This is the second part in our two-part series on South Africa’s politics 30 years after the election of Nelson Mandela, and with it, the end of apartheid. 

Around the same time as that anniversary this past spring, there was another momentous event in the country: South Africans went to the polls in May, and for the first time in 30 years, the African National Congress — the political party of Nelson Mandela — lost its parliamentary majority. 

On this episode, Dan Richards talks with three experts on South African politics about this pivotal moment in the country: what it can tell us about South Africa’s politics since the fall of apartheid, and what it might mean for the country’s future. 

Guests on this episode: 

• Wilmot James, a senior advisor at Brown University’s Pandemic Center. Prior to coming to Brown, Wilmot was a member of South Africa’s parliament. Before that, he managed multiple special projects for Mandela's office and was a co-editor of his presidential speeches.
• Redi Tlhabi is an award-winning South African journalist, producer and author. She hosted the acclaimed “Redi Tlhabi Show” for many years in South Africa, and regularly comments on the country’s politics for international media. 
• Stanley Greenberg is an American political strategist and pollster who assisted in Nelson Mandela’s presidential campaign in 1994 and has written extensively on politics and race relations in South Africa. 

Listen to part one of this two-part special, exploring the history of the fall of apartheid

Learn more about Brown University’s Pandemic Center

Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts 

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DAN RICHARDS: From the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, this is Trending Globally. I'm Dan Richards. Earlier in the summer, we shared the first in a two part series on the momentous elections that took place in South Africa this year, elections that coincided with the 30th anniversary of the election of Nelson Mandela in Nineteen Ninety-Four and with it the end of apartheid.

The anniversary lent a certain irony to the elections results. That's because for the first time since the end of apartheid, the African National Congress, the ANC, the political party of Nelson Mandela, lost its majority in the country's parliament.

In the first part of the series, we spoke with Wilmot James, a Professor at Brown University and former member of parliament in South Africa with the Democratic Alliance Party, about the history and legacy of apartheid in South Africa and the role it played in the country's politics in the last few decades.

For this episode, we brought Wilmot back on, along with two incredible guests, to explore this year's elections a little more closely. How did the ANC, the party of Nelson Mandela, lose control of South Africa's politics? And what does it say about South Africa's present and future?

WILMOT JAMES: It was clear that South Africa needed to follow a strategy of serving the national interest, to get growth going and to reduce poverty. Instead, what happened, infrastructure deteriorated.

REDI TLHABI: The ANC never thought it would be punished so severely, and I think that's a good thing.

STANLEY GREENBERG: Now the question will be, are there leaders that can actually act with this moment with courage?

DAN RICHARDS: Before we get to our guests, a quick recap. So Nelson Mandela left the presidency after one term. His first successor was Thabo Mbeki, who had been a key figure in Mandela's administration.

REPORTER 1: Nelson Mandela has stepped into the twilight of his retirement. The man who's been elected to replace him, Thabo Mbeki, has a more sober eye on what lies ahead.

DAN RICHARDS: Mbeki oversaw a period of economic growth in the country, though his record as a leader was mixed. He was widely criticized for his mishandling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and for alleged corruption. He resigned just before the end of his second term in Two Thousand Eight. At the next election in Two Thousand Nine, arrival in the ANC named Jacob Zuma was elected.

Zuma's administration, like Mbeki's, had no shortage of controversies, including allegations of widespread corruption. Like his predecessor, he also resigned before the end of his second term. The next election saw a new member of the ANC elected President, Cyril Ramaphosa. As Wilmot James put it in our last episode, these leaders not only failed to fill the big shoes left by Nelson Mandela, sometimes it seemed like they didn't even share his goals.

WILMOT JAMES: We were clearly looking at a situation where this founding generation of African National Congress leaders were being replaced by others who were less capable, again, with many exceptions. It was a party that with a very thin commitment to democracy.

DAN RICHARDS: These three leaders, Mbeki, Zuma and Ramaphosa, also collectively led the country into what has become an economic crisis. By many measures, today South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and much of that inequality continues to fall along racial lines. White South Africans, while making up less than 10% of the country's population, hold a majority of the country's wealth. Perhaps the most constant reminder of the state's failure to provide for its citizens--

REPORTER 2: Authorities have been imposing rolling blackouts.

