Thirty years after the end of apartheid, corruption is rife, crime is high and the economy is a mess. The party of Mandela admits it ‘made mistakes’. But will the people forgive them?
Steve Bloomfield in Johannesburg
In the heart of Soweto, the birthplace of South African democracy has been burned, looted and stripped for parts. Almost 70 years ago, in the early days of apartheid, more than 3,000 people gathered in a dusty square to draw up the Freedom Charter, demanding a series of rights and proclaiming that South Africa “belongs to all who live in it, black and white”.
When apartheid ended in 1994 and Nelson Mandela was elected president by a landslide, the charter became the foundation for the country’s optimistic new constitution. So it made sense, 50 years on, to mark its anniversary and turn this square in the Kliptown area of Soweto into a place that represented the new South Africa.
There would be shops and offices, a museum, a monument to freedom. To top it off, a new hotel opened, marketed as “the first four-star luxury hotel offering African hospitality in the heart of Soweto”. A flame of freedom was lit, surrounded by the words of the charter.
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After the truth-shower 