South Africa’s Reconciliation Project 25 years After Democracy

This chapter aims to highlight the importance of economic justice within any reconciliation model that seeks to bring sustainable peace, comparing the Franco-German approach to that of the South African approach. Twenty five years after the end of apartheid, poverty levels remain high and inequality is higher than at the time of the political transition. While laws no longer separate South Africans, class does. This contrasts strongly with the approach that characterized efforts to restore Franco-German relations in the immediate wake of the Second World War. While cultural exchange has been the more visible feature of the reconciliation between these countries in recent decades, the stability on which these relations rested for most of the post-war period is anchored within the economic foundations for shared prosperity that were laid in the immediate wake of the war.