A new racial divide?

South African President Jacob Zuma was recently scolded by a prominent former leader for turning his back on the spirit of the country’s non-racial, post-apartheid constitution. F.W. de Klerk, the last president of white-ruled South Africa, who helped formalize the end of apartheid with Nelson Mandela, accused Zuma and his ruling party, the African National Congress, of orchestrating a “massive and forced redistribution” in wealth and property from the country’s white minority to its black majority.

Much of his criticism centred around what he sees as Zuma’s failure to rein in Julius Malema, the controversial leader of the ANC’s youth chapter. Malema is known for insisting on his right to sing apartheid liberation songs, one of which includes lyrics that celebrate the shooting of white landowners. He also reportedly supports the nationalization of the country’s mines and a more aggressive redistribution of farmland from whites to blacks, policies he sees as important to attaining racial equality.