South Africa: the best hope for success on the continent.

• Author: Cohen, Roger
• Position: Apartheid - Column

A dozen years after the end of apartheid, South Africa is in the midst of the largest affirmative-action program in the world, an attempt to turn a white-dominated economy into one where the country's more than 35 million blacks have a big stake in owning and running things. The goats of the Black Empowerment program include transferring large amounts of stock and land to blacks by 2011. A parallel initiative aims to end white domination of upper corporate management. But as the U.S. has found with its own affirmative-action programs, progress tends to be fitful, and disagreement rife when societies try to shift economic power to correct past racial injustices. With...