DA's Plan for Growth and Jobs - Democratic Alliance

HOW DID WE GET HERE?Apartheid’s legacyThe legacy of the past is still with us. It shapes who we are; what we value; how we view oneanother; and what we want to achieve as a nation. It explains how we got to where we aretoday, and gives us clues as to what needs to be done to build the kind of society in which allSouth Africans have the skills, the opportunities, and the means to build a better life. Ourhistory reminds us just how far we’ve come as a nation, but also how far we still have to go.The 20 th century saw the consolidation of asset stripping by a powerful white minority fromthe black majority. The 1913 Native Land Act limited land ownership to 9% of South Africasuperficial territory, later expanded to 13% under the 1936 Natives Land and Trust Act, ofblack people defined as ‘natives’ in colonial nomenclature. The 1946 Asiatic Land Tenureand Indian Representation Act and, under apartheid, the 1950 Group Areas Act, herded andconfined Indian and coloured South Africans to their group areas.Job opportunities were similarly organised along quasi-racial lines. By law and socialpractise, apprenticeships were for some, mostly white, and not others. The job colour bar setaside certain categories of employment, the better ones for some, mostly whites, and notothers. The education system became premised, especially when Bantu education wasenacted in law in the 1950s, on the denial of quality education to the majority of the nation’schildren over the generations.The denial of full citizenship to the majority of South Africans through the creation of socalled‘homelands’ deepened the disenfranchisement of black people, and enforced patternsof settlement that were – and still are – far from centres of economic activity. Stateinterference in trade, investment and business enterprise was widespread, buttressed by theunequal provision along racial lines of basic services such as water, electricity andhealthcare.This history of disenfranchisement, marginalisation, and exclusion restricted our nation’stalent and wounded our psyche. It is a history that has consequences that continue to impacton our daily lives: on what we have, on where we live, on how we live, on how we think; onhow we relate to one another; on how we perceive ourselves as individuals andcommunities; and on how we dream about the future.The promise of 1994The epoch-shifting democratic election of 1994 brought with it the promise of a newbeginning. Led by one of the greatest statesman of the 20 th century – Nelson Mandela – theemergence of a ‘new’ South Africa was heralded as a political miracle; an example of thetriumph of democracy over tyranny; reconciliation over bloodshed; hope over despair.Anchoring this promise was a new supreme law for South Africa: the Constitution.Promulgated by President Mandela in 1996, it was, and is, one of the most progressivefounding charters in the world. It enshrines our equality as citizens. It prohibits discriminationby envisioning a non-racial, non-sexist society. It grants all of us the right to dignity, andrequires that the state progressively realise our rights to food, water, healthcare and socialassistance.In the years that followed, substantial progress was made towards laying the foundations fora modern constitutional democracy. The racially segregated provincial administrations,homelands, and self-governing territories were integrated into a more rational system of ‘co-20 | P a g e