[News] On Anniversary of Mandela’s Release - South Africans are still struggling for their liberation

[Anti-Imperialist News]

On Anniversary of Mandela’s Release
South Africans are still struggling for their liberation

Twenty years ago, February 11, 1990, Nelson 
Mandela walked out of his prison cell and four 
years later, a huge majority elected him 
President. Now after 16 years of ANC rule, the 
majority of South Africans are worse off than 
they were under the white minority regime. While 
petty apartheid is over and a handful of ANC 
officials and their cronies have become 
millionaires, more than 50% of the people live below poverty.

Consider these facts:
-          South Africa has been called the 
“economic powerhouse of Africa” and has enormous 
wealth, but now has the world’s largest gap between rich and poor.
-          South Africa is the world’s largest 
producer of platinum, gold and chromium while 
South Africa is home to the world’s largest slum.
-          The ANC government made a deal to pay 
the debt incurred by the minority white 
regime­some $11 billion dedicated to paying for its own past oppression.
-          65% of young adults are unemployed, 
2/3 of adults have no high school diploma and 
only 8.4% have some higher education.
-          Increasingly, South African police 
confront hungry demonstrators who are demanding 
jobs, houses, running water and electricity with 
tear gas, rubber bullets and baton charges.

Yet, Mandela and the ANC are still celebrated for 
liberating the masses of Black South Africans. In 
Johannesburg, the country’s only “Apartheid 
Museum” perpetuates the myth that Mandela’s 
release from prison ushered in South Africa’s era 
of “peace, equality, reconciliation and 
diversity”. Despite protests and legal battles by 
veterans of the Black Consciousness Movement, the 
ANC government authorized a consortium headed by 
the Gold Reef City Casino to build and run the 
Museum. Two white brothers, Abraham and Solomon 
Krok­who made their fortunes in gambling and 
selling skin lightening creams to Black South 
African women­have succeeded in expropriating and 
sanitizing the history of apartheid and the struggle against it.

Now, Mike Stainbank,  a historian and member of 
the Black Consciousness Movement who originated 
and first registered a plan for the Apartheid 
Museum, is challenging Gold Reef City Casino and 
the Krok Brothers in Court. He and many other 
veterans of the Soweto Uprising insist that South 
Africa’s history should not be told by the very 
men who were part of the apartheid machine. In 
the tradition of Steven Biko­who demanded the 
right of Black people to speak for themselves, 
Stainbank insists that South Africa’s history must be told by Black people.

By Arlene Eisen who spent two months in Soweto last year

<mailto:arlenesreport at yahoo.com>arlenesreport at yahoo.com


To write letters of support or for more 
information, contact Stainbank at 
<http://www.stainbank.co.za/>http://www.stainbank.co.za/ 
or email  apartheidmuseum at stainbank.co.za
Tel. (011) 807 2042,  Fax (011) 807 0766, Private Bag X63, RIVONIA 2128




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