A Life
Ramphele, recently appointed vice chancellor of South Africa’s top-ranked University of Cape Town, is one of the most remarkable figures to emerge in a leadership role in the country’s post-apartheid transition. Young South Africans will find inspiration in this frank and fascinating autobiography for generations to come. In the meantime many of Ramphele’s contemporaries will also have an opportunity to profit from her acute observations on personal, political, and institutional transformation.
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South Africa's political miracle may not be followed by an economic one. Despite its claims of superiority to black governments to the north, the National Party pursued economic policies like most African countries'--import substitution, a wasteful public sector--leading to staggering black unemployment. Only slow private sector growth can lift the black majority out of poverty. But the National Unity government, while avoiding the worst populist temptations, must win citizens over to structural adjustment with gains in education, infrastructure investment, and affirmative action. Of those given little, much is asked.
Despite remarkable progress since the end of apartheid, South Africa today is badly wracked by AIDS and severe wealth inequalities, with a leadership still fixated on racial struggle. After more than a decade in power, the ANC has yet to reconcile its various ambitions: curbing racism, promoting political participation, and advancing the interests of all South Africans.
South Africa's negotiating parties continue to stave off violent extremists on both the right and left. More than a tussle over constitutional mechanics, the current negotiations are an effort to construct a political center that will hold. But agreeing on a spring election well before establishing the rules of the game has transformed the talks into a power struggle, and the eight-month election campaign into a gauntlet of uncertainty.

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