"It's a trick", he said, a couple of times. "Now it's getting to get tough. The rest of the world will think it's over. But the struggle won't be won this way". According to Dutch anti-apartheid activist, Conny Braam, in the book "Operation Vula", this was how Sipho (an Umkhonto we Sizwe operative; real name Zacharia Solly Shoke) reacted to the news that Nelson Mandela would be released, and that the ANC and other liberation forces were unbanned.

In hindsight, the trick was yet to follow, in the form of CODESA negotiations. From the onset, this was never a meeting of equals. The self-imposed master simply opened the door for a rebellious slave to come and claim freedom. Well, so the slave thought, and probably the rest of the world.

The outcomes of CODESA and the birth of a new South Africa represent the legitimisation and prolongation of social inequality in the name of freedom. The harsh realities of these facts are consistently revealing themselves in the current uproars in various black townships and settlements, which the dishonest media and its commentators portray as issues of service delivery. No, it is issues of inequality!

How do we justify a free market economy when approximately 80 - 90% of the population was economically inactive, and only a few had the academic knowledge and skills to make meaningful participation?

That this few happened to be high ranking politicians within the ANC, who have since benefited through BEE, AA etc, cannot be disputed. However, for the opposition and the media to claim that their benefits are a result of corruption and patronage is not entirely truthful. This phenomenon is in fact an inevitable result of the compromises the black majority agreed to during the negotiations.

Does it not make sense then, that those were previously advantaged have managed to increase their wealth substantially, leading to an unfortunate widening in income disparities? Yet, we are being led - by the media and its faithful - to believe that the sole problem in South Africa today is the ANC and its "corrupt" leaders.

If the ANC's alleged "corruption" and service delivery record is to be blamed for the present situation, how does one explain the fact that the protestors (residents, students etc.) in all cases have been (exclusively) the Black African majority? Does it mean that the white minority elite and others are in fact receiving excellent service from the same "corrupt" ANC?

One does not wish to sugar coat incidents of blatant corruption, patronage and maladministration - which probably peaked during the reign of Thabo Mbeki and his creation of black middle class liberals. But, it is entirely dishonest to suggest that morality and good governance can solely hold the key to prosperity when it is clear that the black majority came out second during the negotiations phase of the new South Africa.

It must be placed on record, today, that the majority are not poor because the ANC is "corrupt"! We are poor because the new South Africa was premised on the sustenance of inequality, with sheer hope that gradual transformation would bring about change. The National Peace Accord of 14 September 1991 states that "in order to achieve some measure of stability and to consolidate the peace process, a priority shall be the introduction of reconstruction actions aimed at addressing the worst effects of political violence.... This would achieve a measure of stability based on common effort thereby facilitating a base for broader socio-economic development". How then, should the general South African public understand the current assault on Affirmative Action policies? More specifically, is this attack in harmony with the undertakings of the text above?

Peace and inequality will never live side by side. And so does reconciliation and inequality, prosperity and inequality etc. The more attached we are to this illusion (or rather, trick) - like Professor Jonathan Jansen and Archbishop Desmond Tutu - the further we will remain from the reality of a prosperous South Africa.

I have resisted the temptation to respond to Max du Preez's criticism of my opinions, more so because he offered no counter argument or clarification of his contestations, particularly with regard to the sunset clauses. I challenge him to come out again and claim that I "do not know what I'm talking about" and that I'm an "agent provocateur". Otherwise I would be inclined to concur with David Bullard that "whities" like Max are betrayed by the belief that they (alone) "know what's good for the darkies".

However, I wish to reassure Max and his ilk that as a young black African South African, who was born in a world of oppression and segregation, and bred in another - the so-called new South Africa - which has since been dominated by illusions, deceptions and lies, I will continue to peddle against his preferred current - the retention of the status quo - until the reality and truth about my people's conditions becomes less subjective, and dealt with radically and aggressively.

Setumo Stone is a writer, social commentator and youth activist

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