Liberalism in the New South Africa

Since 1990, many liberals in South Africa have felt that the major political actors have taken up core liberal values. Such confidence is misplaced. Liberals will have to fight harder than ever before if they wish South Africa to become a liberal democracy. They are hampered in this by the ‘liberal slideway’ of the 1980s, when liberals and liberal institutions ignored injustices and undemocratic and illiberal acts by the left, for the sake of sentimentality and the greater goal of ending apartheid. Recently, however, there have been signs of a renaissance of core liberal values in South Africa; but much more is needed to entrench liberal principles in this country. Ref., sum.