REPORTER 3: Nationwide blackouts.

REPORTER 4: Nationwide blackouts for up to as much as 10 hours a day. Even hospitals have not been spared.

DAN RICHARDS: By one estimate in Twenty Twenty-Three, the average South African spent roughly 20% of the year without electricity. All of this has occurred under the watch of the African National Congress. And it's no huge surprise that the party's popularity has diminished over the years.

Since Two Thousand Nine, the ANC has consistently lost seats in parliament, culminating in their loss of the majority this year. Which brings us to the present, the ANC's leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, is still president of South Africa, though he is now leading a coalition government made up of nine parties, in addition to the African National Congress.

So what happened to the party of Nelson Mandela? And will this new coalition learn from the past and from its voters and be able to address the challenges facing so many South Africans? These were the questions I wanted to explore with our guests on this episode.

So in addition to Wilmot James, I spoke with Redi Tlhabi and Stanley Greenberg. Redi is an award winning South African journalist, producer, and author. She hosted the acclaimed Redi schlopy show for 12 years in South Africa and regularly comments on the country's politics for international audiences.

Stanley Greenberg is an American political strategist and pollster who assisted in Nelson Mandela's presidential campaign in Nineteen Ninety-Four. And he has written extensively on politics and race relations in South Africa. Here is our conversation. Redi Tlhabi, Stan Greenberg and Wilmot James, thank you all so much for coming on to Trending Globally.

REDI TLHABI: Thanks for having us.

STANLEY GREENBERG: Delighted to be here.

WILMOT JAMES: Delighted to be here.

DAN RICHARDS: Redi and Wilmot, you were both in South Africa recently, and I wonder, what did you both see there? What was your sense of how South Africa is feeling about the results of this election and this new coalition government?

REDI TLHABI: Well, they always save the best way to pick up the mood of the country is to listen to talk radio and also speak to Uber drivers because they are very vocal, they are very opinionated. And the first thing that happened when I was in an Uber from the airport was that my driver expressed such optimism, and many more repeated that. And there is a sense that things are not perfect, but anything but what we had previously. And it makes sense. It's not complicated.

You've had 30 years of the ANC prior to that many years of the apartheid government, it has manifested its weaknesses and how it is unsuitable for these times. And so while people did not have clarity-- and I include my mom as well who expressed the same sentiments to say, we'll figure it out. It's not perfect but we couldn't go on the way that we were going on in South Africa with corruption, a lack of accountability, and all of that. So people are experimenting, they are hopeful, and I get a sense that they want to give the government a chance.

WILMOT JAMES: So I got to South Africa just after the election. And what I experienced in my conversations with my fellow colleagues-- these are members of parliament and more importantly, the general public and my family-- was a sense of guarded optimism that this was a new moment but people holding their breath as to see whether we can, in fact, as Redi points out, can figure it out. But the fact is that we did figure it out and it was peaceful. A parliament was assembled, the president was elected, a cabinet was appointed. And now the question is, will that make a difference and will it be sustained?

DAN RICHARDS: So a promising first step at least. Stan, what was your reaction when you learned that the ANC, a party that you worked with on their first election in South Africa 30 years ago when it lost its majority, what did you make of this election?

STANLEY GREENBERG: I was shocked but I was also saying it's about time. I listened to voters through two presidential elections under Mandela and Mbeki, and then at a point I also worked for the DA, looking for the support for the opposition, but the country for so long was fed up with the lack of performance, the gravy train, lack of accountability. It's amazing it took so long but it was shocking that it happened.

And now the question will be, are there leaders that can actually act with this moment with courage? To be honest, I'm a little less optimistic that the right leaders are in place to do both things, but, obviously, let's hold our breath.

DAN RICHARDS: I definitely want to talk more about the challenges this current government is facing and to what extent you all feel they are up for these challenges. But before we get there, I wonder if we could start going back a little bit, looking at the African National Congress's evolution over the last 30 years.

Wilmot and I talked a lot about the transition out of apartheid in our last episode together, but I wonder for listeners who maybe aren't that familiar with the party and who maybe really associate its foundations with the end of apartheid, what else-- back in the Nineteen Ninety-Four, in the '90s, what else did the African National Congress stand for? What was at the party's core message?

