ABSTRACT
A magazine advert during the early years of the Mandela government in South Africa vividly illustrates the ambiguities and the scale of the transition under way at that time. Published in a business magazine, it featured African National Congress (ANC) militants who had used their experience in Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, to go into business as security guards for supermarkets and other companies. Long after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1992 and election as president in 1994, debate continues about the transformation process in government policies, services and communities. Early excitement about the peaceful transition symbolised by the security guards’ advert has been eclipsed by debates about enduring levels of poverty and inequality among black communities. Do current policies refl ect concessions to neo-liberalism and to marketisation which negate the radical impetus of the ANC-led government (Bond 2000)? Or has the maintenance of suffi cient stability to allow reforms to proceed, however unevenly, been a major achievement in itself (Ncholo 2000)?
