Apartheid made South Africa the rich country it is: iLIVE

I am a great fan of Jonny Steinberg’s writings, but his recent assertion in the Sunday Times that Apartheid, with all its inefficiencies, actually held back SA’s economic development calls for a response.

You cannot think away Apartheid and assume the alternative would have been some efficient and liberal dispensation immune to the post-independent African story.

In my view, if Apartheid never happened (if the Afrikaner was never here?) there is no reason to believe that SA would be any different today from any other ex-British ruled African country – that is a poor and collapsed state.

And why did none of the other post-independent African countries flourish despite having none of the Apartheid inefficiencies? Why did they all fast collapse? Why did SA in contrast become this rich and modern state, albeit much “skewed”?

Off course all this does not justify Apartheid, but it at least brings some perspective to the legacy of our past.