Beyond affirmative action

During the years of apartheid in South Africa, cut off from the rest of the world by sanctions, we witnessed a remarkable rise of indigenous theatre, music, literature and other arts. As political change accelerated after February 1990, astute black business people, male and female, academics, politicians, entrepreneurs and community leaders have come to the fore. In many cases white South Africa was surprised to find that a black employee, assigned a menial job in an organisation, was a strong community or civic leader outside the workplace.