Redeemers and Renaissances

Mandela as a heavenly saint and Rwanda as hell: these were the images that the Western media and policymakers used to frame Africa as the twentieth century came to a close. It was a stark pairing, setting South Africa's nascent democracy and racial reconciliation against depictions of collapsing states, AIDS, war, and genocide. Implicit in this pairing was the hope that a powerful postapartheid South Africa would lead the continent in addressing the challenges of democratization, globalization, and conflict resolution. An African renaissance, led by new leaders like Mandela, was widely heralded as Africa's best and perhaps last hope.

While this caricature emanated from North America and Europe, the expectation of a new era was widespread across Africa as well. Radical democratic struggles in the 1980s and 1990s had toppled decades-old autocratic regimes and developmental policies. The promise of these trends seemed to be confirmed when Mandela was freed and led the African National Congress to a landslide election victory in 1994. Across the continent expectations of a more prosperous, democratic, and peaceful era advanced as long-standing authoritarian regimes continued to fall, one after another, in the face of popular uprisings.

By the turn of the new century far more sobering realities asserted themselves. For while the new South African government's adherence to strict monetary and fiscal policies had led to lower budget deficits and lower inflation, these were accompanied by increasing levels of unemployment, disappointing levels of foreign investment, white flight from the country, increasing poverty, and a level of inequality among the highest in the world.