| Writer Zakes Mda
It was an end -- and yet also a beginning. Ten years
ago this month, white minority rule ended in South Africa.
Around 90 per cent of the population turned out to the
polls, over three days, to cast their ballots. And they
voted in the government of Nelson Mandela, who had been
freed from prison just four years earlier.
The end of apartheid brought the promise of freedom
for everyone in South Africa. It brought the promise
of economic opportunity. But not all of that promise
has been fulfilled. Over the next couple of weeks, As
It Happens will look back on the past 10 years in South
Africa, how the country has changed, and the challenges
that remain.
Zakes Mda has written extensively about life in contemporary
South Africa. He's been called the "most critically
acclaimed" writer of the post-apartheid literary
scene -- and his novels and plays deals directly with
issues like corruption, cultural identity, and development
in the new South Africa.
And he writes about the experience of exiles who returned
to South Africa after the fall of apartheid. He himself
spent 32 years in exile, in Lesotho and the United States,
before coming back to his homeland after the 1994 elections.
Right now Zakes Mda divides his time between South Africa
and the University of Ohio, where he teaches writing.
We reached him today in Athens, Ohio.
 Listen
to Mary Lou's interview with Zakes Mda
Originally aired on April 9, 2004.
Leader of the Independent Democrats Patricia de Lille.
South Africans of every race will head to the polls tomorrow,
to vote in a general election.
In April 1994, Nelson Mandela and the ANC swept to an
easy victory. Now, Mandela's successor, Thabo Mbeki, is
expected to win again. Try as they might, so far South
Africa's opposition parties haven't been able to convince
voters to try something new. Patricia de Lille is the
leader of one of those parties -- the Independent Democrats.
She formed the party last year, after a
long association with the Pan-Africanist Congress.
We reached Patricia de Lille in Cape Town. Listen
to Mary Lou's interview with Patricia de Lille
Interview originally aired on April 13, 2004.
Albie Sachs - judge on the Constitutional
Court of South Africa
Back in 1994, just after the country's first multi-racial
election, Archbishop
Desmond Tutu called South Africa "the Rainbow Nation
of God." Ten years later, South Africans have gone
to the polls again.
And with most of the votes counted -- the African National
Congress has won its third majority. It seems the country
is still very much attached to the ANC, and grateful for
its historic role in the ending of apartheid, 10 years
ago this month. One of the many activists who helped end
all-white rule, and build a new South Africa, was Albie
Sachs. He was a white, Jewish South African who was thrown
in jail during the 1960s, and was almost killed by a car
bomb planted by apartheid security agents in the 1980s.
In the period leading up to the 1994 elections, Sachs
helped negotiate a new South African constitution. And
after the vote, Nelson Mandela named him a judge on the
Constitutional Court of South Africa, a position he still
holds today.
Interview originally aired on April 15, 2004.
Listen
to Mary Lou's interview with Albie Sachs
Bulelani Ngcuka - The National Director of
Public Prosecutions
Back in 1994, Bulelani Ngcuka was just one of many black
South Africans who'd felt the sting of apartheid. He'd
been jailed for three years in the 1980s. And as a lawyer,
he spent much of his time defending political activists.
But since the fall of apartheid, he has gained a higher
profile, tackling an issue
that has dogged the new South Africa. Crime is still
one of the country's most serious problems. And it's
Bulelani Ngcuka's job to deal with it. In 1998, he was
appointed South Africa's first National Director of
Public Prosecutions -- a sort of "super attorney
general." He set up an elite criminal investigations
unit known as the Scorpions. And he has taken on some
very powerful ANC
leaders on charges of fraud and corruption -- at a significant
personal cost.
We reached Bulelani Ngcuka in Pretoria.
Listen
to Mary Lou's interview with Bulelani Ngcuka
Interview originally aired on April 26, 2004.
Related links:
Parliament of South Africa
10 Years of Freedom: South Africa 1994-2004 (site from
the South African government)
African
National Congress
Constitutional
Court of South Africa
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