Kehinde Andrews writes that 25 years on from so-called ‘democracy’ it is time to abandon South Africa and build Azania.
By Kehinde Andrews
Twenty-five years since South Africa ushered in an era of so-called democracy I had the honour of visiting the country to discuss Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century. I had visited South Africa seventeen years previously, spending three months working in a village, Ga Maria, in the Mpumalanga province in partnership with the Southern African Student Volunteers Organisation. More than anything else what I remember was how people in the village explained their lives had basically not changed since the end of apartheid. Poverty was rife and the farmer I was staying with still had to call the white man who bought his produce boss in order to make his sales. Seventeen years later it is indisputable that not much has improved, and there is strong case that the situation is actually worse today.
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