While it would be unreasonable to pillory the country beyond its just
deserts, if one is forced to sum up the most striking features of cont
emporary South Africa, they would have to include the growing ascendan
ce of a corporate-cum-state black elite with little effective challeng
e either from below or from the formerly powerful white minority, the
relative modesty of social change, the disintegration of Left critique
s in favour of a crude materialist and instrumental view of life, the
pursuit of economic policies that will perpetuate existing inequalitie
s and power relations even while deracialising and, most strikingly, t
he failure to find a modus operandi that will break the historic walls
of privilege in this society of extreme contrasts to create a real ne
w South African identity. A consequence may well be a process of long-
term civic decay coupled with a vibrant if extremely inequitable civil
society.