of proportional representation, that translated into four seats in parliament. Viljoen’s goal has been achieved: conservative, white Afrikaners have a voice in contemporary South African politics, if very small.  Looking to the May 8 elections, the party rolled-out its election manifesto in early March. Party leader Pieter Groenewald’s speech was mostly in Afrikaans and sounded themes to be found on the white and coloured right. (‘Coloured’ is not a pejorative term in South Africa; coloureds regard themselves as a separate, not mixed, race. They are mostly Afrikaans-speaking, and many are members of the Dutch Reformed Church.) Among the points Groenewald made: Whites (and, presumably, coloureds) are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for equal treatment. Minorities are bullied. "Affirmative action" and "black economic empowerment" disadvantage whites and coloureds. Neither is any longer necessary because there are now more black university graduates than whites, and black economic empowerment has benefited only a tiny elite.  He urged party supporters to vote. Under proportional representation, every vote counts. Groenewald’s criticism of affirmative action and black economic empowerment is shared by many South Africans across the political spectrum. He apparently did not address the persistence of black poverty, white wealth, and the inequality between the two, a persistent blind spot among the Freedom Front and white groups on the right. Instead, he tapped into an Afrikaner sense of grievance—if whites in general have done well in post-apartheid South Africa, English speakers have done better than Afrikaners. It is difficult to imagine that the Freedom Front Plus will increase its share of the vote in the May elections. However, if it does so, it is likely to be at the expense of the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, which is the electoral home of most white and coloured South Africans. Perhaps the real significance of the Freedom Front Plus is that it is a vehicle for a tiny, largely disaffected minority to participate in South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy.

Nelson Mandela was born on July 1, 1918, and passed away on December 5, 2013. So, this year marks the centenary of his birth and December 5 the fifth anniversary of his death. At the huge FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on December 2, more than one hundred thousand people participated in the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100, sponsored by the Motsepe Foundation. The event raised some $7 billion in commitments for the relief of poverty across the African continent, from big corporations, governments, and small donors. Performers included Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Usher, and speakers included a variety of South African political, economic, and traditional leaders, as well as Mandela’s family. In the audience was Oprah, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and numerous other heads of state. The event, hosted in part by South African comedian Trevor Noah, showed that Nelson Mandela’s international appeal is undiminished. Within South Africa, Nelson Mandela remains the national icon and a unifying figure in a society fractured by race and class. Nevertheless, criticism of him persists and is growing, especially among radical political figures. Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwe dictator deposed by his deputy and military in November 2017, has been especially vocal in his criticism. He, along with some South African critics, argued that during the transition from apartheid to non-racial democracy, Mandela conceded too much to the white minority and preserved their white privilege. They note that the gulf between the wealth of white people and everybody else is greater now than it was under apartheid. (The event itself was marred by numerous muggings as the crowd broke up to go home.) The persistence of black poverty and the slow pace of social change fuels criticism of Mandela. Among these critics, there is little understanding of the limits imposed by political and power realities at the time of the transition: the apartheid state retained full control of the security services and was far from defeated. The transition was therefore a negotiated settlement in which the apartheid government, led by the National Party's F.W. de Klerk, ceded political power to the black majority while preserving white economic power. Some years after their death, national heroes often face critical reappraisals which take historical realities little into account. With respect to Mandela, that process has started in South Africa, but the dominant narrative remains that Mandela’s achievements in bringing South Africa to non-racial democracy in the context of the ideals of racial reconciliation were extraordinary. 

During a recent CFR roundtable, Professor Safiya Noble spoke about digital human rights – an issue on which she is advising the United Nations. Dr. Noble explores the biases against women and people of color that are embedded in search engine results and algorithms.

