LETTER: Capitalism takes root instead of freedom
The aftermath of racial inequity was replaced by a greater evil – the dumping of the socialist ethos in pursuit of wealth
Economic apartheid, stepchild of the grander version, wasn’t going to be easy to jettison like its political parent. Impaired by over a quarter century of vicious mismanagement by successive rulers, the net result has been nothing short of impending disaster. Having suffered both politically and economically, the quest for emancipation was on, supported globally after intense pressure. While at first international players aided and abetted the once powerful gold-laden regime through covert trading and overriding sanctions, they later bowed to the Hains and the Sullivans of the day. Their protest campaigns and the launch of the Sullivan code of business, as well as Peter Hain’s UK anti-apartheid stance finally put the last nails in apartheid’s coffin. But the aftermath of racial inequity was replaced by a greater evil — the dumping of the socialist ethos in pursuit of wealth. True to the textbook prediction that socialism’s darker sister, capitalism, would creep in and engulf Africa...
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