EDITORIAL: A history lesson for South Africa’s future
White affirmative action shaped the country’s economy — can BEE undo it?
12 June 2025 - 05:00
The surprising thing about BEE in South Africa is not that it has been done well or badly, but (like Dr Johnson’s dog walking on its hind legs) that it has been achieved at all — given that the apartheid economy and society were so severely distorted in favour of whites.
For half a century, from the 1920s to the 1970s, the white government drove a huge and successful project of affirmative action for whites. The cost was heavy, and was paid by generations of black South Africans — indeed, it is still being paid...
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