South Africa

Fast Facts

Location: Sub-Saharan Africa

Capitals: Pretoria (executive), Bloemfontein (judicial), Cape Town (executive)

Population: 60 million (2021)

Government Type: Parliamentary Republic

Language(s): English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, and a wide variety of indigenous languages

Climate: Sub-tropical and temperate, with arid desert in the northwest

GDP: USD $419 billion (2021)

Human Development Index Ranking: 0.709 (Moderate, 2019)

Overview

Africa’s second largest economy and 7th most developed country is a growing power. With an ambitious and realistic climate change mitigation approach, a robust presence in international sports, and overall political stability on a continent that often lacks it, it’s no wonder that South Africa is included in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) nation group of emerging, or recently emerged, major powers. Within a single generation, the country also moved from the status of being an international pariah under the apartheid regime to being a multi-racial, pluralistic democracy for tens of millions of people. But perennial issues still exist for millions of South Africans. Almost one-third of the country still lives on less than USD $1.90 per day, moderate rates of corruption continue to take place, and public health issues (including the prevalence of HIV/AIDS) remain an issue in South African society. Indeed, South Africa’s successes since the fall of apartheid law are not being felt by everyone - but they are overwhelming successes which remain nonetheless.

History

Credit: Doug Linstedt

Human settlement in modern-day South Africa has existed for thousands of years - if not longer. The original Black Africans of South Africa can be identified among one of four ethnic groups: the Northern and Central Nguni (Zulu-speaking peoples), the Southern Nguni (Xhosa-speaking peoples), the Swazi, and the Ndebele people. The name “Zulu” (which refers to a specific Nguni tribe) translates to “Heaven” or “Sky”, and comes from the name of the tribe’s founder in the 17th century. Many neighbouring tribes were crushed by the Zulu army, which had been re-organised and expanded upon by Shaka, the most famous king in Zulu history.

The first Europeans to establish colonial influence in South Africa were the Dutch, who did so at Cape Town in 1652. The colony was set up as a re-supply point for ships traveling from the Netherlands to Indonesia, where Dutch interests primarily lay. As the colony grew, it did not, in fact, enslave the local Khoisan people, as they supplied the colonists with cattle. Rather, slaves were imported from the East Indies and other areas of Africa. Millions of the mixed-race descendants of white settlers, Africans, and Asian slaves still live in South Africa’s largest cities (particularly Cape Town), and are known as “Cape Coloureds”.

Over time, British influence in South Africa came to eclipse that of the Dutch, and in the mid 1800s, the white descendants of Dutch settlers (known as Boers, or Afrikaners today) embarked upon the Great Trek, a pioneering journey bound inland from Cape Town, to live outside of British colonial administration. This was primarily due to escaping conflict with Xhosan neighbours, and the imposition of British law, such as the replacement of Dutch with English as the official language, and the abolition of slavery.

The First Boer War of 1880 broke out when the Boer settlements in South Africa challenged British authority by refusing to grant rights to non-Boers, and refusing to cede control over gold mines in the Transvaal region - particularly as the British pound was tied to the price (and, subsequently, production) of gold. The conflict resulted in a Boer victory, and the independence of the Transvaal and Orange Free State and, eventually, all of South Africa. Peace, however, was both uneasy and short-lived. The Second Boer War erupted in 1899 following the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand area, the extraction and sale of which would have made the otherwise-struggling Transvaal Republic easily rival the authority of the British. Demanding that the Transvaal Republic either reform or prepare for war, the British found Boer nationalism flaring up again, with conflict breaking out shortly after.

No sooner had South Africa achieved independence, had it been faced with a series of crises. The Union of South Africa had been established as a “white state”, to which Black communities were (understandably) outraged by. The African National Congress was established to combat this state of affairs in 1912, while the South African Communist Party emerged nearly a decade later. Job losses from a global recession, Afrikaner nationalism, and the passing of increasingly discriminatory legislation led to the rise of the apartheid regime in South Africa by 1948.

