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By Jürgen Bätz, dpa
Johannesburg – Nelson Mandela is venerated in South Africa with religious reverence as the father of the nation. He devoted decades of his life fighting the racist apartheid regime, preached reconciliation with the whites and rebuilt the country as the first democratically elected president of the moral ruins of racial discrimination. But despite the historic achievements of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who would have turned 100 on Wednesday, there is now a great disillusionment among the majority of blacks in South Africa.
Between mansions and corrugated iron sheets
Everyone is equal before the law. With regard to wealth and educational opportunities, the white minority is still much better off. Despite a reduction in poverty, even under the late Mandela and his heirs in 2013 by the ANC ruling party has changed little. "South Africa is one of the world's most divisive countries and inequality has continued to increase since the end of apartheid in 1994," notes the World Bank.
This reality is also reflected in the streets of Johannesburg's economic metropolis. the corrugated forges of the poorest are often only a few kilometers distant. For example, in Soweto canton, in the south-west of the country, where Mandela lived, many families still live in huts the size of an Austrian nursery. In some places, dozens of residents share a faucet for washing and cooking. In many streets, rats fly between garbage pits, children play in the earth
Obama: "I believe in Mandela's vision"
In a speech in the honor of Mandela, the Former US President Barack Obama Discrimination must always be continued. Mandela inspired millions of people to work for a better and more just world – even out of prison. "The fight for justice is never over," Obama told thousands of spectators at a Johannesburg stadium.
Obama regretted that 100 years after the birth of Mandela, he still needs to point out the growing populism in the world. that all people are equal. "Blacks, whites, Asians, Latin Americans, women and men, homobaduals and heterobaduals – we are all human beings, what differentiates us is superficial." If people could learn to hate each other, then they could learn to s & # 39. Love each other. "I believe in Nelson Mandela's vision," Obama said.
South Africa is the most developed state on the continent. successors have made significant progress: the government, for example, has built millions of homes for poor families and introduced social benefits, and almost all South Africans now have access to electricity. is sorry and the unemployment rate is about 27% This situation particularly disadvantages those for whom Mandela's freedom fought: "Black South Africans have the greatest risk of being poor", of the World Bank. [19659003] 27 Years of Captivity
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela joined in 1944 JUD at the African National Congress (ANC) to fight for equal rights. The young lawyer rose quickly in the party and was in the late 1950s, as one of the main organizers of demonstrations and resistance. When the ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela was one of the founders of the wing of the armed resistance. In 1964, the resistance fighter barely escaped the death penalty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. This was followed by 27 years of imprisonment, most of them on the captive island of Robben Island near Cape Town.
Mandela was probably the most famous prisoner in the world for years. His imprisonment has become a symbol of the injustice of the racist regime. But it was only in the late 1980s that apartheid began to disintegrate: international pressure, sanctions and increasing resistance from the black majority led to a turnaround
In September 1989, the reformer Frederik Willem de Klerk becomes South African President. He released Mandela and lifted the ban on the ANC. The parties negotiated a new constitution: in 1993, Klerk and Mandela were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1994, Mandela became the first democratically elected president of South Africa. In his tenure until 1999, Mandela insists on the reconciliation of population groups.
Mandela's Legacy in Danger
This legacy seems increasingly threatened today. There is a lot of criticism that Mandela touched the whites with child gloves. Meanwhile, the ANC demands that majority white property owners be expropriated without compensation. The expulsion of blacks from their lands and their expropriation during apartheid was "the source of poverty and inequality" that we see today, "said President Ramaphosa recently.
Weakening the economy and putting the country in crisis Ramaphosa promises to be cautious, but he calls for inevitable agrarian reform.Otherwise, he says, "the land would remain divided in the heart."
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