South Africa questions its very being. Yet a difficult change has reinforced its young democracy

Source: Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer
Author: Associated Press, Gerald Imray

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- South Africa is in a moment of deep soul-searching after an election that brought a jarring split from the African National Congress, the very party that gave it freedom and democracy 30 years ago.

In the days after rejecting what was once the country's most beloved organization, South Africans were dealing with essential questions over not just where they were going, but what they'd achieved in their young democracy since ending the racist apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994.