In recent decades, South Africa and the United States have faced many of the same challenges. From racial segregation to environmental sustainability, these two nations have overcome comparable issues with varying degrees of success. In some respects, South Africa has progressed much more quickly than the United States while in other areas, American methods proved more efficient. Through spending time in South Africa and comparing aspects of life in the country to their counterparts in American society, I have assessed the approaches taken by both countries’ governments when confronted with similar concerns.
In her book, New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa’s Renaissance, Charlayne Hunter-Gault examines the state of Africa and presents a relatively positive assessment of the continent’s condition. She covers issues from around the African continent but focuses much of the novel on analyzing South Africa. She discusses the country’s economic situation as well as the AIDS epidemic and affirmative action campaigns. Many of the issues she discusses in New News Out of Africa are still prevalent in South African and American society.
For example, during the three weeks I spent in South Africa, I noticed the county’s response to the AIDS epidemic. The recent South African response to the problem has been comparable to America’s present stance on the issue in many ways. The government and other organizations have sponsored awareness campaigns and free testing clinics in different areas throughout the country. However, past presidents, in particularly President Mbeki, were much less willing to publicly address the growing epidemic in the nation. This denial indirectly caused many of people sick with the disease to grow more ill and new cases to unnecessary emerge because HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment was not well understood. This lack of knowledge continues today particularly in the lower income communities where less information is readily available. It has also caused a stigma to be associated with the disease that would most likely not exist had the people been better informed. Because of the delayed response by the South African government, America reacted more appropriately to the crisis, at least prior to the current administration in South Africa.
One area where America could learn from South Africa is regarding affirmative action. In the United States, affirmative action plans have been less effective than they could be because of the political pressures that have limited their reach. In South Africa, affirmative actions programs have been much more influential in the education and commercial sector. Beginning with Nelson Mandela when he first became president in 1994 and continuing into today, South Africa has managed to find a good balance between promoting the empowerment those who had previously been oppressed without entirely removing those who had been leaders before the collapse of the Apartheid system from their positions of power. Learning from the South African process could be beneficial for the United States because affirmative action in America is not influential enough in the academic or the business setting.
The economic issues of the United States and South Africa could benefit from an exchange of ideas from both sides. Unemployment has been a problem in South Africa for years. Large percentages of the black people in the country have struggled to find work for decades. In the United States, decreasing the unemployment rate has been a top priority since the beginning of the most recent recession in 2008. Since America hasn’t dealt with lasting high percentages of unemployment since before the Second World War, South Africa could provide some guidance. South Africa has spent decades coming up with creative ways to create permanent jobs and these programs could translate into success in America with a little modification. On the other hand, South Africa could learn from the United States when it comes to economic expansion. While there are many flaws with the American economic system, it has stayed competitive and adapted to new global situations while remaining the largest economy in the world for decades. This means many mistakes have been made and then rectified that can be an excellent learning tool for other nations. They can examine the American business model and determine what worked and what didn’t in order to better their own country.
South Africa and the United States have many events in their histories that parallel one another. Because of this, the two nations are easily compared to each other in variety areas. This also means there is an opportunity for both countries to learn from the other about how to succeed in situations that arise by examining each other’s responses. Spending time in South Africa allowed me to gain a new perspective of the country I was traveling in as was reevaluate my own country’s choices and options from a new angle.