South African youth, courted by Obama, divided over Mandela's legacy

"Many of my friends say it's a sold, he was too conciliatory with the whites. Asked about the legacy of Nelson Mandela, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday, Wednesday, July 18, Hlakaniphile Mngomezulu, 18, goes straight to the point to discuss the debate that is agitating South African youth.

the spans and tiers of the Wanderer's Stadium in Johannesburg, where 15,000 people came to listen on Tuesday to former US President Barack Obama deliver a great tribute speech, the youth were not in excess, in a very mixed racially and rather easy. The event, however gratuitous, was highly symbolic: the first black president of the United States celebrated the work of the first black president of South Africa.

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At the end of a rather gloomy speech, warning against the authoritarian drift of international politics, Barack Obama, whose political legacy has been unraveled by his successor in the White House since 2016, concluded his speech by exhorting the youth to take up the torch. "Every generation has the opportunity to change the world. Mandela said, "The young are able, when stimulated, to bring down the towers of oppression and lift up the banners of freedom." It's time to wake up, " said Former President

Unfulfilled Promises

In South Africa, this new generation is the Born Free, born in the 1990s, at the end of apartheid regime. A generation now in doubt, while a quarter of a century after the end of institutionalized racism, many believe that the promises of democratization have not been kept, especially for the black majority.

"Born free, am I really? This is the question we are always asked " continues Hlakaniphile, big smile and high school uniform. "We are told all the time that we are free, but our actions are limited, society limits us, we are constrained, confined", she explains.

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"What we got is " a man, a voice " and that's it" is bidding Mzwakhe, a developer web. "At the economic level, it's zero. These young people refer to the abysmal inequalities that persist between the black majority and the white minority, while the median monthly wage is 10,000 rand (648 euros) for whites and 2,800 rand (180 euros) for black people. According to the World Bank, this year, South Africa has won the title of most unequal country in the world.

"The majority of blacks live below the poverty line, the education system is in tatters the administration is inefficient: people feel that our leaders have rolled us and they have only crumbs, " explains Deborah Tumbo, a lawyer of 27 years. Young people are the most affected: more than half of under-24s are unemployed.

Mandela's multiracial vision

But the lost-doers now see Mandela as the architect of this debacle. Criticism is about how the transition was managed in the early 1990s between white racist power and the first multiracial democratic government. At the time, Nelson Mandela had to secure the support of the white minority, effectively plunder the South African economy, giving them enough wages, while the country threatened to sink into the civil war

"Negotiations they had on the economy made no sense . How is it possible for a minority to preserve the economy without sharing it? Mbali Mthetwa, a 28-year-old student, is indignant. The white community, which represents 8% of the population, still holds 73% of the land and the main economic levers. The thorny question of redistribution seems insoluble, while a small elite close to the ANC, the party in power, has copiously enriched itself.

These criticisms reflect on the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa. This close to "Madiba", who participated in the negotiations during the transition, came to power in February following the resignation of Jacob Zuma, pushed out by the ANC, more than a year before the official end of his term . A former trade unionist who became a businessman, for many, he is the direct heir to Mandela, who at the time made him his runner-up. "I can see Madiba smiling from above when I say " President Ramaphosa "" Illustrated Graça Machel, the last wife of the icon, before Obama's speech.

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Cyril Ramaphosa is now in full campaign for the elections of mid-2019. A decisive vote for the ANC, to which the party is more divided than ever. Supporters of Jacob Zuma, whose two terms were tainted by a series of corruption cases, feel aggrieved, while the septuagenarian remains adulated by the poor black masses of his stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal.

" For my part, I will not hide it, I will vote Economic Freedom Fighters [EFF, le parti de Julius Malema des Combattants pour la liberté économique, gauche révolutionnaire]. The ANC, our parents, have remained too polite, and they have been fooled. The EFF, despite its contradictions, embodies the demands of youth " Nhlamulo Tlakula, 29 years old. A party that does not hesitate to stir tensions between blacks and whites, as opposed to the unifying and multiracial vision of Nelson Mandela.