STANLEY GREENBERG: So I was invited in to work for the ANC and for Mandela in the first democratic election. And it was a time of change in Africa where the nationalist forces were very strong. In fact, the vision that Mandela had for the ANC that was an all racial party was actually quite exceptional. I mean, no place else in Africa was there such an aspiration.

I mean, he was so focused on that goal, when he would look at the polls, he would see, am I raising my support level in all racial groups? He fought to have a mandate around a better life for all. And that was a slogan that they ran on.

When they started the campaign, the slogan of the ANC was, "Now is the time." And they came to realize that wasn't engaging for their voters, but it was also just about power. It was just about ending apartheid, just getting rid of the nationalists and white power and bringing the ANC into office.

We evolved into, "A better life for all," but he also embraced it as a way of actually government should deliver for all and also should be held accountable. And they created a annual report on "Better life for all" that really defined them in very unique ways. It became corrupted but for the moment, that's where they started.

DAN RICHARDS: Yeah. So from "Now is the time" to "A better life for all" maybe encapsulates some of those core values. Rudi, Wilmot, what else stands out to you from their original goals for the country?

WILMOT JAMES: So Stan was slightly modest. He had a lot to do with changing that mantra, that slogan. But to deliver on that slogan required economic growth because the deal that was made in the early Nineteen Nineties, what everybody could keep what they had, all the property, all the assets and what have you, and any changes and transformation would have to be funded through growth.

And the first phase of it, the growth levels out of bankruptcy, actually, was quite good, and then it started flattening and lessening out. And just in broad terms, it wasn't possible to have a better life for all. It was a better life for some. And that was the elite.

And so the people who became empowered across the board were those with assets, those with education, and those were special opportunities created through Black economic empowerment. So what we sit with today is a better life for some. And that created new divisions and, in fact, corrupted the vision that Stan just very nicely laid out.

REDI TLHABI: Yeah. I'm just going back to those years in the '90s when Nelson Mandela was released, when our parents were voting for the first time. I didn't vote in Nineteen Ninety-Four. I was still too young. And I remember with such sentimental memories how I recalled on that day in Nineteen Ninety-Four that my father had not lived long enough to vote in the country of his birth.

I mention this because belonging was so very important, just like we are seeing in our current dispensation. There's an a phobic violence, the identity politics that are so divisive. I think it is important not to downplay the enormous achievement of the ANC and the parties that made up a government of national unity back then, because this is the second time that we have a government of national unity. Different dynamics, of course.

But I think it is absolutely important to highlight the meaning of belonging for Black people in South Africa, for women in South Africa to be able to vote, to be able to leave township schools and go to multi-racial schools, better education in the suburbs. There was a sense that an albatross had been lifted from our necks. And this is important, and it is an achievement for the ANC with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that came where we emoted as a country.

We know that the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were not taken forward, but as a political moment, as a sign of deference for those who lost their lives in the fight against apartheid, I think that's important. But then what happened is that just like any moment of idealism, people grow up. You wake up and you realize that you need resources to give people water, you need resources to give people electricity, to create jobs and so on.

And then that proximity to power, that universal scourge where people are now in these comfortable seats and they forget the principles that defined the struggle. And so what Wilmot is saying is absolutely true, that when the ANC now got its hands on the levers of power, when the Black elite emerged from that negotiation, when people like myself got the opportunity to get an education and you get this upward mobility, we lived in what a former President Thabo Mbeki called-- was it two economies?

STANLEY GREENBERG: Two nations.

REDI TLHABI: Something like that. But the ANC did not account for its contribution to that division. And Black economic empowerment, whatever its intended goals were, it caused a lot of harm in that many were left behind, and those who were powerful got drunk on political and economic power. So that's the difference.

DAN RICHARDS: Stan, you worked with President Mbeki on his election after Mandela left office. To what extent did you see the ANC start to change when Mandela stopped being its leader?

STANLEY GREENBERG: The period following Mandela's election with Mbeki was in some ways the most important, because what I realized with Mbeki-- and I worked on his first election-- his nationalist impulses were very strong, his democratic impulses were not very well developed. He allowed the corruption to develop. He responded to AIDS in a way that had an anti-science component.

And you now had a leadership of South Africa that was very much in a kind of almost traditional African context, but not the one that Mandela created. And they were in conflict. Mandela was condemned for the positions he took on AIDS and Zimbabwe and other issues. So that there was a real conflict in choice, I think that kind of locked in the trajectory for South Africa, which is very painful.