Apartheid, the Afrikaner word for “apartness”, was enacted by the all-white National Party of South Africa. Although it had not been consolidated until 1950, territorial segregation had begun as early as 1913, with the Land Act forcing Black Africans to live on reserves. Numerous other laws would be drafted along racial lines, enacted, and protested against, for the 50 years that apartheid rule lasted for.

The legendary Nelson Mandela, perhaps the most significant anti-apartheid activist, worked with de Klerk, the first president of South Africa to begin dismantling apartheid rule and draft a new national constitution. In 1993, he and de Klerk jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Mandela would, himself, later become president as head of the African National Congress, stepping down after one term as he promised.

Economy

Progress towards nationwide economic development has slowed in recent years, with unemployment remaining as high as 67% of people aged 15-24, and 44% of people aged 25 - 34. This COVID-19 crisis has not helped this situation either: the World Bank described South Africa’s economic contraction as “severe”, and its projected recovery rate as “moderate” in July of 2021. South Africa was by no means ready for the shock that COVID-19 created, given that the country was already in a recession due to declining commodity prices, declining foreign investment, and an insufficient electricity supply. This has combined with the pandemic to create a seriously precarious situation in which 40% of households could not afford to buy food in January 2021.

Nevertheless, South Africa has a strong economic foundation to work from. It boasts an abundant supply of natural resources, well developed critical sectors such as communications, transport, and finance, and the largest stock exchange in Africa, South Africa’s economy is both robust and stable. The country’s largest exports by value in 2021 were platinum, iron, gold, coal, and cars. Its main imports are electrical machinery, vehicles and aircraft, and chemicals.

The World’s Least Equal Society

Wealthy and impoverished neighbourhoods in Johannesburg sit adjacent to one another, separated by a single street. Credit: Johnny Miller, via The Economist

The Gini Coefficient is a percentage measurement (often converted to a decimal point between 0 and 1) that demonstrates a country’s equality of income distribution. It is often used by those analysing national and international trends such as economic development, poverty rates, and more. To use extreme examples of the Gini Coefficient, a country with a score of 0 would have perfect income equality, in which everyone earns the same salary per year, and a country with a Gini Coefficient of 1 would indicate that the entirety of a nation’s wealth belongs in the hands of an individual.

South Africa has the world’s highest Gini Coefficient, with a score of 0.63, meaning that 10% of the country owns more than 80% of the wealth. But what explains this level of extreme wealth inequality?

The first factor is the legacy of apartheid and a history of racism. The World Bank has identified that race inequality’s “contribution to income inequality amounts to 41 percent, while contribution of education is reduced to 30 percent.”. South Africa’s neighbours face a similar situation, with Namibia, Swaziland (eSwatini), Zambia, and Mozambique all holding comparable levels of income inequality. A lack of economic growth also means that industries are unable to properly expand. As such, new jobs are not being created to accommodate new entrants to the labour market - which includes both local youth and migrant workers. This particular issue appears to be something of a feedback loop: the economy is not growing, thus there are no jobs to lower unemployment, thus the economy is not growing. Major organisations point to the equalisation of worker salaries, improvement of equality for women and ethnic minorities, and better research on generational poverty as key contributors to eliminating widespread inequality. Better access to critical infrastructure, particularly education, and specifically within disadvantaged areas away from urban centers, will also help to pull millions of South Africa out of poverty.

Trivia

-The world’s first heart transplant took place at a hospital in Cape Town, in 1967.

-FW de Klerk secretly built, then dismantled and discarded, six units of atomic weaponry. To date, South Africa is the only country to have completely denuclearised its military capabilities.

-There are more varieties of flowers found on South Africa’s Table Mountain than in the entirety of the United Kingdom.

-The world’s largest man-made forest is found in Johannesburg, containing over six million planted trees. This may explain why Johannesburg is also one of the greenest cities in the world.