Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 16:37:16 +0200
From: "David Attwell" <Attwell-AT-nu.ac.za>
Subject: Re: An article by Francis Fukuyama


An interesting if slightly imperious intervention by Francis Fukuyama.  But I am struck by the fact that apart from a reference to Egypt as part of the Islamic world, he makes no reference to Africa.  And if one reads the article with South African eyes, one finds oneself asking why is it that when a society like South Africa undergoes a process of democratization, with massive risks and just as much idealism, and when the new government opts wholeheartedly for the free market, with as many risks involved (particularly when one considers that the South African liberation movement was always in sympathy with socialism), why is it, then, that this society has been so incapable of establishing itself securely within the world's financial system? 

The costs are evident even now, with the South African currency falling dramatically against the dollar since September 11th, thus further jeopardizing the country's ability to play a full part in the global economy, and thereby achieve the levels of growth required to redress the years of socio-economic deprivation caused by apartheid.  (True, the falling currency may advantage exports, but without substantial foreign investment, an export-based economy will not take off, and the current capacity for manufacturing is low.)  The fact is, South Africa was not regarded as an "emerging market" during apartheid;  it was a developed economy.  Now that apartheid has ended and we have democratized, suddenly we are "emerging."   The South African case proves once again, if proof were needed, that modernity and democracy are certainly not co-terminous. 

There is a cultural dimension to modernity, and Fukuyama is correct to point it out, but he should go on to ask in what ways this works to continue denying access to modernity's privileges even to those who seek it earnestly.  The two ingredients he stresses most, to be welcomed to the high table, are democracy and the free market, but we are learning with some agony that there are other requirements for admission.  Since South Africa has done everything possible to satisfy the neo-liberal agenda, it is clear that the chief factors inhibiting its re-entry into the global economy are ideological - the perceptions of the first world.  Fukuyama would need to be clearer on what he means by the cultural basis of modernity, and more sensitive to the exclusivity of this cultural basis, to be convincing.

David Attwell
Univesity of Natal, South Africa  
 



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