WILMOT JAMES: If I can just further add with regards to Thabo Mbeki, I sat in the commission to reform our electoral system. You would remember that it was set up as a pure PR system in Nineteen Ninety-Four, for good reasons, in order to get everybody inside the tent.

DAN RICHARDS: PR meaning proportional representation system, right?

WILMOT JAMES: Right. But the problem with the PR system is poor accountability. You assign the constituency, the constituency did not elect you. And so you couldn't get rid of your member of parliament. And we introduced a proposal for a mixed system, but the Thabo Mbeki government did not accept our recommendations to change the electoral system, and said the next government will figure this out. This is in Two Thousand Two. So to say that he also blocked important reforms even within his own government.

DAN RICHARDS: And why were these types of reforms blocked ostensibly?

WILMOT JAMES: A pure PR system gives party bosses enormous power, that's what it does. They essentially select who gets onto the list and who gets into power.

REDI TLHABI: And, of course, this system benefits all parties. I think it's important what you've just mentioned, Wilmot, that it wasn't just the ANC. Even the smaller parties benefit from that. But this is more of a reflection, as you are speaking, that I wonder why we're not more agitated about our electoral system because we have copious amounts of examples and case studies of how the system doesn't work for us as voters.

And as Wilmot says, you have absolutely no control over whom the party for whom you vote sends to parliament. And I'm just wondering, we are a nation that is very comfortable with protest, and this is one issue that I've always just wondered now more profoundly, why we are so patient and comfortable with that.

DAN RICHARDS: I think that's a great question. And maybe to even expand it a little bit, what's gotten in the way of real movements for reform in South Africa in the last 30 years? Willmott, Stan, what do you think?

STANLEY GREENBERG: We had a battle against apartheid. The apartheid history was a apartheid on the economy, but it was also apartheid in the state where Afrikaner unions had privileged positions. And so part of what made growth and change difficult is that naturally the ANC gained control both within the state and the economy at the top, at least some parts of the economy. But that made change very, very hard.

And that's why we're dealing with the electric power issues that have a state that can't function because for justifiable reasons, there was a transition of power both on the economy and in the state, but it made the state almost non-functional in terms of being able to bring reform and change and growth.

REDI TLHABI: And I think if I may jump in here, the example again that Willmott shares about reform of our electoral system is also indicative of a particular attribute of the ANC perfected maybe more by Thabo Mbeki, a kind of ultra sensitive about criticism.

And I wonder whether it happens with people who've been oppressed, people who've been marginalized through racism, apartheid, oppression, that they don't want white people telling them what to say and think even when it is the right thing.

I say that deliberately because as a journalist working in South Africa, there were many times where we would expose corruption-- whether it was Jacob Zuma using state coffers to build his homestead, and you'll find his comrades saying only white people are concerned about that and clever Blacks. That was a pejorative used to describe Black people who were critical of the Zuma presidency.

It's a very crude example of what Mbeki first started, I think, with HIV/AIDS, not being collaborative, not wanting to be told what to do, kind of using governance as a form of talking back to people and saying, you think I don't know what I'm doing? Every piece of advice is exaggerated as some sort of criticism, condescending attitude or racism, wrongly labeled as racism.

And I say this because there's a fundamental experience that is the energy crisis that we are facing. It is a pattern both the electoral system reform proposals that you are talking about, but also the advice that our power utility, Eskom, gave to the government to say we're going to run out of power, we need to invest in the sector.

And, again, it was the Mbeki ANC that said, leave it. This is not going to happen. We're not going to run out of electricity. We know what we are doing. And many years later when we were in the dark, Mbeki admitted-- very out of character for him to admit-- that he was wrong and that they didn't listen to Eskom.

Of course, other problems came then because then there were lucrative deals and contracts that the state was issuing in order to fix the problem. The problem didn't just start in those big years, there was an opportunity to fix a problem that the government, in its hubris and arrogance, had ignored. But in later years, it just became the scope where corruption played out.

WILMOT JAMES: So it's about leadership. I wish, by the way, that Thabo Mbeki would recant on his position on HIV, which he hasn't, which is a remarkable.

REDI TLHABI: He's doubled down.

