A nation comes of age

The modern South Africa is a new country and it has had so much to learn and absorb since the end of apartheid and white Afrikaner Nationalist government. There are still many weaknesses within the country - some political corruption, a high crime rate and terrible pockets of poverty. A stubbornness by its President, Thabo Mbeki, in refusing to recognise the cause of AIDS.

Countering all that, however, to the surprise of many, has been the speed with which the African National Congress has matured from a terror organisation (in the eyes of many) to a mature political party which has handled the reins of government with increasing confidence and growing maturity. It has a cabinet style government which can over rule the leader (unlike the United Kingdom which is only supposed to have one!) and which has overruled Mbeki on the AIDS question, instituting a programme of information and medical care. It established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, surely one of the most amazing acts by any independent African government, to bring out into the open, confess and then expiate all the sins of the Apartheid era and avoid the rancour of an open running sore - in which it has succeeded quite admirably.

And now yesterday, P.W.Botha, the 'Crocodile', the last but one Apartheid Premier, died at the age of 90. I would bet that 12 or so years ago this news would have been met by black South Africa with joyous chanting and cries of 'Good Riddance'.



Yesterday there was none of that. Instead the former and first black President of the nation, Nelson Mandela, who was released from captivity by Botha, commented on the old man's death with dignity and said that 'As a nation we should remember P.W. Botha, not as a bastion of apartheid, but as the man who took the first steps, at a difficult time, towards the reconciliation of our country.'



Truly the Rainbow Nation has come of age.