Endorsing Intellectual Development in South Africa's Affirmative Action

Abstract

After the end of apartheid, South Africa was saddled with a lot of responsibility. The new political dispensation had to redress protracted racial injustice. In 2014, South Africa celebrated two decades of democracy and attempted racial integration after more than 300 years of white domination and racial injustice. Under the generic phrase of racial injustice are found its particular but equally sinister manifestations of political, economic and social inequalities. Over the last two decades, the post-apartheid South African government has made immense efforts to redress these inequalities. The time is ripe for South Africa to engage in a sober assessment of what has happened in the last twenty years of South Africa's post-apartheid reconstruction effort. Thus far, the article has argued that affirmative action is a well-intentioned policy, but is likely to miscarry if there is no long-term planning for empowering previously disadvantaged groups. It is noted that after decades of apartheid, the ANC government had the moral right to embark on this policy.