The Key Patterns Emerge Bill Freund Vishnu Padayachee While it would be unreasonable to pillory the country beyond its just deserts, if one is forced to sum up the most striking features of contemporary South Africa, they would have to include the growing ascendance of a corporate-cum-state black elite with little effective challenge either from below or from the formerly powerful white minority, the relative modesty of social change, the disintegration of Left critiques in favour of a crude materialist and instrumental view of life, the pursuit of economic policies that will perpetuate existing inequalities and power relations even white deracialising and, most strikingly, the failure to find a modus operandi that wilt break the historic walls of privilege in this society of extreme contrasts to create a real new South African identity. A consequence may well be a process of long-term civic decay coupled with a vibrant if extremely inequitable civil society.