International and Nigerian media are reporting that intercommunal violence led to fifty-five deaths in Kasuwan Magani, about thirty kilometers east of Kaduna in Kaduna state. Nigerian media reports that the state authorities have arrested and jailed roughly twenty-two suspects. The violence is likely related to similar violence in February, which left over ten dead and led to the widespread destruction of property. Authorities had arrested around sixty-five suspects in connection to February's violence, though their cases are still pending. Nigerian media provides few details as to the cause of the violence, which started in the market near the end of the day. The governor of Kaduna state, Nasir el-Rufai, toured the town with local traditional and religious leaders. He also spoke with leaders of local Christian and Muslim organizations, which in turn have called on their co-religionists to respect and tolerate the beliefs and practices of others, implying that there is a religious dimension to the episode. President Muhammadu Buhari has denounced the violence. In Kaduna state as elsewhere in the north and Middle Belt, the fault lines are usually, between Muslim, Fulani herders and Christian farmers from smaller ethnic groups, some of which the Fulani historically preyed upon to fuel the slave trade. Violence can fall along religious, occupational, and ethnic lines. There is also a criminal dimension with cattle rustling, though that does not appear to have played a role in this particular episode. Hence it is often unclear whether a victim was killed over land use, ethnicity, religion, as retaliation, or in a robbery. Perhaps taking a cue from Nigerian media—often southern and Christian in its sympathies—Western media frequently presents a narrative of Fulani aggression against Christians. The reality is often obscure, complicated, and intensely local. Historically, rioters and killers have operated with considerable impunity. With the reported arrest of sixty-five perpetrators in February and twenty-two this week, it is to be hoped that this may be changing. Too often, however, mass arrests have been followed by quiet releases. It is election season in Nigeria. Voting for the presidency and national assembly will occur in February 2019, followed shortly thereafter in March by gubernatorial and state assembly elections. Buhari is running for reelection against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is heading the ticket of the People's Democratic Party, which is the chief opposition party, as well as numerous other candidates. When he was elected president in 2015, Buhari vowed to restore security. He is now regularly criticized for his government’s inability to end ethnic clashes, as well as its failure to destroy the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, which continues to be active in the northeast. Thus far there is no evidence of Boko Haram complicity in the Kasuwan Magani violence. 

President Trump tweeted on August 22 that he has directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures” and the “large scale killing of farmers.” In his tweet, the president quoted Fox News host Tucker Carlson that “South African government is now seizing land from white farmers.” Carlson had interviewed Marian Tupy, a senior policy analyst at a conservative Washington think tank, who recently penned an article calling on Trump to “warn South Africa on land expropriations,” comparing the new South African policy with that of Zimbabwe. Among a number of rebukes from South African media, civil society, and government, Deputy President Mabuza stated that, “as the leadership of the ANC and government, we are clear that the implementation of land reform measures must not result in social fractures and racial polarization.” The widespread killing of white farmers is a trope of AfriForum, a predominately Afrikaner organization opposed to land reform on the basis that it is a threat to South Africa’s white population. In June, an AfriForum delegation visited Washington, D.C., and met with, among others, think tanks, the office of Senator Ted Cruz, USAID, and appeared on Carlson’s show. However, the far more credible AgriSA, an industry group, indicates that farm murders are at a nineteen-year low. With respect to the land issue as well as the murder rate, statistics are generally poor. Nobody really knows how many white farmers there are, nor is there a consensus definition of "farmer" or "farm worker," which clouds the data. Furthermore, statistics as to the racial distribution of land ownership in South Africa are also in dispute. That being said, that white South Africans own a majority of land and account for an outsized proportion of economic activity is clear. There is a general consensus in South Africa on the need for land reform, but less over what it should look like. The governing African National Congress has called for constitutional amendments that could broaden or clarify the government’s current ability to expropriate land without compensation, which already exists in the constitution as it is. President Cyril Ramaphosa has stated that land reform will follow the rule of law, and that its implementation must not adversely affect economic growth or food security. The issue of land reform is being dealt with in a transparent political process now underway. Reform will likely incorporate both the “release” of public or tribal trust land for redistribution, as well as “expropriation” without compensation from private individuals.  For outsiders, the South African debate over land reform is distorted by the experience of Zimbabwe. The Mugabe regime expropriated without compensation private land using vigilante violence and ignoring the rule of law and the rulings of the judiciary. By contrast, South Africa is a constitutional democracy with a record of following the law. The constitution limits what parliament can do and acknowledges the right to private property. Whatever the outcome of the current political process, the results will likely be challenged in the courts, which have a history of standing up to the government. Its decisions cannot be ignored by the government. A recent example clearly illustrates the fundamental difference between South Africa and Zimbabwe. The political transition in South Africa from former President Jacob Zuma, accused of hundreds of counts of corruption, to current President Ramaphosa occurred within legal and constitutional bounds and even followed ANC party procedure. In Zimbabwe, by contrast, President Robert Mugabe was deposed by his deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, with the help of the military in a thinly-veiled coup. For the umpteenth time, South Africa is not Zimbabwe.  

