30 years after Mandela's Nobel Prize, SA faces stark choice: poverty or growth – IRR

Nelson Mandela’s conviction – expressed in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech 30 years ago this month – that in their new democracy all South Africans would enjoy the right to “life, liberty, prosperity, human rights and good governance" remains true today, despite the catastrophic and tragic failure of the ANC to make good on this vision.

It was in December 1993 that Mandela and FW de Klerk jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the dismantling of apartheid.

In his acceptance speech, Mandela spoke of the immense potential of South Africa, looking forward to a future in which all the country’s people would “live like the children of paradise”.

Mandela said: “The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race, will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise.

“Thus shall we live, because we will have created a society which recognises that all people are born equal, with each entitled in equal measure to life, liberty, prosperity, human rights and good governance."

Recalling these words today, having played a leading role in documenting and opposing anti-growth, anti-liberty laws before and after 1994, the IRR urges South Africans to not allow racist, cynical, and failing government policies to undermine the fundamental truth that we remain a country with the potential for growth and liberty, the cornerstones of a better life.

Yet, where most South Africans share a desire for collaboration between all communities, as the IRR’s latest polling shows, government policies have become increasingly divisive and racialised.

Failed policies like BEE have been exposed as 'blatant elite enrichment'. Public procurement has become a feeding trough for cadres, crooks, and cronies. Merit, service, and effective delivery have been replaced by race-based, cadre-rigged tenderpreneurship, corruption, and state capture. From potholes to power cuts, from pit toilets to poverty, the consequences of anti-growth, anti-liberty policies are brutally tangible around us.

Where South Africans overwhelmingly want sports teams and teachers who are the best, irrespective of race, the ideology of racial preferencing has been reinvigorated and weaponised.

Where Mandela saw in South Africa's future "life, liberty, prosperity, human rights and good governance", for too many, especially those still burdened by the legacy of apartheid-era poverty, the reality today is the opposite. Lives are cut short by violent crime as law and order suffer under a regime of political incompetence, racism, and centralised failure. When ordinary people take issue with this, they are told to "shut up".

Where South Africans want liberty, the tentacles of state control spread with increasing malice over countless aspects of life. School sports, healthcare, universities, the workplace ... in all these spheres, and more, we see racist political interference and cheap politicking.

Instead of allowing South African ingenuity to flourish, and problem-solvers to succeed in a free and working economy, the assault on growth and liberty among those in power is showing no sign of abating, from the eye-wateringly expensive Eskom of healthcare, the NHI, to the government’s doubling down on threats to property rights.

Looking back on another year of hardship, government incompetence, and state failure, we are reminded that the only triumphs we can point to are those achieved by South Africans coming together and putting merit and success above all that is divisive or petty.

Despite the squandering of the potential and hope expressed in Oslo three decades ago, the people of South Africa must not give up.

What has gone wrong can be fixed, but only if we put growth and liberty at the heart of life and politics in our country. This is why the IRR in 2024 will dedicate our every resource to placing growth and liberty at the core of public policy, public debate, and public advocacy. We look forward to fighting with and for all South Africans who believe, as we do, that failure is not an option and that those in power – in government, politics, business, labour, media, and civil society – must be compelled to choose between whether they are pro-poverty, or pro-growth.

Media Contact: Hermann Pretorius IRR Head of Strategic Communications Tel: 079 875 4290 Email: hermann@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za

Sinalo Thuku, Tel: 073 932 8506 Email: sinalo@irr.org.za