But in the long term the future is darker

Sixteen years after the burial of apartheid and the arrival in power of Nelson Mandela, South Africa is again at the centre of world news. The World Cup of football, it organized, is a first for this country and the whole of the African continent. For Jacob Zuma, fourth President "post-apartheid", this event must be an element of unification of South Africa as rugby world cup victory in 1995 had contributed his time to break down racial barriers. It is true that the journey seems to be huge. State developed pariah to the bench of the nations for his racism, South Africa is part today of the G20, serious candidate for a seat as a permanent member of the Security Council to the UN representative, finally, the 53 African countries. She became also one of the great emerging powers of the world, with 40 of the wealth of the African continent. And in contrast to the nearby Zimbabwe, the South Africa did not sank in the darkness of dictatorship and forced deportation land. Except for a minority of white wing, the majority of South Africans dare challenge, truly, the legacy of Nelson Mandela, released on 11 February 1990, of the gaols of apartheid and who has succeeded in achieving a reconciliation between whites and blacks, but also with the Métis and the Asians. If the Constitution adopted in February 1996 after two years of tough debates is always be unanimous, "it has never been infringed", note Thierry Vircoulon, associate researcher at Ifri, in an article published recently in the journal "studies" (1).

Of course, the tensions between blacks and whites are far from having disappeared. Evidenced by the murder last April of Eugene Terre Blanche, a former police officer converted farmer and leader of the afrikaner resistance movement white supremacist. Or after 2008 xenophobic riots against foreign immigrants, especially, Zimbabweans in the shantytowns around Johannesburg, Pretoria and in several provinces. However, the South Africa is not short term threatened a burst.

But in the long term, the future is darker. The dream of Nelson Mandela, formulated in its single presidential mandate (May 10, 1994 - June 14, 1999) to create, in repeating the words of Desmond Tutu, a "rainbow nation at peace with itself and with the world", still seems very far away. And the reconciliation is still fragile.

The first difficulty of this democracy which is multiracial is political. Even if at the last elections of 2009 which led Jacob Zuma at the head of State the ANC, Mandela party won more than 60 of the vote, its weight in politics tends according Thierry Vircoulon "to erode. Not only face the other parties, but especially the African National Congress, which is the main political actor since the 1990s, lost ground in the young and the poor South Africans.

It is even more worrisome than the unemployment rate, 25 of the active population, figure among the highest in the world and that blacks are more affected than whites, with a respective rate of 30 and 6.

But especially the gap between rich and poor, black, and white only has not reduced as could be expected in 1994. Thus, according to a South African think tank, the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), 68 of enterprises management positions were occupied by whites. In large part, this delay is due to a very weak educational system, even if the expenditures for education in South Africa are the highest in the continent. In "The Economist", Graeme Bloch, an expert in the Development Bank of Southern Africa (2) spoke of "national disaster" with approximately 80 of schools running poorly.

Far, also, the dream of Nelson Mandela, the redistribution of agricultural land, which was held to 87 by white farmers, for the benefit of black farmers, did not met its objectives. His arrival in power, the ANC had wished that 30 of these lands to be transferred, and less than 6 have been since then. Johannes Möller, the current President of Agri SA (the équilvalent to a FNSEA), nevertheless agreed with a recent suggestion to authoritatively transfer 40 percent of the land. It would be too seeing abandonment of the policy of Nelson Mandela, who had known reconcile the old Communist tendencies within the ANC with the market economy. Not to mention that all agrarian reforms imposed by a Government in Africa have tended to fail, with dramatic consequences.

Despite these difficulties, the legacy of Nelson Mandela who, in 1993, had shared the Nobel Prize in peace with then President Frederik de Klerk, for their common action to promote the establishment of a multiracial democracy, is immense. It exceeds the only economic and social balance to maintain its universal scope. "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul," said the poem "Invictus" of William Ernest Henley, that Nelson Mandela so loves. A lesson that "Madiba", ninety years old and very weakened, leaves his country and the rest of the world.