On August 6, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board compared South Africa’s Ramaphosa government to the dictatorships in Venezuela and Zimbabwe and their seizure of private property. The focus of the editorial board's ire is proposals within the governing African National Congress (ANC) for constitutional changes that allegedly would facilitate the confiscation of land without compensation. This is an overstatement. The Ramaphosa government is not going down the Zimbabwe or Venezuelan path. More credibly, however, the Journal also attacks the oft-cited claim of those who support expropriation that blacks own a miniscule proportion of land in South Africa.  The ANC's proposed legislation would clarify the constitutional provisions that already provide for the government to take ownership of land, but not expand them. Ramaphosa and the ANC acknowledge that the constitution’s property clause already “enables the state to effect expropriation of land with just and equitable compensation and also expropriation without compensation in the public interest.” State President Cyril Ramaphosa had opposed a constitutional amendment as unnecessary. It is likely that the ANC has adopted the proposal for a constitutional amendment that will do little or nothing to outflank the left opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on the land question in the run-up to the 2019 national elections.  The EFF has become the third largest party in parliament largely because of its advocacy of “expropriation without compensation” of white wealth in general, farmland and mines specifically. Even so, it is easy to exaggerate the importance of the EFF because of the media attention it gets; it won only 6.35 percent of the total vote in the 2014 elections and 8.19 percent in 2016. This should also be seen as the context for the ANC’s statement that it has identified “139 farms” to be test cases for expropriation without compensation. But, such “test cases” would take years to work their way through the courts. Unlike Venezuela or Zimbabwe, South Africa is a constitutional democracy conducted according to the rule of law with a strong judiciary, civil society, and free press. Hence, Ramaphosa appears to be looking for other ways to increase black ownership of land. Up to now, ANC governments have allotted a miniscule percentage of the budget to land reform, reflecting the traditional urban base of the party and the reality of very rapid urbanization of the country. (The ANC’s base became predominately rural only during the Zuma administration.)  How much of South Africa’s surface is owned by which race is a largely meaningless question. Under apartheid, government-owned land was seen as “white-owned” Now, the government is non-racial. A significant percentage of South Africa’s land is held by tribal trusts, not by individuals. In effect, it is under the control of traditional tribal chiefs. As in the United States, big, commercial farms are increasingly owned by corporations rather than by individuals. In fact, the number of white farmers in South Africa is shrinking, even as the white population has grown by 6.8 percent since the 2001 census. The white percentage of South Africa’s total population continues to decline, largely because of a lower birthrate compared to other racial groups and migration from other African countries. The Journal cites the highly credible South Africa Institute of Race Relations’ (SAIIR) estimate that blacks “control” 30–50 percent of the land, and also correctly notes that where Africans were compensated for the loss of their land under apartheid, the overwhelming majority chose cash rather than land. If land reform would appear to be largely a red herring, why does it resonate among blacks? Part of the reason is the continued under performance of the South African economy and its slow recovery from the worldwide recession that began in 2008. Slow recovery has been exacerbated by the bad economic policies and the corruption, known as “state capture,” of the 2009–2018 Zuma administration. But, perhaps the most fundamental reason for the focus on “expropriation without compensation” is the intractable reality of black poverty. The social and economic realities for the black majority in South Africa have changed little since apartheid, while the gulf between white wealth and that of other racial groups has probably increased. The causes of black poverty range from the ongoing consequences of hundreds of years of exclusion of black Africans from much of the economy to the persistent failure of primary and secondary education for blacks since the end of apartheid. There are many other factors, including the fact that South Africa has eleven legal languages, and English—the language of the international economy—is the first language of less than 10 percent of the population. But, “expropriation without compensation” presents itself as a solution to poverty. That is a more attractive alternative explanation for poverty that more abstract discussions around economic policy or the shortcomings of the educational system.