WILMOT JAMES: Yeah. Stan used the word before bold, a failure to take bold decisions because to change the electoral system, as you can see in the United States with the US complications, it takes a bold move to change an electoral system because there are vested interests you need to fight. So it's a lack of boldness on the right issues.

And it was clear that South Africa needed to follow a strategy of serving the national interest. And as I pointed out earlier, the national interest was to get growth going and to reduce poverty. And you needed to take some bold decisions around that, around Eskom electricity generation.

Instead, what happened, infrastructure deteriorated, and in particular, the deterioration of municipal infrastructure around basic things like clean water supply. Clean water supply, the engineering problem for that was solved in the 19th century by French engineers. It's not a mystery. That South Africa suffers from a lack of clean water supply is just absolute disgrace.

The point I want to make is what we required was bold leadership to stick to a strategy of pursuing the national interest, which is a better life for all mantra and to get the economy to do that. Instead, we had Thabo Mbeki actually undermining that goal, and then that was followed by Jacob Zuma who had no purpose at all other than serving his own private interests.

DAN RICHARDS: It's such a great point you all bring up where I think to maybe viewers on the outside who are not that familiar with the politics of South Africa, you can kind of hear stories of crumbling infrastructure, blackouts and corruption, and it all can just get lumped into one giant issue that's something like corruption, but as you're saying, there are these ways that the character of leaders really does matter.

And there's a more complicated relationship to the past and to racial dynamics that play out in how leaders process criticism or forge coalitions. And this makes me think looking at the current government, do you see any promising change? Like you all said at the beginning, there's cautious optimism, but do you see leadership in a new way? Do you see promise in this new unity government?

REDI TLHABI: I'm just thinking of the caliber of leadership that the ANC has attracted over the years. And, again, it was Thabo Mbeki who he grew up in the ANC, the old school, the kind of groomed by your struggle icons like your Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and so on.

Well, they are human. We don't know what they would have been had they lived in these times, but certainly back then there was a sense that the ANC is built on a foundation of values and ethical leadership. And they also was something else, a quest for knowledge. And part of the struggle was also about understanding at an intellectual level how the world works.

And now I think we went through many years of this anti-intellectual, anti-grassroots as well for a very long time. The ANC, when it was in exile, it was community activism that kept the struggle uppermost in the minds of us as citizens, but also the world. And I think the ANC shunned the community alliance and the respect for the agency of communities. And then came the anti-intellectual element, which I think that it has been detrimental to the ANC.

I also think that when we go to the caliber of leaders, I wonder what kind of answer we would get if we were to go around the room at an ANC meeting and ask, why did you join the ANC? I know having spoken to its stalwarts, they had a clear and very precise answer about why they joined the South African Communist Party, why they joined the ANC, why they joined the PSC, whatever.

But right now I suspect that you will not find an answer that is grounded in some clear belief system, ideology or a credible view of society and how the world works. So I suspect that the ANC has attracted a lot of inexperienced people who've never worked anywhere in their lives. It sounds patronizing but it's true.

We often say that when we criticize them that when you get fired from your party or parliament, they have nowhere to go. You don't find them leading important institutions globally. And even in South Africa, they join an ANC branch, they smell a power and they go through the ranks, and that is their life.

So as opposed, to answer your question, the question that comes before that would be, why did you join the ANC? And I suspect that the reason they joined has nothing to do with progress in our country. That's why they don't have ideas, ideas for the future, ideas that are needed to build a 21st century economy. So I suspect that ANC leaders need to go back to school.

STANLEY GREENBERG: School should start with a better life for all, which was the essential goal that Mandela set out and said government should be held accountable. This new government, if it can deliver improved public services, that's the job. That's why the FTC has been repudiated and it should be focusing on that goal, on that very basic thing. People, citizens deserve a government that can provide basic services.

WILMOT JAMES: It's as simple as that. It is about a government that is, in fact, too large right now. Government itself is a fiscal risk in South Africa. It should not be an employment agency. So what we need is a more efficient, smaller government to deliver basic services, electricity supply and everything else associated with that, water delivery-- very basic things. Education worth the country, we've really struggled with that since the beginning and never got it right.

We need to act in the national interest, which means taking bold decisions to improve the economy and to reduce unemployment. And that means we need to trade more with the West, with our existing trading partners, we understand that we need to trade with China.

