Perhaps “both” is the correct answer?
The right-wing tendencies are easiest to explain. South Africa is obviously much wealthier than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, and of course Westerners play a larger role in its history and also in its present. You can put different glosses on that, but a variety of those paths lead to right-wing conclusions. The left-wing lessons are more novel to ponder, here are a few:
1. Following the removal of apartheid, a black middle class and upper class arose fairly quickly. That testifies to the importance of environment, opportunity, and circumstance. Of course most of the blacks in South Africa still lack adequate opportunity, most of all because of poor education and also sometimes because of poor location within the country, a legacy from segregated apartheid times. Overall, visiting the country causes one to upgrade the importance of opportunity, and to recognize that bad circumstances for talented people can continue for a very long time.
2. Post-apartheid economic performance has been disappointing, and economic inequalities have risen not declined. That suggests more capitalism can exacerbate economic inequality, even as political inequalities are eased.
3. Apartheid was enforced with a remarkably small number of police, per capita much less than most Western countries at the time. That might suggest a kind of Marxian and Foucauldian view that oppressive systems take on a force of their own, through norms and expectations, and are harder to dismantle than an analysis of simple coercion might indicate. The disappointments of post-apartheid South Africa hardly refute that suggestion, as those earlier norms and expectations are by no means entirely gone.
4. In the new, non-apartheid South Africa, sometimes class appears to be far more important than race per se. A certain number of blacks have been slotted into the upper classes, through their business successes, but the all-important role of class continues very much as before. Tthat point appears more Marxian than contemporary leftist, but Marx still is on the left.
5. You can see how much of South African history has been shaped by the roles of gold and diamonds in their economy. That again points in Marxian directions, more than today’s left. In South Africa, the means of production really mattered.
6. What is the ideal of color-blindedness supposed to mean there, after so many centuries of color mattering so much and in so many formal ways? They even still call one group “Coloureds.” Would it be so wrong to suspect SA color-blindedness advocates of somehow missing the point, and asking for something that is both illusory and unobtainable?
I am not sure how much I agree with all of these, only that they are ways I can imagine visiting South Africa and coming away more rather than less left-wing.
What else?
