UPDATE: The South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS) keeps bringing it. This is not the handwringing of The Daily Maverick passing for insight. Most of the op-eds on the site go over the heads of the people its intended. Others dismiss it as partisan or ideological because they can’t take the truth.  Recently they carried an op-ed by Jane Duncan on the rightwing political ideology of the Democratic Alliance. (I cut and pasted it here.) Now there’s piece about the bargain between the ANC government and whites. It is by Cape Town trade unionist and educator Leonard Gentle:

The ANC’s role in achieving [a] state of existence [where there is a great deal of policy convergence between the ANC and the DA] cannot be underestimated and it has every right to be upset that its credentials to preside over this order – rather than the DA for instance – is so under-recognised by the media and the predominantly white middle classes.

Indeed, how much the ANC has transformed itself in the service of solving the great South African conundrum is remarkably unappreciated.

How is it possible to deliver (largely) white entitlement, wealth and security in a sea of (mostly) black poverty, and still emerge with political credibility and stability?

What commentators in 1994 used to call the South African “miracle” – the peaceful settlement to a seemingly intractable problem – lives on today in the form of apartheid ghettos, 40% unemployment and the extreme wealth and success of corporate South Africa.

In response to this potential powder keg, the ANC has successfully managed to keep the institutions of the current order intact and functional.

How could it do so?

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