Why we have this cozy relationship with Russia is a mystery to me. It's a legacy story that goes back to two ANC times during the Soviet Union. It doesn't help South Africans whatsoever. So we need to reengineer foreign affairs in a major way. And that's going to take bold decisions.

We shouldn't appoint ambassadors because they are on the gravy train and that they, in fact, are there because they are a nuisance in South Africa. So not all of them are in fall into this category but many do. So ambassadors should serve the national interest. They should promote trade. That's their job. They should attract the investments into the country. The point that Stan is making is we need a single-minded focus on improving the lives of South Africans, and the misery there is-- has been solved.

DAN RICHARDS: So this new government is still being led by the ANC, though now it's in a coalition with other parties. And the president is still Cyril Ramaphosa, with the ANC. And I wonder, do you think that the ANC's leaders get that this election was a rebuke and that they need to really seriously change their ways?

REDI TLHABI: Maybe I'm just an eternal optimist but I've spoken to people in the ANC and I'm very busy on social media, I follow some of the leaders, there is some sort of humility, like an eating of the proverbial humble pie. You sense it.

The ANC was not prepared for this moment. They didn't see it coming. And those who were didn't think they would go to 40%. I mean, they hemorrhaged votes. And listening to some of their leaders, the Secretary General who gravitates towards populism, Fikile Mbalula, but he has been surprisingly mature throughout, telling his comrades that we don't have an option. We did not win the election.

And I think many more ANC leaders have spoken about observing that the people have spoken. There was no attempt to cast aspersions on the electoral process itself. They very quickly, I think, reckoned with that reality. This is purely gossip from within the ANC, that Cyril Ramaphosa is relieved to be rid of some of the leaders who were basically making his life difficult, aligned to Zuma, some of them have left with him.

Having said that, it is very important to acknowledge that with the ANC now, you don't have a corrupt faction and a clean faction. The organization itself is a crime scene. When you look at the corruption that's gone unpunished, how the ANC itself has raised money by looting state owned institutions, by rewarding dodgy businesses who in turn would get a lucrative contract and then donate to the ANC, so I'm raising the Zuma faction as being a particular hindrance for Cyril Ramaphosa.

But even in saying that, to be aware that the culture of the ANC itself and many commentators have said that for the ANC to clean itself and to reset, it would have to collapse. You can't create this rebirth when corruption has been so entrenched within the ANC.

So I think the presence of other parties, at least from the voters that I spoke to-- my mom included-- they feel that the presence of the DA, of the IAFP, of others, would kind of then curb that power that the ANC had and it would have to work hard to prove that it can govern in those ministries that it has. Otherwise the next election may very well see the ANC becoming a real, real, not minority, but losing more votes than what it has this time.

So just in a nutshell I'm saying that the ANC is a problem, not just a faction of the ANC. But what this election has done is to get rid of some trash and allow space for others to hold the ANC accountable. And the third thing that this election has done is that it has proved to the ANC that even a formidable, oldest liberation movement that used to say it will rule until Jesus comes, the ANC never thought it would be punished so severely. And I think that's a good thing.

DAN RICHARDS: As we start to wrap up, I wanted to ask something a little bit, get into something a little bit different. We've looked at a lot of the challenges South Africa has faced and continues to face, but it still stands to so many people as a country that exemplifies a way political systems can change and that profound conflicts can be overcome without resorting to all out war. Of course, I'm talking about the Nineteen Ninety-Four election.

But I wonder at a moment when there are so many seemingly intractable conflicts around the world-- I'm thinking of Israel and Gaza or the war in Ukraine-- do you think South Africa is still able to exemplify, even for all the challenges it has faced in the last 30 years, does it still offer that sort of glimmer of hope to other places in the world steeped in conflict or have the last 30 years complicated that story for people?

STANLEY GREENBERG: I think it's too complicated. And if I look at what's happening in Ukraine, if I look at Middle East, I think in all those cases there are only plausible if there is clear separation and sovereignty that allows very distinct peoples to find a future.

And I think there's actually more hope for Ukraine and the Palestinians because there's now, I think, a new norm. But I don't think anyone is looking to South Africa as a model. First of all, even if South Africa had been successful, it's just so different and so unique in terms of bringing people together that were separated in apartheid.

