A credo to guide the new SA

Abstract

The credit that may not justifiably be taken from towering African figures such as Nkrumah, Kaunda and Nyerere in whom political power and theoretical originality interfaced, is the contribution they made towards the liberated Africans’ alignment of their hitherto suppressed Africanness with the new realities. These included questions relating to identity, the direction newly freed Africans had to evolve towards and modes of adaptation they would have to acquire in the face of historical change. For South Africans, the seat of first black president after European dominance was blessed in the person of Madiba. The pressing need around 1994 was for a figurehead to articulate and defend the reconciliation route adopted by the government. A great many South Africans, black and white, picked up the cue and today we can speak confidently of a more or less unified nation.