The Drug Empire: Control of Drugs in Africa, a Global Perspective

Abstract

In May 1995 political and corporate leaders, including President Nelson Mandela, gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, to mark the centenary of the South African Breweries (SAB) and inaugurate a permanent exhibition on the history of alcohol production and consumption in southern Africa. 1 In his brief comments, Mandela reminded his audience that the SAB had emerged in conjunction with the development of the mining industry in the early part of the twentieth century and that the “early history of liquor… was bound up with the fearful exploitation of the country’s mineworkers.” He noted as well the history of discriminatory legislation that until the 1960s prevented black South Africans from “acquiring certain types of liquor,” and then he quickly moved on to celebrate the vibrant counterculture of South Africa’s illicit drinking establishments, or shebeens, and their role as centers for black expression in the 1940s and 1950s. Given the occasion, the president emphasized the role of the SAB as “amongst those leaders of business who embraced the future, even when it was less fashionable to do so”—referring to the corporation’s relatively early promotion of political change. 2 Unmentioned was the critical importance of alcohol production and sales in financing the structure of apartheid. Also ignored was the involvement of alcohol in many of South Africa’s most serious social and public health problems. 3