And that's such an extraordinary historic moment and vision, even with all the problems, as Redi has pointed out, that is the core vision that carries over. But I don't believe it's a model for dealing with the dominant conflicts that we're dealing with in the Middle East or with Ukraine and Russia.

REDI TLHABI: Yeah. I think the global problems are so complex. I think they are beyond the scope of the ANC government. And I also think that when you look at the kind of turbulence that we are seeing geopolitically-- at least that's how I'm defining that, whether it is that kind of far right wave that swept through some parts of Europe and may continue to do so, the migrant crisis, in the UK you had Brexit, and then in the United States itself.

It's not as if African countries are not watching the crisis of legitimacy, I suppose, of the Supreme Court of the United States, the reversal of reproductive rights, and also what sometimes is hypocrisy in terms of how the United States itself runs its foreign policy.

And I think smaller nations are watching this and thinking, we can't be following the script. We can't just be the obedient followers of this global architecture that is just unraveling. And so I think that serves to give smaller nations a voice and also just to occupy some sort of moral high and be able to point at more powerful nations and say, this is what you are doing yet you want us to do this.

You've got the debt crisis that is also overwhelming Southern African countries. Look at what happened in Kenya as well and is still happening in Kenya, Zambia as well. So I guess what I'm saying is that it seems as if every region of the world is on fire or on tenterhooks, and it's not South Africa that can lead the way.

But on the Middle East issue, we know historically the ANC and Nelson Mandela, that soon after he was released he met with Yasser Arafat. So there is a values-based solidarity when it comes to the South African government. And I don't think any government that is led by the ANC in South Africa would ever not say something about the Palestinian question. That does not mean, though, that we offer some sort of model for the rest of the world. It's too complicated, I think.

WILMOT JAMES: I mean, I agree with that. I think that what is important historically is that South Africans have tackled their own problems domestically, but its domestic leaders, but did it with global support. So it was almost-- I mean, there was universal support for the leadership in South Africa to solve its problems exiting from apartheid. There was no country in the world that actually would support apartheid, maybe one or two, who knows.

But there was universal global support, and that's what it had. And you don't have that right now in Israel, Palestine, and you don't have it with the Ukraine, Russia, you don't have it. So that was unique in a way, sort of, global support and the ability, the South African ability to solve problems domestically.

And the impulse was to integrate everybody in the country from an apartheid life into a single economy, but with continuing legacies of the racial and ethnic fissures along the way. But it's an integrating impulse as opposed to a secessionist impulse, as opposed to dealing with a question of sovereignty which you have to do with in Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Palestine.

So I think that the lessons that we can learn from South Africa are not transportable. I mean, this context is just so different. But just to say the world was on the side of the liberation forces during-- bringing a party to an end, and so we had universal support and that was great. But the South African feature of trying to figure out how to live together, we still struggling with that.

REDI TLHABI: Indeed. Indeed we are. And the bread and butter issues. Hey, Wilmot, I mean, it is a legitimate criticism to say, why are you looking at what's happening-- I can imagine somebody who's unemployed and is hungry, doesn't have access to education is spending the social grant on transport and buying food, I can understand how the global problems are not their priority. And we ought to respect that.

We really have life and death, bread and butter challenges. And the ANC government, the government of national unity, does need to prioritize that even as we identify as citizens of the world, as people who subscribe to a universal language of human rights and equality for all.

[COOL MUSIC]

DAN RICHARDS: Well, thank you all so much for discussing this really important moment with such nuance and helping us all think about it a little bit more clearly. I really appreciate it. Stan, Redi, Wilmot, thank you so much for coming on to Trending Globally.

STANLEY GREENBERG: Thank you for hosting.

REDI TLHABI: Thank you so much. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

WILMOT JAMES: Thank you very much, colleagues.

DAN RICHARDS: This episode was produced by me, Dan Richards and Zach Hirsch. It was engineered by Errol Danahy. Our theme music is by Henry Bloomfield. Additional music by the Blue Sessions. If you want to hear more about the history of apartheid in South Africa and Wilmot James's personal experience of it growing up, be sure to listen to part one of this two part series. We'll put a link to it in the show notes.

And if you like Trending Globally, leave us a rating and review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you haven't subscribed to the show, please do that too. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of Trending Globally. Thanks.